Political ideology and CEO performance under crisis

Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting - Management quality is known to influence depository institution performance, but less understood are the characteristics of managers that influence...     

Changes to mutual fund risk: Intentional or mean reverting?

An empirical issue is whether a mutual fund’s change in intertemporal risk is intentional or arises from risk mean reversion. Our methodology uses actual fund trades to identify funds that actively change risk. Funds that are statistically identified as trading to change return variance or tracking error variance do not exhibit risk mean reversion. Mostly, funds trade to reduce risk and, in particular, tracking error variance. This is most evident for funds that previously attained a low tracking error variance. We find no evidence of a relation between past performance and intended changes to return variance or tracking error variance.     

Changes in accounting and financial information system in a Spanish electricity company: A new institutional theory analysis

This paper reports on the results of an intensive case study that investigated changes in the accounting and financial information system of a large Spanish electricity company (Sevillana). Sevillana was acquired by the Endesa Group upon the deregulation of the Spanish electricity sector (SES). Drawing on data from multiple sources including interviews, observations, discussions and documents, the paper aims to theorize the change in the accounting and financial information system. An integrated accounting and financial information system was imposed by the Endesa head office on Sevillana and other Endesa subsidiaries to support organizational changes designed in response to regulatory requirements. The institutional senvironment also interacted with market forces and intra-organizational power relations to either directly or indirectly influence the changes in the accounting and financial information system. Given the interplay between these forces, the paper draws on and extends the New Institutional Sociology (NIS) theory [DiMaggio, P.J., Powell, W.W., 1983. The iron cage revisited: institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields. Am. Sociol. Rev. 48, 147–160; Powell, W.W., DiMaggio, P.J., 1991. The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. The University of Chicago Press, pp. 183-203] to understand the dynamics of the change.     

Search behavior of the diversified firm: The impact of fit on innovation

This paper provides a new approach to account for the relationship between diversification and innovation by integrating insights concerning strategic fit. We argue that the type of diversification strategy leads to greater innovation output when the appropriate technological search strategy is employed. Using a longitudinal study of the patenting activity of 258 manufacturing firms, we find that strategic fit is important for innovation output. More specifically, a related diversification strategy leads to greater innovation when firms use a narrow technological search strategy. In contrast, an unrelated diversification strategy leads to greater innovation when a broader technological search strategy is used. Implications for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluating renewable energy policies

The merits of renewable energy, of targeted renewable energy policies, and appropriate evaluation methods, are each contested at various levels including national politics and in energy policy literature. Here, first a range of renewable energy goals across countries and the policies directed at achieving those objectives are reviewed. Second, the arguments advanced to support use of renewable energy policies in many nations are critiqued. Third, some principles are proposed for design of renewable energy policies. Context always matters, and it is essential to consider energy, economic, and geography opportunities and constraints before developing renewable energy policies. Fourth, to ensure renewable energy policies contribute towards attainment of high‐level national goals, a decision support approach is outlined that considers the energy context, and asks a series of evaluation questions to aid identification of first best policy measures. Fifth, barriers to and benefits from implementation of appropriate renewable energy policies are briefly reviewed.     

Value-at-Risk in Bakery Procurement

This case study applies value-at-risk methods to a bread baking company to illustrate how it can be used by a commodity processor in reporting risk, evaluating risk reduction alternatives, and setting risk limits. Results indicate that value-at-risk can be a useful tool for managing the price risk exposure in this agricultural processing firm. It provides a single measure of risk exposure and accounts for the multitude of inputs that are correlated and impact the firm's risk. Value-at-risk provides an effective tool in setting risk limits, but should be complimented with management goals, competition, and conduct within the industry.     

Uncertain times and early predictions of bank failure

The Great Financial Crisis shows that bank failure in the United States, while rare, is a concern during uncertain times. Interest here is in the ability to predict future failures at the start of a crisis, when the recent past has few events on which to base inferences. I show that policy makers using estimates based on the Savings and Loans crisis would identify in early 2009 that 2.0% of banks were in critical condition and 7.0% were unhealthy. This is comparable to the 1.7% of banks that failed within a year and the 3.9% of banks that would fail during the crisis.     

Does gender influence managers’ ethics? A cross‐cultural analysis

The relationship between gender and ethics has been extensively researched. However, previous studies have assumed that the gender–ethics association is constant; hence, scholars have seldom investigated factors potentially affecting the gender–ethics association. Thus, using managers as the research target, this study examined the relationship between gender and ethics and analyzed the moderating effect of cultural values on the gender–ethics association. The results showed that, compared with female managers, their male counterparts are more willing to justify business‐related unethical behaviors such as bribery and tax evasion, and that the gender difference in ethics becomes more pronounced under the cultural dimensions of collectivism, humane orientation, performance orientation, and gender egalitarianism. This study used data obtained through surveying 2,754 managers in 27 nations.