Linking Environmental and Financial Performance for Privately Owned Firms: Some Evidence from Australia

The debate over whether the “green” strategy pays off has been centered overwhelmingly within large public firms. It remains unclear whether “being green” matters to smaller firms such as privately owned or family controlled firms, which are equally heavy polluters but subject to much less public scrutiny. Using a sample of 138 private companies registered in the Australian National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting database over the 2009–2013 period, this study finds that embracing environmental/carbon responsibility has helped these companies gain higher financial returns. However, reducing carbon emissions has not paid off for environmentally sensitive firms, although lowering energy consumption is evidenced to be value creation.     

Exploring the Geography of Corporate Philanthropic Disaster Response: A Study of Fortune Global 500 Firms

In recent years, major disasters have figured prominently in the media. While corporate response to disasters may have raised corporate philanthropy to a new level, it remains an understudied phenomenon. This article draws on comparative research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and corporate philanthropy to explore the geography of corporate philanthropic disaster response. The study analyzes donation announcements made by Fortune Global 500 firms from North America, Europe and Asia to look for regional patterns across three recent disasters: the South Asian Tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and the Kashmiri earthquake. The results reveal inter-regional differences in the overall likelihood of donations and in their cash value, in addition to the identification of home-region- and local presence effects. Implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Women Directors on Corporate Boards: From Tokenism to Critical Mass

Academic debate on the strategic importance of women corporate directors is widely recognized and still open. However, most corporate boards have only one woman director or a small minority of women directors. Therefore they can still be considered as tokens. This article addresses the following question: does an increased number of women corporate boards result in a build up of critical mass that substantially contributes to firm innovation? The aim is to test if ‘at least three women’ could constitute the desired critical mass by identifying different minorities of women directors (one woman, two women and at least three women). Tests are conducted on a sample of 317 Norwegian firms. The results suggest that attaining critical mass – going from one or two women (a few tokens) to at least three women (consistent minority) – makes it possible to enhance the level of firm innovation. Moreover, the results show that the relationship between the critical mass of women directors and the level of firm innovation is mediated by board strategic tasks. Implications for both theory and practice, and future research directions are discussed.     

Social Responsiveness,Profitability and Catastrophic Events: Evidence on the Corporate Philanthropic Response to 9/11

In this study we seek to determine whether catastrophic events lead to corporate charitable giving unrelated to levels of firm profitability. We examine the issue relative to the corporate philanthropic response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks of 2001. Based on a sample of 489 Fortune 500 companies, we find that differences in the extent of corporate contributions following 9/11 are positively and significantly associated with differences in firms' profitability. Further, while the degree of connection to the catastrophic event led to higher levels of giving in comparison to the contributions of less connected firms, differences in the extent of philanthropy are still␣related to short-term profitability for the more connected firms. The study thus provides evidence suggesting that even in the wake of catastrophic events, corporate philanthropic giving is constrained by economic concerns.     

Religion,the Nature of Ultimate Owner,and Corporate Philanthropic Giving: Evidence from China

Using a sample of Chinese listed firms for the period of 2004–2010, this study examines the impact of religion on corporate philanthropic giving. Based on hand-collected data of religion and corporate philanthropic giving, we provide strong and robust evidence that religion is significantly positively associated with Chinese listed firms’ philanthropic giving. This finding is consistent with the view that religiosity has remarkable effects on individual thinking and behavior, and can serve as social norms to influence corporate philanthropy. Moreover, religion and corporate philanthropic giving have a significantly weaker (less pronounced) positive association for state-owned enterprises than for non-state-owned enterprises. The results are robust to a variety of sensitivity tests. Our results highlight religious influence on corporate philanthropic giving in contemporary China, an old traditional country with a typical communist economy.     

External Finance and the Foreign Direct Investment Decision: Evidence from Privately Owned Enterprises in China

Access to external finance is found to be a statistically significant factor explaining the probability of privately owned enterprises (POEs) in China undertaking foreign direct investment (FDI). The significance of external finance is magnified in industries featuring a heavy dependence on external finance, high technology, low tangibility, and high inventory. The external finance and FDI linkage is weaker for POEs with group affiliation, but stronger for those with generous employment welfare practices.     

贸易成本、异质性企业与扩大内需:理论框架与中国经验

扩大内需是现阶段稳定我国经济增长的关键因素之一。在现有异质性企业模型的基础上,本文通过建立一个异质性企业选择模型阐述了贸易成本对内部需求的影响机制。该模型表明贸易成本是影响企业国内外市场选择行为的关键因素,政府可以通过调节企业的相对贸易成本来实现扩大内部需求的目标。同时利用我国工业企业层面的数据,对模型进行了实证检验,检验结果符合理论模型的基本预测。     

Causality Between Corporate Social Performance and Financial Performance: Evidence from Canadian Firms

This study assesses the causal relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and financial performance (FP). We perform our empirical analyses on a sample of 179 publicly held Canadian firms and use the measures of CSP provided by Canadian Social Investment Database for the years 2004 and 2005. Using the “Granger causality” approach, we find no significant relationship between a composite measure of a firm’s CSP and FP, except for market returns. However, using individual measures of CSP, we find a robust significant negative impact of the environmental dimension of CSP and three measures of FP, namely return on assets, return on equity, and market returns. This latter finding is consistent, at least in the short run, with the trade-off hypothesis and, in part, with the negative synergy hypothesis which states that socially responsible firms experience lower profits and reduced shareholder wealth, which in turn limits the socially responsible investments.     

金融市场化、融资约束与企业成本加成:来自中国制造业企业的证据

融资约束和成本加成亟需提升是中国制造业企业面临的双重难题,在经济转轨的宏观背景下,能否藉由中国金融市场化改革来破解这一困境?本文以2001—2007年中国制造业企业为样本的实证研究显示:融资约束阻碍了企业成本加成提升,而金融市场化能够有效缓解融资约束对企业成本加成的抑制效应;以工具变量、分样本及替代变量回归等方法进行的稳健性检验进一步证明了本文结论的稳健性。本文的研究结论为进一步推进金融市场化改革,以此作为融资难背景下中国制造业企业成本加成提升的有效路径提供了理论支撑。     

Firm R&D,Processing Trade and Input Trade Liberalisation: Evidence from Chinese Firms

This paper examines the impact of input trade liberalisation on firm R&D activity by taking China's accession to the WTO as a quasi‐natural experiment. Different from ordinary imports, processing imports in China enjoy zero tariffs and are not affected by input trade liberalisation due to the WTO accession. The paper uses disaggregated firm‐level production data and transaction‐level trade data to perform difference‐in‐difference analysis by taking processing import firms as a control group. An intensive empirical search shows that after China's accession to the WTO, input trade liberalisation fostered firm R&D significantly. The findings are robust to different measures and various empirical specifications.     

Corporate Name Change and the Market Valuation of Firms: Evidence from an Emerging Market

Investors’ responses to a firm’s name change and the determinants of their response are scantly explored areas in the field of behavioral finance. Based on a sample of 415 Indian firms from 2005 to 2014, this study suggests that investors respond positively to the announcement of firm name changes. Furthermore, the study indicates that when firms do not indicate geographical specificity in the name and have a specific rather than generic name, then the firm will experience greater abnormal returns. Also, when firm names are fluent and are associated with the owner’s family name, again, abnormal returns generated are positive. Nevertheless, as a firm ages and investors gain more information about it, then abnormal returns due to name change decrease.     

The Impact of Internal Corporate Social Responsibility on Organizational Commitment: Evidence from Vietnamese Service Firms

This study examines the relationship between internal corporate social responsibility (CSR) and organizational commitment in the service sector in Vietnam. Results from a survey of 256 employees indicate that internal CSR has a positive and significant correlation with organizational commitment. More specifically, labor relations, health and safety, and training and education had a significant effect on organizational commitment whereas work–life balance and social dialogue have no significant association with organizational commitment. The authors also provide implications, limitations, and recommendations for future research.     

制造业投入服务化与中国出口企业加成率

本文将制造业投入服务化纳入扩展的M-O模型,分析了制造业投入服务化对出口企业加成率的影响及其作用机制,制造业投入服务化水平的提高通过促进产品质量升级进而提升出口企业加成率;在此基础上,本文利用世界投入产出表、中国工业企业数据和海关进出口数据的匹配数据,实证分析了制造业投入服务化对出口企业加成率的影响,证实了本文的理论命题;回归结果显示制造业投入服务化对于劳动密集型行业、竞争行业、非国有企业、退出企业和持续出口企业的加成率的影响尤为显著;本文构建中介效应模型,检验了二者的作用机制。     

Institutional Ownership and Private Equity Placements: Evidence from Chinese Listed Firms

This paper examines the impact of institutional ownership on the performance of private equity placements (PEPs) for listed firms in China. We find that the presence of institutional investors can alleviate the information asymmetries between listed firms and the market. The market reaction to PEP announcements is significantly smaller if there is a higher portion of institutional shareholdings. Long‐term firm operational performance after PEPs is positively correlated with institutional shareholdings. Moreover, we find that the relationship between institutional shareholdings and PEP performance is mainly driven by nonlisted corporate investors and mutual funds. Finally, the relationship between PEP performance and institutional shareholdings is stronger in smaller PEP issuers.     

制度环境、产权性质与公司慈善捐赠--来自沪深A股上市公司的经验证据

公司慈善捐赠驱动因素的研究已有很多成果,但从制度环境和产权性质角度进行研究的很少。本文以沪深A股上市公司为样本,系统考察了制度环境、产权性质对公司慈善捐赠的影响。研究证实,中国各地区制度环境差异显著影响公司慈善捐赠,制度环境的改善促进了企业捐赠水平的提高,且这种正向影响在非国有控股企业表现更为明显。非国有控股企业捐赠水平高于国有控股企业,且在国有控股企业中,地方政府控股国有企业捐赠水平高于中央政府控股企业。这些结论对理解制度环境在促进企业捐赠中的作用,认识中国不同产权性质企业慈善行动的深层含义具有一定的启示意义。     

The Interaction Between Suppliers and Fraudulent Customer Firms: Evidence from Trade Credit Financing of Chinese Listed Firms

Journal of Business Ethics - This study investigates the interaction between suppliers and fraudulent customer firms from the perspective of reputation damage and reputation recovery. Specifically,...     

控制权、现金流权与公司业绩——来自中国民营上市公司的经验研究

本文选取了2004年底在深市和沪市上市交易的238家民营公司作为样本,通过层层追溯控制链辨认了我国民营上市公司的最终控制股东,考察了最终控制股东拥有的控制权与现金流权及其偏离的程度,并进行了实证分析。结果发现在我国民营上市公司中,最终控制股东控制权的集中程度较高,并且其现金流权与控制权存在着偏离。最终控制股东的现金流权与公司业绩显著正相关,控制权与现金流权的偏离程度与公司业绩显著负相关     

Cultural Diversity and Corporate Tax Avoidance: Evidence from Chinese Private Enterprises

Journal of Business Ethics - We examine the impact of a city’s cultural diversity on a firm’s tax avoidance (TA). Our findings suggest that when a firm is located in a culturally...