Business cycles,financial cycles and capital structure

We perform peridogram based cycle analysis of firm capital structure and find evidence that firms’ leverage is both persistent and cyclical. The cyclicality of leverage is supported by the trade-off, pecking order and market timing capital structure theories (Korajczyk and Levy in J Financ Econ 68:75–109, 2003; Bhamra et al. in Rev Financ Stud 23:645–703, 2010). Although market timing theory research supports persistence, previous literature dictates that the trade-off and pecking order theories may predict either persistent or mean reverting leverage. Our tests reject mean reversion in favor of persistent and cyclical leverage. We corroborate pecking order theory literature that predicts leverage is persistent. In these models, when firms’ investment spending is below earnings, leverage decreases. In addition, we examine whether firms change their capital structure as a result of business and financial cycles. Since financial cycles last longer than business cycles, financial cycles should have a long term effect on leverage. Our findings confirm the persistent leverage business cycle models that suggest firms change their capital structure due to financial and credit cycles (Jermann and Quadrini in Am Econ Rev 102:238–271, 2012; Azariadis et al. in Rev Econ Stud 83:1364–1405, 2016). We conclude that leverage is persistent due to the cyclicality of the financing decision.     

Leading knowledge-workers through situated ambiguity

The paper explores how formal leaders make sense of and deal with autonomy of knowledge-workers. Based on interviews, I suggest that leaders make sense of knowledge-workers’ autonomy as ranging from perfectly autonomous to too autonomous to less independent to acting childish. This ambiguity was dealt with by making sense of leading as ranging from facilitative and supportive approaches to more controlling, even reprimanding acts. This empirical investigation of constructions of ‘leader/ship’ and ‘followers’ contributes to leader/ship-follower/ship literature. The paper’s contribution to theory lies in the notion of situated ambiguity; a way to understand the emerging way through which formal leaders navigate and smoothly move between their own differing perspectives, different practical situations, various culturally acceptable understandings of leaders and knowledge-workers.     

An examination of the nature of the relationship between Leader-Member-Exchange (LMX) and turnover intent at different organizational levels

The present study investigates the nature of the relationship between Leader-Member-Exchange (LMX) quality and turnover intent in the South Korean hospitality industry. Self-administered survey questionnaires were collected from 232 frontline workers as well as 88 supervisors employed in hotel properties. Prior research has produced mixed results, finding linear relationships between LMX quality and turnover intent in some studies and non-linear relationships in others. Traditional hierarchical regression analyses were performed to test the nature of the relationship in these two samples. We found evidence for a U-shaped curvilinear relationship between LMX and turnover intent for non-supervisory employees, but only a linear relationship for supervisory employees. Conceptual and practical implications and recommendations for future research are provided.     

The marketing of hamburger buns

It is apparent that the return percentages have been drastically reduced by using only the primary variable of temperature. The actual return percentage would have been even higher except that some route men ran out of hamburger buns and therefore had no returns. This did not show up in the aggregate figures because these were more than balanced by a surplus returned by the majority of route men.     

Crowdsourcing and work: individual factors and circumstances influencing employability

The development of a fast and reliable Internet, new technologies online payment systems, and changes in work structure that enable and demand flexible working patterns have driven a move to a new form of Internet‐enabled labour exchange called crowdsourcing. Evidence from an in‐depth qualitative study is presented, focusing on selected users' interactions and experiences of working on two UK‐based crowdsourcing platforms. The paper shows that workers engaged in this form of labour exchange need to deploy existing employability skills and networks to effectively meet the challenges, and take advantage of the opportunities, that crowdsourcing presents. Individual factors and circumstances emerge as paramount for workers' continued engagement in this form of employment. Using selected components from an employability framework, the findings suggest that crowdsourcing can offer new pathways to practising skills and enhancing employability for some workers.     

New Canadian Accounting Standards for Private Enterprises and the Adoption Timing Decision

Prior research into the adoption timing decision of organisations in relation to newly promulgated accounting standards has focused exclusively on public enterprises and used economic cost–benefit frameworks as a main method of analysis. The current study examines the impact of a broader range of factors, including cost–benefit considerations, on the adoption timing decision of private firms with respect to the new set of Canadian accounting standards for private enterprises released in 2009. These factors were organised into a coherent framework using the theory of planned behaviour. The survey findings reveal that several items related to attitudes towards the behaviour, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control play a significant role in managers’ adoption behaviour. This study provides relevant insights for private enterprise managers, financial statement users, standard setters and academics.     

Analyst information production and the timing of annual earnings forecasts

We investigate whether the reputation-herding theory or the tradeoff theory explains variation in the timing of individual analysts’ forecasts. Using forecast accuracy improvements, forecast boldness, and the price impact of forecasts as measures of forecast quality, we find that in the information discovery phase that precedes an earnings announcement, earlier forecasts have higher quality than later forecasts. We also find a similar pattern in the information analysis phase that begins with the earnings announcement date. Our findings suggest that consistent with the herding theory, analysts who are more capable participate early in discovering and analyzing information, and therefore earlier forecasts in the information discovery and analysis phases are of higher quality than later forecasts in that phase.     

Women,Muslim Immigrants,and Economic Integration in France

Muslim immigrants to Europe display distinctive attitudes toward women in a wide range of survey data. This study investigates whether this translates into distinctive behavior. Relying on a dictator game in France and an identification strategy that isolates the effect of religion from typical confounds such as race, we compare the donations of matched Christian and Muslim immigrants and rooted French to in‐group and out‐group men vs. women. Our results indicate that Muslim immigrant participants deviate from Christian immigrant and rooted French participants in their behavior toward women: while the latter favor women over men, Muslim immigrants favor men over women.     

Does Accrual Management Impair the Performance of Earnings‐Based Valuation Models?

This study examines how accrual manipulations affect firm valuation in the years surrounding the passage of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act (SOX). We compare the absolute percentage pricing errors of RIM and DCF valuation models for a group of US firms suspected to have engaged in accrual manipulations to avoid a small loss or a small earnings decline vs. ‘Normal’ firms matched on industry, year and size. We find that RIM can better estimate intrinsic value than DCF for the matched Normal firms in the pre‐SOX period, but not so for accrual manipulators, and that SOX mitigates the harmful effect of accrual manipulations, completely eliminating the difference in RIM's accuracy advantage over DCF between Normal firms and accrual manipulators. As a further analysis, we redefine Suspect firms as real‐activity manipulators and find a significant across‐group difference in accuracy wedge in both sample periods, implying that SOX has prompted firms to favor real‐activity manipulations over accrual manipulations.