The role of hostile stakes in German corporate governance

This article uses clinical evidence to show how the German system of corporate control and governance is both more active and more hostile than has previously been suggested. It provides a complete breakdown of ownership and takeover defence patterns in German listed companies and finds highly fragmented (but not dispersed) ownership in non-majority controlled firms. We document how the accumulation of hostile stakes can be used to gain control of target companies given these ownership patterns. The article also suggests an important role for banks in helping predators accumulate, and avoid the disclosure of, large stakes.     

Does Motivation Matter When Assessing Trade Performance? An Analysis of Mutual Funds

We relate the performance of mutual fund trades to their motivation.A fund manager who buys stocks when there are heavy investoroutflows is likely to be motivated by the belief that the stocksare significantly undervalued. In contrast, when there are heavyinflows, the manager is likely to be motivated to work off excessliquidity by buying stocks. Our analysis reveals that managersmaking purely valuation-motivated purchases substantially beatthe market but are unable to do so when compelled to investexcess cash from investor inflows. A similar, but weaker, patternis found for stocks that are sold. (JEL G11, G29)     

The Russian tax reform

In the years 2000 and 2001 the Russian parliament passed tax laws which revolutionised the tax system. The laws on both direct and indirect taxes were substantially altered—with the result that Russia today has a modern and internationally competitive tax system which may even serve as a model for tax reform in the industrialised countries of the West. The following article describes the old tax system, its evolution and its economic effects, outlines the main features of the new system, gives examples for the positive effects it has already had and, finally, makes some propositions for further reform.     

Trading around macroeconomic announcements: Are all traders created equal?

This paper examines the effects of macroeconomic announcements on equity index markets using high frequency transactions data for the regular and E-mini S&P 500 index futures contracts. For ten types of announcements that significantly affect prices, we analyze the price adjustment process and the trading patterns of exchange locals and off-exchange customers around the announcements. We find a large increase in trading activity immediately after the announcement. The results also show that during this initial surge in trading activity, locals are able to time their trades better than off-exchange traders even when locals do not have the advantage of access to the order flow. The trading strategy followed by exchange locals in the first 20 seconds after the announcement tends to be profitable, while off-exchange traders tend to make losing trades over the same time period. These results lend evidence that local traders tend to react to the macroeconomic information faster than off-exchange traders.     

Collaborative design research: Lessons from continuous auditing

In this paper we discuss Collaborative Design Research – a hybrid methodology for undertaking design science research in collaboration with industry partners – that has been applied to the area of Continuous Auditing and which also has wider applicability to AIS research. Collaborative Design Research has a role at the time in the evolution of a field when early adopting practitioners have made the decision to implement an innovation, but there is as yet no established product or set of best practices that makes it obvious what they should do. We discuss eight key issues facing researchers attempting to do collaborative design research: 1) choice of implementation partner (IP), 2) choice of projects, 3) managing expectations, 4) building on the expertise of the IP, 5) introducing innovation to the IP, 6) project evaluation and reassessment, 7) cost and resource management, and 8) publishing results.     

Forms of cross‐border mobility and social capital in multinational enterprises

This paper discusses how different forms of cross‐border employee mobility all contribute to establishing social ties across different units of multinational enterprises (MNEs). Despite the growing recognition of the significance of employees' cross‐unit social ties in MNEs for both individuals and the organisation, the mechanisms for creating such ties remain underspecified. We contribute to closing this gap by identifying the role that an array of forms of international mobility can play in promoting employees' (cross‐unit) social ties inside MNEs. We draw upon empirical accounts of the job‐related international mobility experiences of 72 high‐skilled employees in three leading MNEs in the mobile telecommunications sector. Guided by a framework that utilizes some of the key concepts of the debate on social ties and social capital, we discuss traditional expatriation, short‐term assignments, localised transfers and business travel in terms of the structure and strength of the cross‐unit ties they engender, as well as their accessibility. We find (1) that it is not only traditional long‐term assignments in the form of expatriation that enable individuals to create cross‐unit social ties; and, (2) that different forms of international mobility promote cross‐unit social ties in variable ways and to different extents.