Value relevance of blog visibility

This study empirically examines the effect of a non-traditional information source, namely a firm's blog visibility on the capital market valuation of firms. After controlling for earnings, book value of equity and other value relevant variables, such as traditional media exposure, R&D spending, and advertising expense, we find a positive association between a firm's blog visibility and its capital market valuation. In addition, we find blog visibility Grange causes trading, not vice versa. Our findings indicate that non-traditional information sources such as blogs help disseminate information and influence consumers' investment decisions by capturing their attention.     

Franchising and firm financial performance among U.S. restaurants

Franchising has attracted the attention of retailing and entrepreneurship scholars in the past three decades, but evidence pertaining to how franchising affects financial performance is mixed and inconclusive. Thus, the question remains as to whether franchising firms exhibit better financial performance than non-franchising firms in the same industry. In order to find an answer to this question, our study compares the risk-adjusted financial performance of franchising versus non-franchising restaurant firms over the 1995–2008 interval, using five different performance measures: the Sharpe Ratio, the Treynor Ratio, the Jensen Index, the Sortino Ratio, and the Upside Potential Ratio. For each measure, the results revealed that franchising restaurant firms outperformed their non-franchising counterparts. Thus, we provide very robust evidence that franchising is superior on average in the restaurant industry, which can help explain the increasing popularity of franchising as a business form.     

Australian Socially Responsible Funds: Performance,Risk and Screening Intensity

We investigate the performance and risk of Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) equity funds in the Australian market and find no significant difference between the returns of SRI and conventional funds. In an extension to prior literature, we examine the impact of the number of positive, negative and total screens funds impose on performance and risk. We find little evidence of positive or negative screening impacting total return, but find weak evidence that funds with more screens overall provide better risk-adjusted performance. Positive screening significantly reduces funds’ risk. However, negative screening significantly increases risk and reduces funds’ abilities to form diversified portfolios.     

How do bankruptcy laws affect entrepreneurship development around the world?

How do bankruptcy laws as formal institutions affect entrepreneurship development around the world? Do entrepreneur-friendly bankruptcy laws encourage more entrepreneurship development at a societal level? We posit that if bankrupt entrepreneurs are excessively punished for failure, they may give up potentially high-return but inherently high-risk opportunities to start new businesses. Amassing a cross-country database from 29 countries spanning 19 years (1990-2008), we find that lenient, entrepreneur-friendly bankruptcy laws are significantly correlated with the level of entrepreneurship development as measured by the rate of new firm entry.     

Configuring a corporate venturing portfolio to create growth value: Within-portfolio diversity and strategic linkage

This study attempted an empirical investigation of whether and how a corporate investor can enhance future growth opportunities through corporate venturing investments (CVIs). Different from previous studies, we assessed the firm-level performance impact of a CVI portfolio with a focus on two configuration features: within-portfolio diversity and strategic linkage. Based on a longitudinal dataset of CVIs made by Taiwanese technology-based companies, we found that increasing CVI portfolio diversity and maintaining strategic linkages, particularly vertical ones, between the portfolio companies and the investing firm's core business will add value to the investing firm's future growth. Implications for CVI strategy and opportunities for future research are also discussed.     

Segmenting industrial competitive markets: An example from air freight

This paper applies a disaggregated approach to segment industrial markets under competitive structures taking the air-freight market for the high-technology product industry in Taiwan as a case study. Data from firms is used to examine the structure of the air freight industry and we find that carriers are clustered into two strategic groups, express and forwarder. Pricing is a leading strategy recognized by customers for forwarders, whereas service punctuality and freight security are the winning strategies for express. The high-tech freight market is classifiable by shipment destination and size.