Organized labor and corporate philanthropy: Evidence from Korea

This study examines the impact of organized labor on corporate philanthropy, focusing on Korean firms. We find a positive association between the labor unionization ratio and the corporate philanthropy of firms, especially for non‐Chaebol‐affiliated firms and firms that have positive operating cash flow. The results from the robustness tests, which employ alternative union strength proxies and two‐stage least squares regression analyses, support our major findings. The findings indicate that unionized firms can utilize corporate philanthropy to boost their bargaining power regarding wages and collective bargaining power with unions by reporting lower earnings. This study contributes to the corporate philanthropy and labor union literature by providing evidence that the labor union is a crucial stakeholder that may affect firms' philanthropic behavior. Our findings explain corporate philanthropic decisions in the Korean context.     

Family firms and corporate social performance: evidence from Korean firms

This study examines the effects of family firms on the corporate social performance of Korean firms and analyses how their effect varies depending on the presence of family CEOs or chaebols. Based on the agency theory, we find that family firms exhibit lower corporate social performance. In particular, there is no difference in the performance of related stakeholders, such as society, consumers, environment, and employees, compared to non-family firms, but corporate governance registers as low performance. We further find that family firms managed by family CEOs show lower corporate social performance, whereas chaebol firms show higher corporate social performance.     

Military executives and corporate outcomes: Evidence from China

This study investigates the impact of executives' military experience on corporate outcomes in China. We find that firms with military executives take higher financial leverage and underperform their non-military counterparts, although they perform relatively better during periods of industry distress. Our results are robust when using propensity score matching and instrumental variable approaches. Interestingly, military executives in China commit relatively more corporate violations compared to those without military experience. This finding differs to the findings of Benmelech and Frydman (2015) for U.S. military CEOs, where there are clear differences in culture, education background, and ethical behaviours as compared with China.     

Founder CEOs,personal incentives,and corporate social irresponsibility

This study integrates organizational identity (OI) theory and upper echelons theory to explore the impact of CEOs’ founder status on corporate social irresponsibility (CSI). We theorize that compared with other CEOs, a founder CEO is more likely to generate a high degree of OI with the firm, which will drive the founder CEO to actively avoid CSI that may damage the positive image and long-term development of the firm. Furthermore, we argue that CEO duality and CEO ownership will strengthen the aforementioned relationship by increasing the possibility of founder CEOs generating a high degree of OI. Conversely, CEO underpayment will weaken the relationship between founder status and CSI by decreasing the possibility of founder CEOs generating a high degree of OI. We obtained empirical evidence in support of our arguments from a large Chinese private listed company dataset. Overall, this study’s theory and evidence clearly show that founder status and personal incentives can jointly shape CEOs’ CSI decisions, thereby providing useful insights for corporate shareholders and government agencies to better prevent and govern firms’ CSI.     

Government subsidies and corporate investment efficiency: Evidence from China

This study examines how state subsidies to firms affect corporate investment efficiency. Using archival data from a sample of Chinese listed firms over the 2007–2015 period, we find that government subsidies have a negative effect on firms' investment efficiency, and this negative effect is more pronounced for firms that are less financially constrained. Further analyses suggest that government subsidies are positively associated with firms' over-investment, although they alleviate under-investment. Our findings are robust to a series of tests to alleviate concerns about potential endogeneity and self-selection bias.     

Investor base and corporate borrowing: Evidence from international bonds

We examine international bond issues by US firms to study the benefits of investor taste for cross-border security issuances. We proxy for firms' international investor taste with the fraction of prior international bond holding in firms' domestic and international bonds and find that international investor demand increases with such taste. Moreover, the offering yield spreads on international bonds are lower than domestic offering yield spreads for these internationally recognized firms and they have higher probability of issuing internationally. Such international recognition may occur, for instance, if the diversification benefits of adding the security to investor's portfolio outweigh the negative effects of higher renegotiation costs for international compared to domestic investors.     

Business groups and corporate social responsibility: Evidence from China

This study investigates the impact of firms' business group affiliations on their performance in corporate social responsibility (CSR) in China. We find that firms with a dual-status of being a business group member and a state-owned enterprise (SOE) at the same time have weaker CSR performance. Our finding is consistent with the view that CSR engagement is a strategy for firms to pursue political legitimacy from the government and seek legitimacy in general from the public. The business group affiliation and the SOE identity together afford legitimacy to the firm and reduce its need to conduct CSR activities.Data availabilityAll data used in the study are publicly available from the sources noted in the text.     

Corporate financial policies and the exchange rate regime: Evidence from Brazil

This paper analyzes the relationship between companies' financial policies and the exchange rate regime for a sample of non-financial Brazilian companies from 1996 to 2006. The adoption of a floating exchange rate regime is shown to improve the match between the currency composition of companies' assets and liabilities. The paper also shows that this reduction in companies' currency mismatches is more pronounced for companies in the highest quantile of foreign exposure; therefore the results confirm that the exchange rate regime plays an important role in the determination of companies' foreign vulnerability.     

Technology policies and the growth of regions: Evidence from four countries

Since the 1980s, all industrialized countries have established technology policies aimed at increasing economic growth through the development of scientific and technical resources. Most technology policy initiates are at the national level and are predominantly concerned with levels of funding. This is a problem because high-tech industrial development is observed to be regional in nature and national technology policies do not explicitly pursue regional goals. This paper tests two hypotheses. First, that the different explicit and implicit technology policies have had a significant, although unintended, impact on the development of a special type of space, the high-tech regions. Next, that the spatial effects of government technology policy promote high-tech regions over other regions, although this influence is primarily of an implicit or unintended nature.     

Customer concentration and corporate social responsibility performance: Evidence from China

This study examines whether and how a supplier firm’s customer concentration affects its corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance in emerging markets. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms, we find that customer concentration is negatively associated with supplier CSR performance. Cross-sectional analyses reveal that the negative relation is more pronounced in suppliers without foreign customers or foreign investors, suppliers that are non-state-owned, and suppliers operating in poor legal environments. Finally, channel tests suggest that reduced demand of disclosure from customers and limited awareness of CSR are potential mechanisms through which customer concentration negatively affects CSR performance.     

Internet-based corporate disclosure and market value: Evidence from Latin America

We examine the relationship between an Internet-based corporate disclosure index and firm value in the seven largest stock markets of Latin America. We find, after controlling for firms' characteristics, industry and country of origin, that an increase of 1% in the Internet-Based Corporate Disclosure Index causes an increase of 0.1592% in the Tobin's Q and an increase of 0.0119% in the firm's ROA. These findings are robust after considering the potential endogeneity of our regression variables. The evidence contributes to the literature suggesting that firms can differentiate themselves by self-adopting better financial and corporate disclosure measures using the Internet.     

Small firm effect: Evidence from Korean stock exchange

The objective of the paper is to examine the small firm and earnings' yield effects on the Korean stock returns during 1982–1988. We find that smaller (or high E/P ratio) firms obtain higher risk-adjusted returns, on average, than larger (or low E/P ratio) firms. We also document that the existence of January effect in Korean stock returns. Unlike the findings for the US market, stock returns of small and as well as large Korean firms are found to be 2 or 3 times higher in January than the other months. However, the well known tax-loss-selling hypothesis can not be used to explained these anomalies because there are no capital tax or loss offsets in Korea.     

Experience-based corporate corruption and stock market volatility: Evidence from emerging markets

This paper reassesses how “experience-based” corporate corruption affects stock market volatility in 14 emerging markets. We match the World Bank enterprise-level data on bribes with a unique cross-country macroeconomics dataset obtained from the World Bank development indicators. It is found that wider coverage of “realized” corporate corruption in the emerging markets investigated reduces the stock market volatility, attributed to decrease in uncertainty about government policy with regard to the business environment, as implied by the general equilibrium model of Pastor and Veronesi (2012). Overall, our results suggest that stock price volatility decreases as the uncertainty about government policy becomes more predictable, which is consistent with the testable hypotheses of Pastor and Veronesi (2012).     

Multinational corporate website strategies and influencing factors: A comparison of US and Korean corporate websites

This study, using a content analysis method, explored whether and to what extent multinational corporate websites targeting different markets are standardized. It also tested three organizational factors – country of origin, company size, and product type – for their potential influence on the level of corporate website standardization. A sample of 52 top US-based multinational companies and 52 Korea-based multinational companies was drawn and a total of 104 pairs of websites for these companies were content-analyzed. Overall, the degree of website standardization was not significantly different between companies based in the two countries. The results suggest that both US and Korean multinational corporations tend to maintain their websites in a similar way when targeting the home and foreign markets. Among the three organizational factors, only product type – B2B versus B2C products and durables versus non-durables – was found to be significantly associated with the level of website standardization. This study makes important contributions to the research literature by offering new information on the current state of multinational corporate website strategies and advancing our knowledge about international marketing communications on the Internet and influencing factors.     

Blended versus face-to-face: Evidence from a graduate corporate finance class

The author compared students' perceptions of prelecture videos replacing face-to-face (F2F) classes in blended and F2F graduate corporate finance classes. Using 176 anonymous survey responses from eight F2F and two blended classes during the 2014–2016 year, the author found that students in the blended classes had a greater belief that prelecture videos could replace F2F classes than did students in the F2F classes. Students in the blended classes showed a greater understanding of the flipped lecture format and performed better than students in the F2F classes. Students in the blended classes also tended to rate the instructor's teaching effectiveness lower than students in the F2F classes.     

Local green finance policies and corporate ESG performance

Based on China's government-business relations theory, we use difference-in-differences and causal forest to find that local green finance policies can significantly enhance corporate ESG performance especially for nonstate-owned companies, companies with high levels of executive social capital, non-heavily polluting companies, and companies in developed regions. We also find that the corporate financing constraint mitigation effect and the regional environmental regulation effect of local green finance policies are important mechanisms for promoting corporate ESG performance. Additionally, local green finance policies can strengthen the positive role of corporate ESG performance in enhancing corporate value, which is conducive to corporate sustainability.     

The gender composition of corporate boards and firm performance: Evidence from Russia

This paper studies economic effects of the gender composition of corporate boards, employing a novel longitudinal dataset of publicly traded Russian companies over 1998–2014. Using multiple identification approaches, alternative measures of gender diversity, and several performance indicators, we find some evidence that companies with gender-diverse boards have higher market values and better profitability. These effects are particularly pronounced when firms appoint several women directors, which is consistent with the critical mass theory. The effects appear to be stronger in bad economic times. Overall, we find some support to “the business case” for more women on corporate boards.     

Political embeddedness,media positioning and corporate social responsibility: Evidence from China

We examine the effect of political embeddedness and media positioning on corporate social responsibility (CSR). Using a sample of Chinese listed firms from 2009–2017, we provide evidence that firms with political embeddedness from the perspectives of both government ownership and managerial political connection (PC) perform more CSR than other firms, but their motivations for doing so are different. Employing media positioning, we find that firms controlled by the government conduct less CSR when they receive more positive media reporting, indicating that this is a firm's passive choice due to political pressure; and firms with PC are incentivized by negative media reporting to conduct more CSR, indicating an active choice to maintain political legitimacy. This association is robust to different media positioning measurements and endogeneity checks. Additional analyses show that this relationship is more pronounced in central government-controlled firms and regionally politically connected firms; in firms that disclose CSR reports voluntarily; and in the environment where CSR are more valued (following the 2012 national Anti-corruption Campaign and in provinces with higher levels of marketization). Overall, our study suggests that media positioning can help to identify the motivation for conducting CSR.     

Institutional and corporate drivers of global talent management: Evidence from the Arab Gulf region

This study analyses how talent management (TM) is molded by institutional and corporate drivers. We borrow from the vast institutional literature to understand how organizations adopt and implement TM practices within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) context. This context is valuable not only because it tackles an under-researched region, but also because the type of variables found further our understanding of TM processes in non-Western contexts. Companies abide by localization rules to sustain their “legal” legitimacy, while trying to improve efficiency through actions that enhance their economic sustainability. Companies try to strike a strategic balance between local adaptation and global assimilation of their TM processes. We conclude by presenting a framework that portrays how various forces impact the TM process.     

The role of corporate governance in FDI decisions: Evidence from Taiwan

There has been a considerable literature on the determinants of why firms undertake foreign direct investment (FDI), but very little on whether firms with different governance characteristics are more or less likely to venture overseas. For example, are family-controlled firms more predisposed to FDI than firms, with similar attributes, but different forms of ownership? Does the presence of institutional shareholders suggest a greater propensity to invest abroad? Does the composition of the Board of Directors have an impact? Most extant studies of corporate governance focus on the impact of governance factors on firm performance. However, these performance outcomes are a function of the strategic decisions made by the firms, which suggests it might be useful to consider the relationship between corporate governance factors and particular strategic decisions. One example is the decision to undertake foreign direct investment. The two main strands of IB literature on the determinants of FDI have little or nothing to say about how corporate governance factors might affect the FDI decision. Both internalisation theory and the resource-based view see FDI primarily as a means by which firms can appropriate rents in overseas markets from the exploitation of their idiosyncratic resources and capabilities. This paper extends this literature by investigating the effects of governance factors on the decision to undertake FDI. In particular, we want to assess the impact upon the FDI decision of (a) the extent of family control, (b) the presence of domestic and foreign institutional shareholders, and (c) the composition of the Board of Directors. We investigate these effects using a sample of 228 publicly listed firms in Taiwan, and our results clearly indicate that family control and share ownership by domestic financial institutions in Taiwanese firms are associated with the decision to undertake FDI. We also find that corporate governance impacts in different ways with regard to Taiwanese FDI in China in comparison to Taiwanese FDI in the rest of the world.