Flexibility in share repurchases: Evidence from UK

Although firms cite flexibility as important when repurchasing shares, we know little about how or why firms vary repurchases. We use an extensive sample of daily repurchase transactions from the United Kingdom to investigate how the number of repurchase days and volumes of shares repurchased change based on several known motivations. We find that stock price changes, liquidity, leverage, takeover activity and earnings per share targets impact share repurchasing patterns. Further, we compare actual repurchases to alternative share accumulation strategies and find that firms utilize flexibility without paying higher costs.     

Productivity and payout policy

I investigate how a firm's total factor productivity (TFP) is related to its payout policy. I find that firms with higher TFP are more likely to pay dividends and repurchase shares. Such firms also pay higher dividends and repurchase more shares, even after controlling for income and other factors known to affect payout policy. Results are robust to propensity score matching and other analyses, including adoption of productivity-enhancing technology. I find that firms with higher TFP earn higher future operating income; productive firms with higher agency concerns pay back more, thus draining resources that could potentially be misused.     

Social media influencers and consumer engagement: A review and future research agenda

The rise of social media influencers (SMIs) in the recent decade garnered wide interest from academicians and marketers. Academicians try to understand the effect of influencers on consumer behaviour, while marketers use influencers as part of their strategy to achieve marketing objectives. Although, plenty of practical and conceptual research is available in this area, literature reviews in the domain of SMIs and consumer engagement are scarce as it is still developing, and most of the studies have focused on these two concepts separately. In this study, the authors attempted to combine and understand how social media influencers affect consumers engagement. This systematic review of the literature offers a comprehensive view of previous research on social media influencers and consumer engagement. The study reviewed articles published in the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC), Scopus, and Web of Science indexed journals till 5 June 2021. To understand consumers' engagement with SMIs, authors identified and theorized the antecedents, decision and outcome of such engagement. It also discusses the influencer-follower parasocial relationship on different social media platforms. The study proposes an integrated conceptual framework that can be further used to test and validate the impact of social media influencer's marketing efforts on consumer engagement. This framework also may serve as a foundation for marketers to develop effective influencer strategies for brand promotions. The review concludes the discussion by highlighting theories, methodology, and context of studies conducted by past researchers.