Gains from Corporate Multinationalism: Evidence from the China Experience

This paper examines the valuation impact of U.S. multinational corporations' expansion into the Peoples Republic of China (PRC during 1979 to 1987. The market response to the announcement of a firm's initial entry into the PRC is found to be positive and statistically significant, suggesting that expansion into China was a value-enhancing activity. Equity joint venture modes of entry are found to result in greater shareholder gains than nonequity expansion modes. The influence of degree of multinationality, market share, growth, and technology-related variables on the size of shareholder gains is also analyzed.     

Creative compliance in financial reporting

There is significant evidence of the practice of creative accounting by large listed corporations. However, little is known about the process by which such schemes are devised and succeed in escaping legal and regulatory sanction. This study examines this process of creative compliance in the case of complex convertible securities issued by U.K. listed companies between 1987 and 1990. There was an active dialectic of creativity in the design of these instruments — a shift from avoidance to rules to avoidance again. The evidence shows how a small group of professionals in finance, law and accountancy cooperated in the development of these instruments. They helped the issuers to manage their financial reporting process in a way in which compliance was assured. Where regulatees are able to command such creative compliance skills and resources, regulators may find themselves facing an uphill struggle.     

Relationship marketing

Relationship Marketing is emerging as a new phenomenon. However, relationship oriented marketing practices date back to the pre-Industrial era. In this article, we trace the history of marketing practices and illustrate how the advent of mass production, the emergence of middlemen, and the separation of the producer from the consumer in the Industrial era led to a transactional focus of marketing. Now, due to technological advances, direct marketing is staging a comeback, leading to a relationship orientation. The authors contend that with the evolution of Relationship Marketing, the hitherto prominent exchange paradigm of marketing will be insufficient to explain the growing marketing phenomena of collaborative involvement of customers in the production process. An alternate paradigm of marketing needs to be developed that is more process rather than outcome oriented, and emphasizes value creation rather than value distribution.     

Reexamination of earnings management before and after SOX: Evidence from SEC staff accounting bulletins 99-100

A substantial literature suggests that earnings management improved for U.S. firms in the post-2002 time period as a result of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (henceforth, SOX) (Coates and Srinivasan, 2014) which was passed in the latter part of 2002. However, few papers have explored the impact of the Security and Exchange Commission’s Staff Accounting Bulletins (SABs) 99-100 in the year 2000 following their passage in late 1999. As a result, some of the reductions in earnings management that prior research attributes to SOX may have been due to these two SABs. We find that in 2000 there was a significant decline in the zero earnings discontinuity in quarterly earnings considered by prior research to be evidence of earnings management to avoid small losses. Surprisingly, we find only mixed evidence that SOX provided an incremental impact to that of the SABs, which occurs mainly in the quarterly distribution of EPS rather than in scaled quarterly earnings. We also find evidence that the passage of the SABs significantly reduced the practice where firms take write-offs in the fourth quarter that turn a profit for the year into a loss. Overall, our findings suggest that the decline in quarterly earnings management started well before SOX due to the SEC’s initiatives.     

When do strategic alliances inhibit innovation by firms? Evidence from patent pools in the global optical disc industry

Research and development (R&D) consortia are specialized strategic alliances that shape the direction and scope of firm innovation activities. Little research exists on the performance consequences of participating in R&D consortia. We study the effect of patent pools, a unique form of R&D consortia, on firm performance in innovation. While prior research on alliances generally implies that patent pools enhance firm innovation, our study finds the opposite. Analyzing data on systemic innovation in the global optical disc industry, we find that patent pool formation substantially and significantly decreases both the quantity and quality of patents subsequently generated by licensors and licensees relative to the patenting activity of nonparticipants. Our empirical findings suggest that patent pools actually inhibit, rather than enhance, systemic innovation by participating firms. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Beyond local search: boundary-spanning,exploration, and impact in the optical disk industry

Recognition of the firm's tendency toward local search has given rise to concepts celebrating exploration that overcomes this tendency. To move beyond local search requires that exploration span some boundary, be it organizational or technological. While several studies have encouraged boundary-spanning exploration, few have considered both types of boundaries systematically. In doing so, we create a typology of exploration behaviors: local exploration spans neither boundary, external boundary-spanning exploration spans the firm boundary only, internal boundary-spanning exploration spans the technological boundary only, and radical exploration spans both boundaries. Using this typology, we analyze the impact of knowledge generated by these different types of exploration on subsequent technological evolution. In our study of patenting activity in optical disk technology, we find that exploration that does not span organizational boundaries consistently generates lower impact on subsequent technological evolution. In addition, we find that the impact of exploration on subsequent technological evolution within the optical disk domain is highest when the exploration spans organizational boundaries but not technological boundaries. At the same time, we find that the impact of exploration on subsequent technological development beyond the optical disk domain is greatest when exploration spans both organizational and technological boundaries. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

ILLEGAL INSIDER TRADING: IS IT RAMPANT BEFORE CORPORATE TAKEOVERS?

This paper investigates the role of insider trading as an explanation for the observed pre-announcement price run-ups for takeover targets. We hypothesize that if insider trading is a significant contributor to such price run-ups, then observed run-ups should be smaller for takeovers occurring after May 1986 (the beginning of the “insider trading scandal”) relative to those occurring prior to May 1986. The evidence suggests that insider trading is not, on average, a significant contributor to pre-announcement price run-ups.     

A Quantitative Assessment of the Finance–Growth–Innovation Nexus in EEA Countries: Evidence from a Multivariate VECM

This paper uses country-level data of European Economic Area countries between 1989 and 2016 to examine the interactions between economic growth, innovation, and financial market activities, with specific reference to the bond and insurance markets. Our intent is to know whether causality runs among these variables both ways, or not at all. Using a vector error correction model, the study finds that financial market activities and economic growth determine innovation activities in these countries. Additionally, the study also finds bidirectional Granger causality between financial market activities and economic growth, as well as between innovation activities and economic growth.