Diasporas and Domestic Entrepreneurs: Evidence from the Indian Software Industry

This study explores the importance of cross‐border social networks for entrepreneurs in developing countries by examining ties between the Indian expatriate community and local entrepreneurs in India's software industry. We find that local entrepreneurs who have previously lived outside India rely significantly more on diaspora networks for business leads and financing. This is especially true for entrepreneurs who are based outside software hubs—where getting leads to new businesses and accessing finance is more difficult. Our results provide micro‐evidence consistent with a view that cross‐border social networks play an important role in helping entrepreneurs to circumvent the barriers arising from imperfect domestic institutions in developing countries.     

Firms,public good provision and institutional uncertainty: Evidence from Russia

Enterprises in post-socialist and transition economies often participate in providing infrastructure and social services to the surrounding community which in the Russian legal setting should be local authorities’ responsibility. We propose that this bundling of social and infrastructure goods provision with firm's core operations is a fully rational choice in an uncertain institutional environment. A unique survey data suggest that this manifests itself through more reliable infrastructure, stronger employee attachment to the firm and, most interestingly, through better relations with the authorities. Relationship with authorities is a two-way game where the firm gains from the arrangement but on the other faces sanctions if it decided to depart from it. Firm's participation in the arrangement is clearly enhanced by inherited fixed capital assets from the Soviet era.     

Value Relevance of Multinationality: Evidence from Korean Firms

The purpose of this study is to examine the valuation effects of multinationality in Korean firms and to identify the role of multinationality in internalization theory. We hypothesize that the market positively values the multinational activities of Korean firms, which are operating in a small open economy in which firms have strong motivations for internationalization. We use Ohlson's (1995, Contemporary Accounting Research, 11, 661) value model and document the positive effect for multinational firms compared to domestic firms, as well as the positive effect of multinationality on firm value. These results are robust across studies, as indicated by Tobin's q measure, as well as across years. We also hypothesize that multinationality mediates or moderates the relationship between intangibility and firm value that is proposed in internalization theory. We do not find supporting evidence for a mediated influence of intangibility through multinationality on firm value nor for a moderated influence of intangibility on firm value. We find that multinationality and intangibility directly and independently influence firm value, without any interference from each other. These results are also robust across studies, as indicated by Tobin's q measure. Finally, we find that multinationality in Korean firms has never lost its importance, even during the global financial crisis in the year 2008.     

Non-audit Services and Audit Quality: Evidence from Private Firms

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between audit quality in private firms and the provision of non-audit services (NAS) – an issue that has rarely been considered in prior research. The threats to auditor independence are different in private firms compared to public firms. The same is true of the opportunities to use the same knowledge for audit and for NAS. Therefore, the effect of the provision of NAS on audit quality is also likely to be different. In this study, audit quality is measured by discretionary accruals, as well as by managers' perceptions of the extent to which the audit improves accounting quality. The regression analysis is based on 420 surveyed private firms in Sweden and suggests that audit quality is positively associated with NAS in general and accounting services in particular. The findings indicate that the joint provision of audit and NAS do not necessarily result in impaired auditor independence, but rather support the existence of knowledge spillover between the services.     

Financing constraints and ODI margins: Evidence from China

Using a novel firm-level dataset on China, this paper examines the effects of financing constraints on enterprises’ outward direct investment (ODI) from the perspective of binary margins of ODI. The main findings of the paper are threefold. First, financing constraints show a negative effect on enterprises’ ODI for both the intensive and extensive margins, with a more significant effect on the extensive margin. Second, the negative effect is mostly significant in the energy industry, while it is not significant in non-energy industries. Finally, financing constraints show a negative effect on state-owned enterprises for both margins, while the effect is less significant for non-state-owned enterprises. The findings in the paper have policy implications for understanding and promoting ODI in emerging economies.     

Industry Shock Expectations,Interindustry Linkages,and Merger Waves: Evidence from the Hospital Industry

It is well known that mergers often occur in waves, and this paper develops a new mechanism for merger waves: expectations over industry shocks. We develop a simple test of this explanation and use it to explore the role of expectations in the context of the 1990s hospital merger wave. Managed care such as Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs) started to become popular in the late 1980s and ultimately became an important player in the health insurance market. Our empirical analysis shows that the expected increase in the popularity of HMOs was partly responsible for the hospital merger wave of the 1990s: hospitals feared that the “innovation” of managed care in the downstream insurance market would penetrate the upstream hospital market and responded to this belief by merging. Our results show the importance of incorporating expectations and interindustry linkages into the understanding of merger waves.     

Product Market Competition,Skill Shortages and Productivity: Evidence from Canadian Manufacturing Firms

In this paper, we estimate the impacts of product market competition and skill shortages on the productivity level performance of Canadian manufacturing firms. We use firms perceptions of their competitive environment from the Statistics Canada 1999 Survey of Innovation to measure product market competition and skill shortages. We argue in the paper that such perceptions are important for productivity level performance. After controlling for other factors, we find that product market competition has a positive impact on the performance of medium-sized and large-sized firms, and that skill shortages have a negative impact on the performance of small-sized and medium-sized firms.Jel Classification: L0, O0     

Indexation and Wage Change Settlements: Evidence from Spanish Manufacturing Firms

An endogenous switching model of ex-ante wage changes under indexed and non-indexed settlements is estimated for the Spanish manufacturing sector using collective bargaining firm data for the 1984–1991 period. The likelihood of indexing the settlement is higher for nationwide unions than for other union groups within the works council and increases with the expected level of inflation. For wage change equations, a common structure for indexed and non-indexed settlements is strongly rejected, showing a source of nominal rigidity. For indexed contracts, the expected ex-ante total inflation coverage is nearly complete. It is also shown that workers pay a significant ex-ante change premium (differential) to obtain a cost of living allowance clause. However, the realised contingent compensation exceeds such a premium for all industries. Finally, important spillover efffects in wage setting and the decision to index the settlement have been detected.     

Firm Complexity and Capital Structure: Evidence from Italian Diversified Firms

This paper examines the links between product diversification, international diversification and capital structure for a panel of medium and large Italian firms. The results indicate that the interaction between these two dimensions of diversification strategy has a negative and significant impact on leverage. Furthermore, debt maturity analysis reveals that firms pursuing a simultaneous dual diversification strategy have, in particular, lower long‐term debt ratios. Our findings support the hypothesis that the complexity that comes from diversification reduces debt levels. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Government Engagement,Environmental Policy,and Environmental Performance: Evidence from the Most Polluting Chinese Listed Firms

This study empirically examines the implementation of environmental policies and how government engagement impacts on a firm's environmental performance based on a sample of Chinese listed firms in the eight most polluting industries over a 10‐year period. The findings of the study demonstrate that government engagement, measured as ownership structure, is positively correlated with environmental performance, measured by environmental capital expenditure, for state‐owned firms, but no significant relation is found for non‐state‐owned firms. In addition, non‐state‐owned firms are more likely to perform better in terms of environmental investment after the 2006 enactment of a new policy explicitly linking environmental issues with political incentives to regional governments. This study also reports that corporate environmental performance impairs firm value for state‐owned firms but has no impact on firm value for non‐state‐owned firms, suggesting that investors negatively respond to environmental investments made by state‐owned firms as a result of government engagement/political pressure. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Dynamic Capabilities, Government Policies, and Performance in Firms from Emerging Economies: Evidence from India and Pakistan

In this study we developed a model of the dynamic capability development mechanisms in Emerging Market manufacturing Firms (EMF). We identified three dynamic capability development mechanisms: organizational learning, reverse engineering, and manufacturing flexibility. We generated hypotheses based on this framework, linking these mechanisms with firm performance. We also modelled the roles played by managerial use of two types of government policies: input supporting policies and marketing supporting policies. We tested our hypotheses on a sample of Indian and Pakistani manufacturing firms. Results showed that organizational learning, reverse engineering and manufacturing flexibility had significant impacts on EMF performance. Additionally, organizational learning combined with input supporting government policies enhanced performance, and the combination of manufacturing flexibility and marketing supporting government policies had an insignificant influence on performance.     

政治联系、隐性激励与企业价值——以民营企业在职消费为例

以民营企业在职消费为例,考察政治关联如何影响隐性激励及企业价值。研究发现,相对于无政治联系的民营企业,有政治联系的民营企业在职消费更低;民营企业的在职消费对企业价值具有负面影响,而政治联系削弱了在职消费对民营企业价值的负面影响。总体来看,民营企业的政治联系有助于节约企业的交易成本与减少政府的利益侵占,从而提升了企业价值。     

International Variations in Transparency and Capital Structure: Evidence from European Firms

This paper documents the impact of national transparency regimes on corporate capital structure in 14 European countries. After controlling for relevant firm, industry, and national variables, we find that owner-manager agency cost-reducing transparency such as higher levels of analysts following is associated with lower corporate debt levels. In contrast, transparency that reduces owner-creditor agency costs that helps creditors control business risks (and creditors-to-owners wealth transfers), such as disclosure timeliness, institutional trading activities, and enforcement of anti-insider trading laws, are associated with higher corporate debt levels. Among other transparency measures, levels of financial and governance disclosures are negatively associated with debt ratios and higher levels of audit intensity and accounting disclosures are positively associated with debt ratios. Further, transparency factors are more important for large firms and for firms in services and high technology.     

政治联系与盈余信息含量——基于中国民营上市公司的经验证据

以2004-2010年中国民营上市公司为样本,研究了政治联系与民营上市公司盈余信息含量之间的关系。研究发现,政治联系增强了民营上市公司会计盈余与超额累计收益之间的正向关系,表明政治联系提高了盈余信息质量。进一步研究发现,上市公司所在地的市场化进程程度调节了政治联系对盈余信息含量的正向影响,即对地处市场化程度较高地区的民营上市公司而言,政治联系与盈余信息含量的正相关关系相对较弱。研究发现对于外部投资者判断民营上市公司盈余质量及其投资决策具有借鉴意义。     

Agency-Theory and Internal-Labor-Market Explanations of Bonus Payments: Empirical Evidence from Spanish Firms

This paper combines agency theory and internal-labor-market theories to explain the determinants of bonus payments among a large sample of top and middle managers from Spanish firms. A distinction is made between the decision whether to pay bonus or not and the size of the bonus. The empirical evidence confirms that the two decisions are determined by different factors. The results of the analysis show a trade-off between short-term and long-term incentives (bonuses and promotion opportunities) as well as differences in the pattern of compensation policies across economic sectors and functional areas inside the firm.     

跨国公司在华溢出效应研究：人力资本的视角

在我国实施人才强国战略的背景下,本文基于三期（2000,2002,2004年）全国民营企业主抽样调查数据,从人力资本创造与流转的视角,实证研究了跨国公司在华溢出效应的存在性、影响因素和作用渠道。OLS回归和Treatment Effect非参数估计结果稳健地表明,民营企业主的跨国公司工作经历对其所创立企业的经营业绩有显著的正面影响,证实了跨国公司在华存在通过人力资本创造与流转机制的溢出效应。研究进一步显示,制度环境对有效收获人力资本溢出有重要影响。关于人力资本视角下溢出效应发挥作用的渠道,我们发现,民营企业主跨国公司工作经历有助于提高其国际视野和企业海外销售比例,这对中国企业“走出去”有所助益。同时,我们发现,有外企经历的民营企业主更注重知识产权保护和员工激励等公司治理因素。     

Regional Market Potential and the Number and Size of Firms: Observations and Evidence from Chile

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between market potential and the spatial variation in the number and the average size of firms. We adapt the canonical model of the New Economic Geography to demonstrate this relationship and to derive an empirical specification suitable for estimation through dynamic panel techniques. The model is tested against municipal data on the number of firms per adult in Chilean comunas for 2005–2010. Our results confirm that market potential along with place-specific fixed costs play an important role in determining the spatial variation in the number of firms per capita.     

Green Knowledge Sharing,Stakeholder Pressure,Absorptive Capacity,and Green Innovation: Evidence from Chinese Manufacturing Firms

A central issue faced by many Chinese manufacturing firms is how to absorb and utilize green knowledge shared among supply chain members for superior green innovation. Invoking the indirect research stream of organizational learning theory, we develop a moderated mediation model in which absorptive capacity mediates the interactive effects of green knowledge sharing and stakeholder pressure on green innovation. Our hypotheses were tested using a sample of 247 Chinese manufacturing firms. The results from multiple regression and bootstrapping tests reveal that absorptive capacity fully mediates the link between green knowledge sharing and green innovation, and the mediation effect is positively contingent upon stakeholder pressure. These findings provide managerial implications for Chinese manufacturing firms, recommending that these firms effectively develop their absorptive capacities and closely monitor stakeholder pressure to realize the green innovation benefits of green knowledge sharing.     

政治关联、会计信息质量与融资约束——基于我国民营上市公司的经验数据

社会主义市场经济体制确立以来,我国民营经济迅速发展,在我国经济结构中所占的比重逐步扩大,开始发挥越来越广泛的作用,但发展过程中却是困难重重,受到种种制约。其中,融资困难成为制约民营企业发展的关键因素。本文以2011-2015年民营上市公司为研究样本,实证研究了政治关联、会计信息质量与融资约束间的关系。研究发现,政治关联的存在和会计信息质量的提高都能缓解融资约束,并且政治关联的存在会部分替代会计信息质量的作用,减弱会计信息质量对融资约束的治理作用。