Product innovation, budgetary control, and the financial performance of firms

Organizations are increasingly calling for greater budgetary oversight of the product innovation process. A major focus of their concern is the costs associated with product innovation together with their need to enhance their financial performance through these endeavours. However, the literature has raised a number of issues arising from such budgetary proposals, suggesting that the creativity of those involved in product innovation should not be constrained by cost concerns, that the use of management control systems is incompatible with product innovation, and that budgets may stifle innovation. It is argued in this paper that the extent to which product innovation has a positive impact on the financial performance of firms is dependent on the manner in which budgets are used in organizations. If budgets are used predominantly as a planning mechanism, then such budget planning facilitates product innovation resulting in enhanced performance. In contrast, if budgets are used primarily as a control mechanism, then it is unlikely that product innovation will contribute to financial performance. The results of the study are consistent with these expectations. This paper makes a contribution to the literature by providing empirical evidence of the impact of budgets in the context of product innovation.     

Innovation budget pressure,quality of IS information,and departmental performance

Evidence suggests that innovation budgets need to be carefully managed due to increasingly demanding markets, changes in technology and greater international competition. Companies often express concern over the magnitude of their innovation costs, potentially inhibiting them from investing in new product development. This has given rise to concern for innovation budget pressure, which focuses on constraining costs to budgeted levels even if further expenditure might facilitate enhancements in terms of the quality and speed of the innovation process. However, suggestions have been made that decision systems in these settings could benefit in terms of performance outcomes from improvements in information system (IS) information quality. The literature suggests that the impact of quality of IS information on departmental performance is dependent on whether there is an emphasis on innovation budget pressure. The results of this study show that when innovation budget pressure is high, quality of IS information enhances performance. In contrast, when the emphasis on innovation budget pressure is low, quality of IS information does not promote performance.     

Retail minority shareholders and corporate reputation as determinant of dividend policy in Australia

This paper investigates the influence of retail minority shareholders in the determination of corporate dividend policies of Australian companies. While retail investors are typically also minority shareholders and therefore perceived in academic literature to have limited influence on corporate dividend decisions, casual empiricism suggests the contrary. We hypothesise that corporate reputation serves as a device aligning managers' incentives with retail minority shareholder interests, and that the propensity to manage for corporate reputation is positively related to the degree of retail shareholder base. We find empirical evidence of managers of Australian companies catering to the retail investors' preference for dividends when setting dividend policy, even when they are minority shareholders, so long as the proportion of these retail shareholders relative to the total shareholder base is high. Our results are robust when controlled for the factors of size, profitability, financial leverage, signalling, agency costs and franking credits.     

R&D的重要性及其信息披露方式的改进

本文以在上海证交所上市的公司为研究对象 ,以 1995 - 1999年作为研究考察区间 ,考察了我国上市公司R&D信息披露现状及R&D信息披露对我国上市公司会计信息有用性的影响。研究结果表明 ,企业对R&D信息的不当披露是导致我国上市公司会计信息有用性逐年下降的重要因素之一。在借鉴国外对R&D信息披露规范的基础上 ,我们提出了改进我国上市公司R&D信息披露的建议     

行业特征、金融加速与企业债务融资

在政策择优供给、产业转型升级的关键阶段,考察特定行业的企业债务融资及其宏观、微观层面的影响因素,对于资金、资源的行业优化配置意义重大。本文以我国2003~2017年沪深A股上市公司为样本,检验企业受到货币政策冲击时行业特征对其银行债务获取的影响。研究发现,对于行业劳动力越密集、行业竞争越激烈的企业,货币政策紧缩对于债务融资的不利影响会被显著削弱。进一步研究发现,行业劳动要素在货币政策紧缩时引起的企业债务融资效应随着行业资本密集度的下降而增强;对于产出是耐用品的行业,货币政策的企业债务融资效应与产品市场竞争较弱的行业一致。本文是对货币政策传导机制下金融加速分析的拓展,补充了货币政策行业债务融资效应的经验证据。     

Who needs budgets?

Budgeting, as most corporations practice it, should be abolished. That may sound radical, but doing so would further companies' long-running efforts to transform themselves into developed networks that can nimbly adjust to market conditions. Most other building blocks are in place, but companies continue to restrict themselves by relying on inflexible budget processes and the command-and-control culture that budgeting entails. A number of companies have rejected the foregone conclusions embedded in budgets, and they've given up the self-interested wrangling over what the data indicate. In the absence of budgets, alternative goals and measures--some financial, such as cost-to-income ratios, and some nonfinancial, such as time to market-move to the foreground. Companies that have rejected budgets require employees to measure themselves against the performance of competitors and against internal peer groups. Because employees don't know whether they've succeeded until they can look back on the results of a given period, they must use every ounce of energy to ensure that they beat the competition. A key feature of many companies that have rejected budgets is the use of rolling forecasts, which are created every few months and typically cover five to eight quarters. Because the forecasts are regularly revised, they allow companies to continuously adapt to market conditions. The forecasting practices of two such companies, both based in Sweden, are examined in detail: the bank Svenska Handelsbanken and the wholesaler Ahlsell. Though the first companies to reject budgets were located in Northern Europe, organizations that have gone beyond budgeting can be found in a range of countries and industries. Their practices allow them to unleash the power of today's management tools and realize the potential of a fully decentralized organization.     

Debt enforcement,financial leverage,and product failures: Evidence from China and the United States

Building on capital structure and product market interactions, and the role of debt enforcement in leveraged firms' investments, we examine whether cross-country debt enforcement can produce different associations between financial leverage and product failures. Results show that different debt enforcement systems can generate opposite leverage effects. In countries with weak/nearly ineffective debt enforcement, financial leverage shows an incentive investment effect due to low default costs, and thus highly leveraged firms tend to invest more and are less likely to have product failures. Conversely, in countries with strict/effective debt enforcement, distressed companies tend to have an underinvestment effect and more product failures.     

企业研发迁移机制及中国研发集聚研究

首先从产品市场、知识创新等级、既有区位因素和研发要素投入四个维度来认识影响企业研发迁移的推力、拉力因素,进而在宏观层面研究近年中国企业研发迁移表现出的特征,结果表明:向东部集中的趋势不断加强;经费投入的集聚程度显著高于人员投入;主导省市在人员方面的优势低于资金优势.     

The Determinants of Financial Health of Asian Insurance Companies

Previous studies of financial health of insurance companies are mainly focused on insurers operating in the United States and developed economies. This article focuses on the solvency of general (property‐liability) and life insurance companies in Asia using firm data and macro data separately. It uses different classification methods to classify the financial status of both general and life insurance companies. With the exception of Japan, failures of insurers in Singapore, Malaysia, and Taiwan are nonexistent. We find that, first, the factors that significantly affect general insurers' financial health in Asian economies are firm size, investment performance, liquidity ratio, surplus growth, combined ratio, and operating margin. Second, the factors that significantly affect life insurers' financial health are firm size, change in asset mix, investment performance, and change in product mix, but the last three factors are more applicable to Japan. Third, the financial health of insurance companies in Singapore seems to be significantly weakened by the Asian Financial Crisis. As the insurance industry in different Asian economies is at different stages of development, they require different regulatory guidelines.     

上市公司数量与非上市公司创新

本文研究了上市公司数量增加对非上市公司创新的影响。研究发现,上市公司数量增加能够促进相关非上市公司创新。机制分析发现,上市公司数量对非上市公司创新的促进作用在融资约束程度相对严重的非上市公司中更明显,上市公司创新活动、分析师关注和高质量审计能够强化上述促进作用,表明上市公司能通过缓解融资约束,增加知识传播和信息披露,进而促进非上市公司创新。进一步研究发现,更多的地区劳动力供给、较高的地区市场化程度和金融市场化程度也能够强化上市公司数量增加对非上市公司创新的促进作用。本文深化了股票市场发展溢出效应方面的研究。     

The UK equity release market: Views from the regulatory authorities,product providers and advisors

This study investigates the factors constraining the development of the UK equity release market. The results of a thematic review of interviews with industry stakeholders (product providers, advice providers and regulators) suggest that the attractiveness of the equity market for insurance companies (the main funders of the market), has diminished following a decline in annuity business and complications around the capital maturity matching requirements under Solvency II. Product costs (interest charges, and the cost of financial advice) are high. Trust in the market has improved, but remains fragile. Increased entry into the market by recognised brand names, (such as the traditional mortgage providers) would increase competition, reduce costs and promote trust. The risk of reputational damage limits the appeal of the market to new entrants. The no negative equity guarantee, a cost in terms of lower than otherwise loan-to-value ratios, promotes demand by way of the protection it affords to customers and their beneficiaries. Equity release is unsuitable for funding long-term care and policymakers advocating it as such damage the market.     

金融发展、企业创新与经济增长

本文通过在一般均衡模型中引入银行部门,考察了金融发展对企业创新和经济增长的影响。基于模型的理论分析表明,在均衡状态下,金融发展可以提高经济中储蓄向投资转化的效率、缓解信息不对称,有效降低了研发部门的外部融资成本,从而促进企业增加研发投入,并推动经济实现更高速的增长。在此基础上,本文以中国31个省份2008—2016年的面板数据对上述结论进行了实证检验,相关结果表明:(1)金融发展对企业研发投入具有显著的促进效应;(2)在工业化程度、外商投资水平较高的地区以及政府支出水平较低、人才资源相对短缺的地区,金融发展的促进作用更加明显;(3)企业研发创新可以有效推动经济增长,且在金融支持实体经济中发挥了重要的中介作用。本文的理论和实证分析揭示了“金融发展—企业创新—经济增长”的内生性传导机理及其在中国的体现,从而为金融支持创新型经济增长的改革逻辑奠定了初步的理论和经验基础。     

A Corporate View of Research Needs in Corporate Finance

This paper reports the results of a survey of UK chief financial officers (CFOs) drawn from 72 large, 34 medium and 37 small companies on potentially important research topics in corporate finance. The paper suggests that there are gaps between extant academic research and the CFOs ‘needs for such research. The topics that the 143 CFOs would like to see on the research agenda include: the influence of tax laws on financial decision-making; investor reactions to companies concentrating on short-term gains to the almost total neglect of long-term benefits; effects of changes to the law on pension funds; cash flow planning and forecasting; regulators’ awareness of financial issues; and methods for determining the riskiness of a project. Of least importance to the CFOs are research on the significance of bankruptcy costs, influence of the City on corporate financial operations and impact of seasons on operational decisions. The degree of importance attributed to research topics seems to vary with firm size. In general, the findings of this study are similar to those from a survey of financial managers in the US.     

Corporate finance,industrial organization,and organizational economics

In the last 35 years, research at the intersection of corporate finance, industrial organization, and organizational economics has grown substantially. This paper reviews work that combines elements from these fields of finance and economics, with an emphasis on recent developments. I discuss how product market competition, customer-supplier relations, firms’ organizational form, and ownership structures interact with firms’ financial policies. I also overview new developments in the literature from a special issue of the Journal of Corporate Finance.     

CEO's managerial power,board committee memberships and idiosyncratic volatility

Based on Upper Echelons Theory and Agency Theory, we explore the effect of CEOs' power through their tenure, board committee membership and other corporate governance factors on idiosyncratic volatility. Our study addresses the gap in the literature to find the direct link between the source of corporate governance practices and idiosyncratic volatility in stock price. We use a generalised method of moments in a panel analysis of Australian firms for 2004–2013 and a robust model that controls for firm size, firm age, trading volume, market-to-book ratio, dividend payout, the global financial crisis, product market competition and financial intermediaries. We find that CEOs who have stronger managerial power are associated with lower idiosyncratic volatility. This determining factor remains significant with the inclusion of widely-researched firm characteristics and external factors on idiosyncratic volatility in our robust analysis.     

Cost accounting comes to service industries

With rising prices and increased competition, service companies are finding that knowing the costs of their products and services is vital to their health, if not to their existence. However, many of these companies have found their cost accounting systems less than satisfactory. This author points out that many service companies use traditional product cost techniques, which are inappropriate for them. He explains why these techniques fail and describes a system of unique costs that should be successful.     

产品与技术双重竞争下企业创新投资决策的实证研究

基于当前市场竞争新特征与新形式,通过构建技术竞争指标,将市场竞争的视角由单一的产品层面拓展到产品、技术双重角度,探讨这两类竞争对我国企业R&D投资的影响。结果表明：产品竞争、技术竞争对企业R&D投资都有正向促进作用,且控制产品竞争后,技术竞争的作用依然显著。进一步研究发现：与一般企业相比,高科技企业中产品竞争对R&D投资的促进作用会减弱,但技术竞争对R&D投资的促进作用会加强。同时,面临融资约束的企业由于资金不足,产品竞争、技术竞争对R&D投资的促进作用均会减弱。     

Product life cycle cost analysis: the impact of customer profiling, competitive advantage, and quality of IS information

Life cycle cost analysis is considered in the literature to be of increasing importance to firms as international competition intensifies and technological change continues. The literature increasingly emphasizes that rapid technological change and shortened life cycles have made product life cycle cost analysis critical to organizations. Although significant benefits are attributed to life cycle cost analysis, there is little evidence regarding the extent of its application in organizational settings. Moreover, there is scant systematic evidence available with respect to the array of factors that may influence its use. However, a review of the literature suggests that customer profiling, competitive advantage, and quality of information system information are three factors potentially impacting the extent to which life cycle cost analysis is used in firms. The results of the study illustrate first, the degree to which product life cycle cost analysis is used across a random sample of organizations. Second, that all three independent variables play a positive role in affecting the extent to which product life cycle costing is used in firms.     

Adoption and Benefits of Management Accounting Systems: Evidence from Finland and Australia

This study provides empirical evidence on management accounting practices in Finnish manufacturing companies. It identifies the adoption of the management accounting practices, received benefits from the adoption and intentions to emphasize the practices in the future. The results indicate that financial measures like product profitability analysis and budgeting for controlling costs is likely to be important in the future, but it is also clear that greater emphasis will be placed on newer practices like customer satisfaction surveys and employee attitudes. The results of the management accounting practices are compared to the findings of a similar study based on Australian data.