Viceroys or Emperors? An Institution‐Based Perspective on Merger and Acquisition Prevalence and Shareholder Value

We study how cross‐country variance in institutions that aim to address core agency problems influences consequential strategic decisions of firms around the world. Scholars frequently argue that the interests of minority shareholders are threatened by merger and acquisitions (M&As) due to principal‐agency problems. Rather than acting in shareholders’ best interests, managers potentially act as viceroys, using M&As to cushion themselves from risk and extract more pay. Yet equally salient is the issue of principal‐principal agency, where controlling shareholders can behave as emperors who use M&As to siphon off assets and profits, and appropriate wealth of shareholders with fewer control rights. Taking an institution‐based perspective on these ‘viceroy’ and ‘emperor’ problems, we conjecture that institutions aimed to address these agency problems can generate the desired outcome regarding M&A prevalence, but may also produce unintentional negative consequences for shareholder value as a side‐effect. Empirical evidence covering M&As from 73 countries supports our hypotheses.     

Human resource strategies for managing knowledge workers: an Afro-Asian comparative analysis

We use the model of culture fit to determine the human resource (HR) strategies for managing knowledge workers in two socio-culturally different countries: South Africa (SA) and Singapore. The national culture of SA is ethnically more diverse. Enterprise environment, such as institutional factors, particularly ownership, organization size and industry type, has more HR impact in Singapore than in SA. We found that there were convergent effective HR strategies used for motivating and retaining, but practices were divergent for attracting knowledge workers. When most frequent and ineffective strategies were studied, there were divergent practices. This knowledge of effective strategies being transferred to the two countries from more developed economies is in line with similar HR research.     

纵观企业理论变迁史

企业是社会经济发展到一定阶段的历史产物,随着时代的变迁和发展,对企业理论的解释也在不断演化,各学派的经济学家对企业的阐述可谓是众说纷纭。亚当·斯密、马克思、马歇尔、科斯和奈特等经济学家都对企业理论的发展起到了至关重要的作用。文章从企业理论发展的时间脉络,梳理出两百多年来出现的一些关键的企业理论,以及笔者对众多企业理论的个人观点,揭示出企业理论由抽象的理想型向现实企业逐步靠近的发展方向。     

Make-or-buy decisions regarding temporary agency work – an empirical analysis of the decision process and expected effects

Although the use of temporary agency work (TAW) in firms is heavily debated in the literature, the decision processes and motives behind using or not using TAW are often neglected or only analyzed in rough categories. We address these issues using a theoretical framework for HR outsourcing decisions. Specifically, we ask what triggers the decision about usage of TAW, whether firms have internal alternatives to using TAW, and what their expectations were when they made the decision. We focus on detailed expectations about the effects and analyze how users an d non-users of TAW differ in their respective expectations. Our analyses show that TAW is not a personnel service used by the majority of firms. Besides monetary costs, quality, and flexibility effects, stakeholder and transaction cost effects are relevant for the make-or-buy decisions. Users and non-users of TAW differ significantly in their expectations about some of the effect categories.