Debt, bargaining, and credibility in firm–supplier relationships

We examine optimal leverage for a downstream firm relying on implicit (self-enforcing) contracts with a supplier. Performing a leveraged recapitalization prior to bargaining increases the firm's share of total surplus. However, the resulting debt overhang limits the range of credible bonuses, resulting in low input quality. Optimal financial structure trades off bargaining benefits of debt with inefficiency resulting from overhang. Consistent with empirical evidence, the model predicts that leverage increases with supplier bargaining power (e.g., unionization rates) and decreases with utilization of non-verifiable inputs (e.g., human capital).     

Customer account relationships and e-retail banking usage<Superscript>1</Superscript>

Financial institutions are actively developing new electronic banking products for their retail customers. To date, the market leaders have drawn a disproportionably higher share of e-retail banking customers. In response, smaller institutions have become quite active in exploring ways to participate profitably in online banking. A major influence is from a customer relationship management (CRM) perspective, where institutions try to limit the outflow of current customers and direct high-value customers to potential products from a multi-product service offering array. These efforts can succeed only if retail bank marketers focus the promotion of the new products and services that can utilise this channel toward those customers who are most likely to find them attractive. The first aim of this study was to examine the role that online and electronic banking play in defining the customer's primary financial relationship. The analysis of 701 retail customers of a financial institution presented in this study suggests that banks and other institutions are highly vulnerable to loss of customers to rivals with extensive online services. A second aim was to examine to what extent information on banking relationships is able to extend CRM analysis beyond that offered by typical demographic and income data. Current customer account relationships are found to be highly predictive of use of electronic services use in general. And, interest in the use of specific online services is related to differing customer relationships in addition to ordinary demographic and balance information. These findings can be useful for retail banking in identifying potential high-value users from a customer relationship management perspective.     

Trade credit and supplier competition

This paper examines how competition among suppliers affects their willingness to provide trade credit financing. Trade credit extended by a supplier to a cash constrained retailer allows the latter to increase cash purchases from its other suppliers, leading to a free rider problem. A supplier that represents a smaller share of the retailer’s purchases internalizes a smaller part of the benefit from increased spending by the retailer and, as a result, extends less trade credit relative to its sales. In consequence, retailers with dispersed suppliers obtain less trade credit than those whose suppliers are more concentrated. The free rider problem is especially detrimental to a trade creditor when the free-riding suppliers are its product market competitors, leading to a negative relation between product substitutability among suppliers to a given retailer and trade credit that the former provide to the latter. We test the model using both simulated and real data. The estimated relations are consistent with the model’s predictions and are statistically and economically significant.     

浅析客户身份识别与客户尽职调查

在反洗钱工作中,人们普遍将客户身份识别与客户尽职调查等同看待.本文结合国内外相关资料,通过对客户身份识别及客户尽职调查的由来、涵义等进行较详细的阐释,指出了二者之间的联系与区别,并结合我国反洗钱工作开展的具体情况进行政策性讨论.     

Foreign institutional ownership externalities and supplier innovation

Many emerging markets allow foreign investment as a way to reform domestic markets. Extant studies have found a positive externality on innovation brought forth by foreign direct investment (FDI); however, we know very little about the externality of another form of foreign investment, ownership by foreign institutional investors (FII), on innovation. In this paper, we document one form of FII externality by showing that foreign institutional ownership of the customer firm results in higher supplier innovation. We also show that the FII externality on supplier innovation is stronger when customers have more influence on the suppliers and when the FIIs can facilitate information flow better. Our findings suggest that the real impact of FII can go beyond the underlying firms, and promoting FII may benefit firms, especially smaller firms in emerging countries that do not directly have foreign ownership.     

2000年的企业战略 顾客和经济效益

<正> 这里先列举5个企业案例,请大家边阅读过思考问题究竟出在哪里? 案例1:生产啤酒的A公司,历史悠久,拥有优秀的技术人员,生产出的啤酒味道香醇。在很长的一段时间里,该公司的啤酒以优良的质量在市场上赢得了很高的评价。员工们也     

政府采购供应商投诉的原因及对策

处理供应商投诉是《政府采购法》赋予政府采购监督管理部门的职责。随着政府采购范围和规模的逐步扩大，供应商用法律维护自身权益意识的增强，供应商投诉案件也在逐年增加。受理投诉案件政策性强、涉及面广，因此，正确处理供应商投诉对规范政府采购行为，维护政府采购当事人的合法权益，实现公平交易，确保物有所值，保证资金安全等方面具有重要意义。[编者按]     

Specific investment,supplier vulnerability and profit risks

We investigate, theoretically and empirically, the impact of relationship-specific investment on suppliers’ profitability and profit risks. In addition to the familiar holdup problem, we explore another facet of specific investment that has received little attention in the literature, namely suppliers’ vulnerability to customer risks. In a theoretical model, we demonstrate that the supplier vulnerability problem implies a negative relationship between the degree of specificity and the expected profit of a supplier, and a positive relationship between the degree of specificity and volatility of the supplier's profit. Using panel data on over 5,000 US firms from 1990 to 2010, our empirical analysis shows the prevalence of the supplier vulnerability problem.     

Customer prospects and pay-performance sensitivity: Evidence from Korea

This paper examines how business prospects in customer firms affect executive pay-performance sensitivity in supplier firms. Using Korean Input-Output Accounts Data and Business Confidence Index published by the Bank of Korea, I find that customer prospects are positively associated with executive pay-performance sensitivity and the association is extended to the components of performance in a way that encourages managers to better exploit the market opportunities. The positive association is more pronounced when the inter-industry data are more informative, when the firm belongs to a more competitive industry, and when the corporate governance is stronger.Data availabilityAll data are publicly available from sources identified in the text.     

Customer concentration and digital transformation

Using a sample of Shanghai and Shenzhen A-share listed firms during 2009–2020, we examine how customer concentration would influence firms' digital transformation. In this study, we construct a proxy for digital transformation based on a text analysis approach. Our baseline results show that customer concentration hinders digital transformation at the firm level. Moreover, we design a series of tests including instrumental variables and 2SLS regression to mitigate the endogeneity concern. Still, we find results consistent with the baseline regression. The results hold after multiple robustness tests. Furthermore, this negative effect of customer concentration on digital transformation is more pronounced when firms are subject to 1) more market competition, 2) more financing constraints, 3) higher transaction costs, and 4) less efficient use of resources. Overall, our results demonstrate the role of customer concentration in inhibiting firms' digital transformation from the perspective of supply chain management.     

分论坛一:财富管理与客户营销

财富管理是银行利润增长的重要阵地,是银行业务转型的必由之路;而客户营销更是现代商业银行业务中不可或缺的组成部分。欧美银行业从20世纪80年代起,越发重视银行财富管理业务,在一些大型商业银行的全球盈利中,财富管理业务的贡献度超过了20%。眼下中国财富增长和资本市场膨胀的速度非常快,各家银行纷纷设立财富管理中心或类似的理财中心,以争夺这块蛋糕。然而由于我国银行业的转型起步较晚,在这方面还存在机制不够灵活、市场相对分割、缺少金融工具等一系列问题,需要通过加大产品创新、提高人员素质、改善信息披露等方式来进一步完善。财富管理与客户营销论坛提供了一个宽松的平台,请业内的专家畅谈自己的经验和思路,以达到互相学习、促进发展的目的。以下按发言顺序选取部分嘉宾的精彩发言。     

反洗钱工作中客户身份识别与客户尽职调查的演进

在反洗钱工作中,人们普遍将客户身份识别与客户尽职调查等同看待。本文结合国内外相关资料,通过对客户身份识别及客户尽职调查的由来、涵义等进行较详细的阐释,指出了二者之间的联系与区别,并结合我国反洗钱工作开展的具体情况做了一些政策性讨论。     

Aged-care support in Japan: perspectives and challenges

This article explores economic aspects of the market for long-term care (LTC) in Japan. As the world's most rapidly aging nation, it is of interest to understand that country's current LTC system and projections of LTC utilization patterns and costs, as well as their potential drivers. Since Japan appears likely to experience important shortfalls in LTC in the future, the authors also discuss alternate forms of provision.     

As told by the supplier: Trade credit and the cross section of stock returns

With superior information about their customers’ prospects, suppliers extend trade credit to capture future profitable business. We show that this information advantage generates significant return predictability. After controlling for major firm characteristics, firms that rely more on trade credit relative to debt financing have higher subsequent stock returns. The return predictability by trade credit is stronger among firms with lower borrowing capacity or profitability, and is more significant for firms with a higher degree of information asymmetry. Our findings suggest that trade credit extension reveals suppliers’ information that diffuses gradually across the investing public.     

Research in accounting: Student perspectives

Academicians and practitioners often lament the minimal and/or slow impact of accounting research on practice. One potential cause for this may be the limited course coverage in the accounting curriculum regarding the role of research, current research issues and findings, and the influence of past prominent writers on contemporary thought. The purpose of this study was to examine the level of student awareness concerning these issues. Questionnaires were sent to a random, national sample of 30 universities with Beta Alpha Psi chapters. Eighteen universities chose to participate, yielding 184 student responses. Students perceived a strong need for accounting research and believed that a significant amount was being performed. However, there was confusion as to which key parties (FASB, SEC, etc.) were the predominant forces in conducting research. In particular, the unique role and level of academic research was not recognized. Finally, students felt that the course coverage of accounting research and the key writers was limited. These findings suggest that curriculum coverage of research in accounting needs to be reassessed and expanded if there is to be a clear understanding by those entering practice of the nature and role of research in the field.     

提高银行客户亲密度:国际比较和经验借鉴

未来商业银行的竞争重点将是客户资源的竞争,谁掌握了客户谁就把握了市场.如何在新的经济形势下把握好客户多元化的金融需求,赢得更多客户的信任与支持,增强客户亲密度,将是银行能够在激烈的市场竟争中持续、稳健、高效经营的关键.     

客户集中度与企业投资效率

本文从企业供应链客户风险的角度,研究了大客户集中度对企业投资效率的影响。研究结果表明客户集中度高会使得企业面临大客户依赖风险,管理层决策会趋于保守进而公司投资效率降低,主要表现为投资不足的程度和概率加大。进一步研究发现当公司失去大客户的风险较低(如大客户为关联企业或重复购买客户)、大客户财务困境风险较小(如上市公司客户的比例较大)或者公司自身议价能力较强(如企业在同行业中市场份额高)时,客户集中度对企业投资不足的正向影响得以缓解。我们发现上述结果并非由于大客户存在使得上市公司面临融资约束所致,反而这类企业为了规避客户集中风险,预防性地持有更多现金;此外,上述结果也并非由于企业缺乏投资机会所致,该结果无论在投资机会多或者少的样本组中均成立。本文为系统性理解大客户集中度对企业运营产生的影响提供了启示。     

Customer concentration and loan contract terms

We study pricing and non-pricing features of loan contracts to gauge how the credit market evaluates a firm’s customer-base profile and supply-chain relations. Higher customer concentration increases interest rate spreads and the number of restrictive covenants featured in newly initiated as well as renegotiated bank loans. Customer concentration also abbreviates the maturity of those loans as well as the relationship between firms and their banks. These effects are intensified by customers’ financial distress, the level of relationship-specific investments, and the use of trade credit in customer–supplier relations. Our evidence shows that a deeper exposure to a small set of large customers bears negative consequences for a firm’s relations with its creditors, revealing limits to integration along the supply chain.