Sustainability,institutionalization and the duality of structure: Contradiction and unintended consequences in the political context of an Australian water business

This paper presents the results of a longitudinal case study of an Australian public sector water business in order to examine how, and to what extent, did the institutionalization and deinstitutionalization of internal sustainable and environmental management routines, practices and procedures occur over the period 2001 to the start of 2011. It adopts the Dillard et al. framework of institutionalization which incorporates institutional theory, Weber's axes of tension and structuration theory. In 2001, the criteria for costing and financial reporting practices and the criteria for environmental regulation and management practices were competing at the economic and political economic level, the organizational field level and the organizational level. An unintended consequence of this was no accounting for environmental costs. Environmental management criteria and practices were characterized by compliance with EPA regulatory requirements whilst financial management and costing criteria and practices were characterized by New Public Management criteria. Subsequent to 2001, an unintended consequence of the establishment of separate legislative and regulatory bodies has been the institutionalization of competing legitimating criteria with regard to water conservation, externalities, environmental regulation and financial reporting and costing. Within this context, the organizational field and the organizational level of the individual water business has been characterized by the development of new organizational practices and routines with regard to water conservation as well as unintended consequences and decoupling. At all three levels, the ontological security of agents has been evident in the development of new criteria and practices for sustainable development, whilst the routine procedures of the respective management systems were a source of ontological security to the relevant agents.     

Camouflage play: Making moral claims in managed investments

The paper claims theoretical, empirical and normative contributions to the fledgling research on social accountabilities in financial services. Managers of managed (mutual) funds with public social mandates are obligated to pursue clients’ economic interests and exercise claimed moral considerations. Theoreticians working in post-modern accounting are invited to examine alignment difficulties. Guidance is offered in the form of Foucault's resigned response to Nietzsche's moral cynicism. Theoretical antagonisms are empirically illustrated in interviews with managers of social investment portfolios, comparisons of the portfolios of selected Australian social funds with conventional counterparts, and comparisons of selected investment decisions with claimed investment criteria in a sample of Australian social funds. Research has suggested that a recognisably distinct management bias in Australian socially screened investment products may have diffused into the investment styles adopted by managers of conventional unscreened products. The paper suggests that performance convergence might also be attributable to similar stock holdings. The requirement to sustain competitive economic performance renders the use of moral considerations in managed funds as camouflage play. A number of investment policy innovations are suggested that might serve to increase net fund inflows and so bring closer the objective of social investment to transform capital.     

Progress on XBRL from an Australian perspective

This study examines the progress of XBRL (extensible Business Reporting Language) in the Australian context. XBRL has the potential to be the digital language for data transfer and integration of business systems. The paper describes the nature of XBRL and notes that the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has mandated its use. We review the implications of XBRL, such as audit assurance issues, comparability and real-time reporting, and conclude that XBRL has the potential to enhance financial accounting reporting. What is needed is the completion of the enabling technology, simplification and acceptance.     

Bank selection and share of wallet among SMEs: Apparent differences between Hong Kong and Australia

This paper examines the factors that small- to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Hong Kong consider when selecting a banking partner, and the extent to which they use different banks (share of wallet). The findings are contrasted with those from another study of Australian business. The results show that firms in both countries view a bank's willingness to accommodate their banking and credit needs as being important. Hong Kong firms appear to give this factor higher priority when making their bank selection, while Australian firms appear to place higher emphasis on long-term relationships. Australian firms appear to have a more stable relationship with their primary bank as compared to the firms in Hong Kong where switching behaviours are found to be common. While ‘guanxi’ is often seen as critical in maintaining a business relationship in the Asian context, this study suggests it has limited impact for SMEs in Hong Kong in increasing share of wallet. The findings offer marketing implications for banks that are operating, or are planning to operate, business banking in both places.     

The Modigliani and Miller Propositions: The History of a Failed Foundation for Corporate Finance?

The Modigliani and Miller (MM) propositions provide a foundation for corporate finance theory. Nevertheless, this paper argues that their adoption has led to a disengagement of such theory from the humanity of business, as well as, more broadly, from concepts of corporate strategic management. As a result, the context within which textbooks allow corporate investment and financial decisions to take place is severely distorted from reality. The paper argues that we require the context of behavioural and strategic corporate management if we are to accommodate the reality of business, the behaviour of formalised groups, and an ethical dimension to business.     

Fair Value Exposure,Changes in Fair Value and Audit Fees: Evidence from the Australian Real Estate Industry

This paper investigates the relationship between audit fees and both fair value exposure and changes in fair value of investment properties. The study is motivated by the limited and inconclusive evidence on the effect on audit fees of full fair value reporting for illiquid assets. Using hand‐collected data from the Australian real estate industry, we find a negative (positive) association between audit fees and fair value exposure (changes in fair value of investment properties). Our findings also indicate that the use of unobservable inputs in fair value estimates for investment properties does not significantly increase audit risk and audit fees. Further, we find that audit fees are higher for firms with fair values of investment – properties estimated by external and mixed valuers – compared to firms with fair values estimated by directors alone. This study enriches the audit fee literature by documenting auditors’ pricing decisions in an area that involves significant estimation and valuation risks.     

A pilot study of venture capital investment appraisal in Australia

Illiquidity, volatile returns and lack of information are sources of the high risk that characterise the investments made by venture capitalists (VCs). Despite the importance of such investments in the contemporary business and technological environment, and the associated risk-related difficulties, little Australian research has been conducted into the decision-making processes of VCs. This study investigates both the investment process and some of the strategies used by VCs for reducing selected risks. The specific source of risk examined is information asymmetry, which is caused by lack of information on the part of the VCs, and which can lead to the added risks of adverse selection and moral hazard. Four Australian VC firms were surveyed using a comprehensive open-ended questionnaire. A manual content analysis was employed to analyse the questionnaire responses. Consistent with prior research, the Australian VCs sampled are found to employ Berger and Udell' three steps of investment: selection, contracting and monitoring. Furthermore, the semi-formal selection step of the investment process is found to consist of three distinct stages: deal sourcing, screening and evaluation. A number of techniques are used to minimise the risks of information asymmetry during the screening and evaluation stages, as well as during the later steps of contracting and monitorin.     

Capital and credit market integration and real economic contagion during the global financial crisis

This study investigates the role of financial integration in the spread of global financial crisis. In particular, this study shows how the effect of the crisis on real business cycle co-movement varied for capital and credit market integration, using a sample of 58 countries in 2001–2013. During the global financial crisis, the United States – the epicenter of the crisis – experienced a severe downturn in the real economy, and other countries followed suit. We find that during the global financial crisis, the business cycle co-movements between the United States and the rest of the world were stronger when the level of capital market integration between them was higher. However, the co-movements were weaker when the level of credit market integration was higher. These findings are robust even when including investment channels, local fundamental factors, endogenous policy responses across countries, and alternative measures for financial integration and business cycle co-movements.     

The joint influence of financial risk perception and risk tolerance on individual investment decision‐making

The increasing complexity of the investment environment has accelerated the need for better quality financial advice services. Central to quality advice is advisers’ accurate assessment of their clients’ risk characteristics. Typically a client's risk characteristic is assessed by measuring the client's risk tolerance but not risk perception. To assess whether this practice fails to fully capture the client's risk profile, we explore both risk tolerance and risk perception in the investment decision‐making context. Using Australian online survey data of financial adviser clients (n = 364), our results reveal that risk tolerance influences risky‐asset allocation directly and indirectly through risk perception. These results thus clarify the joint role of both risk constructs in the investment making decision and highlight the importance of assessing both in the provision of client financial advice services. Importantly, our results validate a new comprehensive risk perception measure applicable in the financial advice context.     

Asset–liability modelling and pension schemes: the application of robust optimization to USS

This paper uses a novel numerical optimization technique – robust optimization – that is well suited to solving the asset–liability management (ALM) problem for pension schemes. It requires the estimation of fewer stochastic parameters, reduces estimation risk and adopts a prudent approach to asset allocation. This study is the first to apply it to a real-world pension scheme, and the first ALM model of a pension scheme to maximize the Sharpe ratio. We disaggregate pension liabilities into three components – active members, deferred members and pensioners, and transform the optimal asset allocation into the scheme's projected contribution rate. The robust optimization model is extended to include liabilities and used to derive optimal investment policies for the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), benchmarked against the Sharpe and Tint, Bayes–Stein and Black–Litterman models as well as the actual USS investment decisions. Over a 144-month out-of-sample period, robust optimization is superior to the four benchmarks across 20 performance criteria and has a remarkably stable asset allocation – essentially fix-mix. These conclusions are supported by six robustness checks.     

Living IT infrastructures — An ontology-based approach to aligning IT infrastructure capacity and business needs

Changes in organizational processes often interact with changes in the IT infrastructure. Accounting for the structural and economic consequences of changes to the modern IT infrastructure remains a challenge, as their complexity can affect more than one business process, and the need to share a common understanding between the IT and the business management challenges current IT governance practices. An integrative perspective of business processes and IT resources would help meet these challenges, but despite some progress such a perspective remains to be developed. This paper proposes a domain ontology – an Ontology for Linking Processes and IT infrastructure (OLPIT) – to model the relationship between IT resources and business processes for the purpose of measuring the business value of IT. The ontology was developed and evaluated in the context of a design research project conducted in the Hilti Corporation, an international manufacturing company, with the aim of defining how IT impacts the business and calculating the cost of IT services used.     

Tangibility and investment irreversibility in asset pricing

Zhang (2005) and Cooper (2006) provide a theoretical risk‐based explanation for the value premium by suggesting a nexus between firms’ book‐to‐market ratio and investment irreversibility. They argue that unproductive physical capacity is costly in contracting conditions but provides growth opportunities during economic expansions, resulting in covariant risk between firms’ investment in tangible assets and market‐wide returns. This article uses the Australian accounting environment to empirically test this theory – a test that is not possible using US data. Consistent with the theoretical argument, tangibility is priced in equity returns, and augmenting the Fama and French three‐factor model with a tangibility factor increases model explanatory power.     

Accounting For Conversion Of Convertibles

Accounting policy-makers continue to confront problems that arise from ambiguities in the value of some types of transaction. For example, AAS21 was put in place partially to ensure that assets of a business acquired are accounted for at fair market value, rather than at the values recorded in the books of the acquired business. One related question that has not been clarified is the value to be attributed to shares issued as a result of convertible note-holders exercising conversion options. Convertible notes and convertible preference shares feature regularly in the capital structures of Australian firms. This paper discusses the economic nature of the conversion option, outlines alternative ways of accounting for conversion in the context of tax and other economic implications, and reports a brief survey of current practice.     

税收政策对企业投资的影响

投资对于经济周期波动和经济增长至关重要。百年不遇的金融危机使得许多国家实体经济受到影响,各国都相继出台了一系列刺激经济的方案,而其中涉及大量促进投资的税收政策。本文简要分析了世界主要国家采取的促进投资的税收政策,并在此基础上探讨了税收政策对企业投资的影响。     

Disequilibrium Structures and Financing Decisions in the Firm

The business firm confronts interdependent decision problems in production, investment, and finance. Emphasis is here placed on the firm's decision criteria in disequilibrium situations or at infra-optimum structural planning and decision points. The operative cost of capital is shown to be 'the full marginal cost of relaxing the money capital availability constraint'. The popular 'weighted average cost of capital' is shown to be an 'equilibrium datum' which has operative significance only at optimum structural positions. It does not offer adequate guidance to financing and investment decisions in disequilibrium situations.     

Investment manager characteristics, strategy, top management changes and fund performance

The present study examines the performance of Australian investment management organisations with direct reference to their specific characteristics and strategies employed. Using a unique information source, performance is evaluated for actively managed institutional balanced funds, Australian share funds and Australian bond funds. For balanced mandates, performance is evaluated with respect to the investment strategy adopted, the experience and qualifications held by investment professionals, and the tenure of the key investment professionals. The present study examines the performance of top management and the impact on returns when turnover arises. The research documents that a significant number of active Australian equity managers earned superior risk-adjusted returns in the period, however, active managers perform in line with market indices for balanced funds and Australian bond funds. A number of manager characteristics are also found to predict risk-adjusted returns, systematic risk and investment expenses for balanced funds.     

The real impact of stock market mispricing — Evidence from Australia

Using a large panel of Australian firms, we investigate if mispricing in the stock market has an impact on firm-level investment. A significantly positive relation is documented between investment and the proxies for mispricing, suggesting that overpriced (underpriced) firms tend to overinvest (underinvest). Furthermore, we find that equity-dependent firms display a more pronounced sensitivity of investment to stock misvaluation than do nonequity-dependent firms. Taken together, our findings evidence that mispricing in Australian capital markets may have significant influence on the real economy, and the influence works though an equity-financing channel.     

金融结构如何影响了外资进入方式选择？

随着全球价值链进入深度重构的关键时期,金融结构对于一国外资进入方式选择的重要性日益凸显,本文采用65个国家2003—2017年跨国面板数据,从理论和实证两个层面系统探讨了金融结构与一国外资进入方式选择之间的关系。研究表明:(1)无论是发达国家还是发展中国家东道国,市场主导型金融结构均有助于外资以跨国并购方式进入东道国,但发达国家正向促进作用显著大于发展中国家,克服了内生性和经济波动的影响后,结论依旧稳健。(2)进一步机制检验结果发现,技术创新引致和国家风险管控是金融结构影响外资进入方式选择的重要渠道。其中,金融结构的国家风险渠道机制,主要通过降低经济金融风险来实现。(3)此外,引入国家营商环境指数发现,营商环境的改善不仅对外资以跨国并购方式进入具有直接促进作用,而且能间接调节金融市场对外资进入结构优化的提升作用。本文研究为我国深化金融供给侧结构性改革,改善营商环境,进而实现引资结构优化提供了政策启示。     

A foresight strategy for future generations

This paper briefly considers three key areas where forward thinking is particularly vital: education, business and government. Drawing mainly upon examples from the Australian context, it suggests a broad rationale for establishing a ‘national foresight strategy’. The latter is supported by a more general model for developing social foresight. A further stimulus to forward thinking and future vision is to consider what advice future generations might offer us if they had the chance.     

A principled justification for business rescue laws: A comparative perspective (part I)

In 1992 the Federal Government of Australia introduced the voluntary procedure administration as an option for a company in financial difficulties. In the same year the Canadian Parliament introduced legislation with the same objective. The precursor to both Australian and Canadian initiatives is the American Chapter 11 procedure. However there are some significant differences between the approaches adopted. These differences are outlined as a precursor to an analysis of selected policies behind business rescue laws. By considering the aim of the legislation and objective criteria against which the legislation could be assessed the authors conclude that the Australian procedure is preferable to both its Canadian and American counterparts. Part II of this article will appear in the next issue of IIR.