A Review of: “ECONOMIC DECISION MODELS FOR ENGINEERS AND MANAGERS” By James L. Riggs McGraw-Hill Book Company 1968 pp.xvi,401 $11.50

This study breaks down the use of capital budgeting procedures between industries. While it is easy to state that the use of capital budgeting analysis has become more sophisticated over the decades, the question remains as to whether different industries have followed the same pattern. Three hundred two Fortune 1,000 companies responded to a survey organized along industry lines. Chi-square independence of classification tests indicated that a null hypothesis of no significant relationship between industry classification and capital budgeting procedures could be rejected in a number of decision-making areas including goal setting, rates of return, and portfolio considerations. Just as industry patterns affect financing decisions (debt vs. equity), they also affect capital budgeting decisions, and this study emphasizes that point.     

Advertising budgeting practices of industrial advertisers

This article reports the findings of a recent large-scale survey of British industrial advertiser budgeting practices. The article lends support to recent research suggestions from the United States that industrial advertisers have begun to move away from rules of thumb budgeting towards more sophisticated techniques. The trend to increasing sophistication is most marked amongst large industrial advertisers.     

Capital budgeting under uncertainty: An extended goal programming approach

Mathematical programming techniques have long been recognized as the most suitable approach to the complex problem of capital budgeting in corporations. This is because contrary to conventional single-project appraisal techniques such as the net present value method, financial planners do not normally engage in project-by-project analysis to determine the projects that would be included in capital budgets. In addition, the existing chance-constrained (both single and multiple objectives) models developed to deal with the problem of uncertainty in capital budgeting are grossly defective, since they, indeed, address the problem of risk, rather than uncertainty. This paper presents an extended goal programming methodology to address the problem of capital budgeting under uncertainty to overcome the defects of chance-constrained capital budgeting models. In particular, since financial planners frequently deal with the complex problem of capital budgeting by aggregating large numbers of small investment proposals into families of large projects, the paper presents necessary and sufficient conditions for the acceptance of a set of investment projects by a business enterprise. The results indicate that under uncertainty, firms faced with capital rationing are less economically efficient than others that are not so faced. Also, the results show that optimal allocation policy under uncertainty requires the actual discount rate to be greater than the market cost of capital, a finding which is consistent with corporate finance practice.     

增长机会与企业资本结构关系实证研究

通过对增长机会的代理变量进行筛选和分析,选择资产的市场价格／账面价格作为度量企业增长机会的代替变量,并利用证券市场数据,应用Pesrson相关系数和Spearman秩相关系数,实证分析我国上市公司的增长机会与资本结构关系。经过实证表明,我国上市公司负债比率与资产的市场价格／账面价格高度负相关,不论是什么行业的企业（金融行业出外）,不论企业处于发展阶段的何种时期,企业的资本结构与增长机会高度负相关。     

基于DEA交叉评价的中国三线城市新型城镇化水平研究

本文在深入分析城镇化内涵的基础上,构建了量质并举的新型城镇化水平评价指标体系,创造性地运用DEA交叉评价模型解决指标体系赋权问题,并以我国31个三线城市为例展开实证研究,通过相关分析探寻影响新型城镇化水平的各种因素。研究发现我国城镇化的量、质关系远未协调,且有明显的地域差异,城镇化质量的东、中、西递减格局明显;推进落后地区的城镇化更有利于扩大消费需求,但以城镇化带动城乡差距缩小仍是长期过程。     

A Review of: INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY MICROECONOMICS by Vivian Charles Walsh

The paper examines changes in selected capital budgeting practices over eleven years in 100 large corporations and whether these changes improve Investment decision-making. Significant increases in the use of sophisticated techniques were found, together with a significant positive association between the application of these practices and managers' assessments of capital budgeting effectiveness. Reasons for these findings are discussed.     

Strategic planning in a turbulent environment: evidence from the oil majors

The long‐running debate between the ‘rational design’ and ‘emergent process’ schools of strategy formation has involved caricatures of firms' strategic planning processes, but little empirical evidence of whether and how companies plan. Despite the presumption that environmental turbulence renders conventional strategic planning all but impossible, the evidence from the corporate sector suggests that reports of the demise of strategic planning are greatly exaggerated. The goal of this paper is to fill this empirical gap by describing the characteristics of the strategic planning systems of multinational, multibusiness companies faced with volatile, unpredictable business environments. In‐depth case studies of the planning systems of eight of the world's largest oil companies identified fundamental changes in the nature and role of strategic planning since the end of the 1970s. The findings point to a possible reconciliation of ‘design’ and ‘process’ approaches to strategy formulation. The study pointed to a process of planned emergence in which strategic planning systems provided a mechanism for coordinating decentralized strategy formulation within a structure of demanding performance targets and clear corporate guidelines. The study shows that these planning systems fostered adaptation and responsiveness, but showed limited innovation and analytical sophistication. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A LETTER TO THE AUTHOR

Effective communication of capital investment proposals can be critically important to an engineer's professional development. Engineers frequently have difficulty developing this effective communication, however, primarily because they lack a clear understanding of the corporate decision-makers' commercial perspective and related informational needs. The decision-makers' perspective and the capital budgeting process are explored and several communication strategies are suggested to assist the engineer in more effectively presenting his capital investment proposals. The value of communication technique and the importance of recognizing and dealing effectively with certain psycho-social factors in inter-personal communication are briefly described.     

企业社会责任与财务绩效关系的实证研究——利益相关者视角的面板数据分析

本文按照资本形态的不同,将利益相关者划分为货币资本利益相关者、人力资本利益相关者、生态资本利益相关者、社会资本利益相关者,构建了企业社会责任的利益相关者模型。以46家上市公司2003—2007年的数据为依据,运用面板数据模型,研究了企业社会责任与财务绩效之间的关系。研究表明:我国上市公司已经开始关注其社会责任,但社会责任的披露信息仍然很少;大多数企业社会责任变量对当期财务绩效的影响为负;长期来看,企业履行社会责任对其财务绩效具有正向影响作用。     

Examining a key corporate role: The influence of capital allocation competency on business unit performance

Research on the role of the corporate office in firm performance has focused on establishing how much performance variance can be attributed to a “corporate effect,” with little attention devoted to understanding how this influence occurs. In this study, we model capital allocation competency as a dynamic managerial capability and find that lower levels of allocation competency in the form of excess investment to business units with relatively poorer future prospects reduce business unit performance. We also find that market conditions affect performance implications of capital allocation—allocation competency is more salient in more competitive markets. These results enhance our understanding of how the corporate office influences business unit performance through its role in allocating capital across business units. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Intellectual capital and corporate value in an emerging economy: empirical study of Taiwanese manufacturers

Competitive success now is based less on the strategic allocation of physical and financial resources, and more on the strategic management of intellectual capital. Although intellectual capital is intangible and cannot be accurately measured, companies must develop methods of increasing corporate value by proactively focusing on intellectual capital management. This study examines the relationship between intellectual capital and corporate value in an emerging economy.
This study employs an intellectual capital perspective, resource-based view and a financial perspective, and investigates how to apply the concept of intellectual capital to value creation. After reviewing the relevant literature, this study identifies human capital, organizational capital, innovation capital and relationship capital as four constructs of intellectual capital. Corporate value is measured using three selection methods: (1) Market/Book value, (2) Tobin' Q and (3) Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC™). Through a questionnaire survey and secondary data collection, this study applies the Structure Equation Model to analyze the relationships among four constructs of intellectual capital, as well as the relationship between intellectual capital and corporate value.
From the empirical findings, for Taiwanese manufacturers, a positive relationship exists between intellectual capital and corporate value. This study visualizes and mobilizes intellectual capital to articulate eight value creation paths.     

企业慈善捐赠行为影响因素的实证分析——以广东省民营企业为例

以利益相关者理论为基础,从企业内部的资源和能力、外部的政府行为两个角度出发来考察广东省民营企业慈善捐赠行为的影响因素。运用Logistic回归模型,通过对273份有效问卷的实证分析,发现民营企业慈善捐赠行为与企业现金流的多寡没有显著关系,但企业形象、企业慈善决策机制、企业规模大小、企业所处的生命周期阶段对民营企业是否进行慈善捐赠有显著影响。我国民营企业应结合其资源能力和外部环境。开展战略性慈善捐赠,这是关乎其健康持续成长的重要要素。     

我国企业资本结构二元化趋势研究

我国上市公司凭借其上市的优势更多地依赖于股权融资方式，而非上市公司尤其是中小企业，只能通过银行贷款或内部积累融入资金，从而使不同的企业组织形成了股本注入为主与债务注入为主的二元化资本结构。要转变资本结构的二元化趋势，需要建立多层次的资本市场体系，调整失衡的公司治理结构，优化企业资金结构，并通过建立新型的银企关系解决中小企业融资难的问题。     

Accelerating New Product Development: A Preliminary Empirical Test of a Hierarchy of Implementation

Although time to market and a product's profitability are closely linked, simply speeding up new product development (NPD) is no guarantee of success. In fact, haphazardly adopting the numerous methods for accelerating NPD may jeopardize the potential success of the new product and the company. An article in a previous issue of The Journal of Product Innovation Management suggests that companies seeking to speed up their NPD process should take a hierarchical approach to implementing the various acceleration techniques. To improve the likelihood that efforts to accelerate NPD will pay off with shorter development time, greater market share, and improved profitability, it is recommended that a company start by focusing on simplification of the NPD process. From there, the company can proceed in sequence through techniques involving the elimination of unnecessary steps in the NPD process, parallel processing (i.e., performing two or more NPD steps at the same time), the elimination of delays, and speeding up of the NPD process. Ed J. Nijssen, Arthur R. L. Arbouw, and Harry R. Commandeur follow up on this earlier work by addressing several key questions regarding the proposed hierarchy of techniques for accelerating NPD. First, do companies that make extensive use of the proposed hierarchy develop new products faster than companies that do not? Second, do companies that make extensive use of the hierarchy enjoy better financial performance than those that do not? Third, regardless of the hierarchy, are products developed faster by companies that make more intensive use of acceleration methods than by companies that use fewer methods of acceleration? Finally, how does financial performance compare among companies that make more intensive use of acceleration methods without following the hierarchy and those that use fewer methods of acceleration? A survey of Dutch companies finds that the proposed hierarchy of techniques has a positive effect on NPD speed. The survey results also suggest that faster NPD is possible through the use of the various acceleration methods without regard for the order in which they are implemented. However, a strong positive relationship is evident between the hierarchy and the profitability of the product and the company. In other words, a random approach to NPD acceleration does not improve financial performance. By trying to accelerate NPD in accordance with the proposed hierarchy of methods, a company can avoid critical mistakes that might otherwise limit financial results.     

中国上市公司CFO制度影响因素的实证分析

本文以我国A股上市公司披露的财务高管人员信息为基础，对上市公司CFO制度特征及其影响因素进行了实证分析。结果表明，我国上市公司CFO制度建设还处于比较初级的阶段，并且仅有的CFO制度特征与公司业绩的关系并不显著。在促进财务高管人员在公司治理中的地位和作用提高的过程中，主要不是基于提高业绩和改善公司治理机制，而是由财务高管人员在公司中的个人地位和资历决定的。从公司治理和企业制度建设角度看．迫切需要建立和完善CFO制度及其功能和机制。     

Corporate responsibility and financial performance: the role of intangible resources

This paper examines the effects of a firm's intangible resources in mediating the relationship between corporate responsibility and financial performance. We hypothesize that previous empirical findings of a positive relationship between social and financial performance may be spurious because the researchers failed to account for the mediating effects of intangible resources. Our results indicate that there is no direct relationship between corporate responsibility and financial performance—merely an indirect relationship that relies on the mediating effect of a firm's intangible resources. We demonstrate our theoretical contention with the use of a database comprising 599 companies from 28 countries. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Business groups and corporate transparency in emerging markets: Empirical evidence from India

This study examines the difference in corporate transparency of firms affiliated with business groups and unaffiliated firms in India. Based on previous studies we measured corporate transparency using equity analysts’ forecast error and dispersion. We find that firms affiliated with business groups are less transparent than unaffiliated firms. Lack of transparency leads to higher analyst forecast error and dispersion. This study also finds that business group-affiliated firms with more intra-group capital transactions have higher forecast error and dispersion. The findings of this study suggest that firms affiliated with business groups are less transparent due to their reliance on internal capital markets, and therefore lack incentives to disclose information to market participants. As a result, the information asymmetry between business groups and the capital market is higher, restricting the activities of information intermediaries such as equity analysts, who play an important role in the external capital market.     

A relationship value perspective of social capital in networks of software SMEs

Utilizing theories on social capital, business networks, social networks and relationship value, we explore the aspects that provide specific value in relationships with different actors in the software industry. The motive for the study is the assumption that some relationships are regarded as more important than others, and companies strive to focus on fewer relationships with greater outcomes. The study is guided by the premise that social capital is a foundation for relationship value, and its identified elements differ among relationships. We take the perspective of software companies and classify their relationships with business partners into three distinctive types according to their function in the value creation process. The findings of our empirical analysis, based on a qualitative case study of eight software SMEs indicate that the aspects of social capital, like the sources of relationship value, vary systematically by the types of relationships. Thus, we are able to provide some theoretical and managerial implications on the management of small- and medium-sized companies.     

Risk and capital structure in Asian project finance

We develop and test hypotheses derived from a multi-level theoretical framework for understanding factors shaping the credit risk and capital structure of a quintessentially Asian form of investment known as project finance. It differs from other corporate financing approaches. A project company is separate and bankruptcy remote from the investing firm sponsors that create it. The project company relies extensively on debt capital provided by creditors to fund project operations. Creditors provide more (less) debt as a percentage of overall project capital when there is less (more) risk of project failure and non-repayment. We define a target risk framework identifying country-, industry-, syndicate-, firm-, and project-related factors shaping Asian project finance company credit risk and thus, project debt. In a sample of 238 project finance companies announced in 13 Asian countries from 1995–2004, we observe substantial effects on project capital structure with respect to country-level factors linked to institutional and macroeconomic theories, syndicate structure factors linked to agency theory, and lead sponsor experience and project size factors linked to learning and transaction cost theories. We argue that these and other determinants of project finance company credit risk and capital structure in Asia since the mid-1990s anticipate similar relationships now emerging elsewhere around the globe.