The Impact of Internet Investor Relations on the Cost of Capital: Evidence from Companies Listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange

Given the voluntary nature of internet investor relations (IIR), the decision to engage can be viewed in terms of a cost–benefit framework. This study aims to investigate one potential benefit of IIR: a reduction in the cost of capital (measured as the weighted average cost of equity and cost of debt). Contrary to the majority of related studies to date that have used either an indirect proxy or examined the annual report, this study entails a content analysis of corporate websites using a comprehensive measurement instrument. IIR is found to be significantly and negatively related to the cost of debt. Although the level of IIR is also found to be significantly and negatively related to the cost of equity, this association only prevails after an adjustment is made to the cost of equity of smaller companies. Finally, the level of IIR is found to be significantly and negatively related to the cost of capital, both before and after an adjustment to the cost of equity of smaller companies is made. Although the current study deals with Johannesburg Stock Exchange data, the problem investigated is universal in nature and according to our knowledge, this is the first study to comprehensively examine the impact of IIR on the cost of capital.     

The role of pay secrecy policies and employee secrecy preferences in shaping job attitudes

Although pay secrecy continues to garner attention in human resource management, little research examines how these policies impact employees. Research inconsistently links secretive pay policies to unfavourable outcomes but has yet to consider that employees may have varying attitudes toward these policies. We examine how employee preferences modify the effect that organisational pay secrecy policies have on employee attitudes in a sample of 431 employed adults. To accomplish this goal, we create measures of pay secrecy policies and pay secrecy preferences that each differentiate two facets of pay secrecy: distributive pay non‐disclosure and communication restriction. Polynomial and moderated regression analyses indicated that disparities between employee preferences and organisational pay secrecy policies can reduce job satisfaction and perceptions of informational, interpersonal, and procedural justice under certain circumstances. These results simultaneously highlight the importance of employee attitudes toward pay secrecy policies and the challenges human resource practitioners face in managing employees with diverse preferences.     

Integrated Thinking and the Transparency of Tax Disclosures in the Corporate Reports of Firms

The purpose of our study was to link two global corporate developments, namely integrated thinking and the transparency of tax disclosures. The International Integrated Reporting Council's long‐term vision is for integrated thinking to be embedded in mainstream business practice, facilitated by integrated reporting. The development of the transparency of tax disclosures was driven by tax avoidance practices of multinational companies. The vision of embedding integrated thinking into mainstream business and the increased focus on the transparency of tax disclosures have developed independently, but thus far there has been no serious consideration of how they may be related. We argue that there is a natural relationship between these two developments. We use PwC's (2014) framework for measuring the transparency of tax disclosures and apply the framework to the corporate reports of a sample of 45 large firms. We use regression analysis to test the association between the transparency of tax disclosures in corporate reports and integrated thinking and find them to be positively associated.     

The European airline industry. A banker''s view

For those institutions which finance the aerospace industries, it is useful to estimate what the consequences will be of the present liberalisation process which has beset the European airline industry. Consequently ABN AMRO Bank is in the process of developing a model which analyses those factors which are crucial to the survival of an airline. These so called critical success factors appeared to be: financial strength, cost structure, domestic market, size of operations, internationalisation and political support. When we applied these factors to the European airline industry, we found that only a limited number of airlines stand a fair chance of surviving the anticipated restructuring process as an independent carrier. Several carriers will either have to merge with stronger partners or they face bankruptcy. Based on the critical success factors, the larger northern carriers enjoy the strongest positions. From amongst the southern airlines, those with a large domestic market and strong political support have a chance to survive, provided they will be able to adjust their cost structure in time.     

Implications for food production potential of future urban expansion in Ontario

The paper describes the application of an evaluation system to assess the flexibility that would exist in the use of Ontario's agricultural land resources under alternative urban growth scenarios. A programming method is employed, but the analysis does not yield a “best” or “predicted” allocation of land use; rather, the system gauges the degree to which options in the use of land are affected by changes in conditions, and identifies those land areas which are strategically important for particular uses given the specified conditions. The conditions are specified to reflect possible patterns of urban and exurban development, both with and without policy controls. The analysis provides evaluations of both the pressures on the land resources if food production requirements are to be met, and the importance of particular land units for agriculture if the requirements are to be met, under the alternative urban growth scenarios.