The effect of non-convertible preferred stock retirement on shareholder wealth

In this paper the authors examine the common stock price behavior of firms that call their non-convertible preferred stock. The findings for the entire sample of preferred stock calls are consistent with the Modigliani and Miller (MM) leverage hypothesis that preferred stock financing adds no value to the firm. However, for those firms whose preferred stock was completely eliminated from the capital structure, a significant, positive announcement effect is observed. This finding is consistent with an information signaling effect related to the earnings prospects and tax status of the calling firms and also is suggestive of a burdensome covenant effect. No evidence is found to support the free cash flow theory of common stock price reactions to preferred stock calls.     

Cultural Immersion Trip to Southeast Asia: A Study of Cross-Cultural Intelligence

ABSTRACT

The primary purpose of this article is to demonstrate the execution of a successful short- term study trip to Southeast Asia and its influence on a student’s cultural intelligence. This article discusses an academic component of an international study trip that was developed for sophomores at a private university in the New England region of the United States. In an attempt to internationalize, the university led students on a 2-week international trip to Malaysia and Singapore known as the Sophomore International Experience. The authors have developed a model that combines an academically rigorous curriculum that juxtaposes domestic events/experiences with those of the foreign country and propose that the trip gives students first- hand international experience that prepares them to develop a global perception. The article evaluates the validity of the proposed theory with the help of the Cultural Intelligence Scale that measures significance improvements in cultural intelligence after taking the trip.     

Real effects of social trust on firm performance during COVID-19

This study uses a difference-in-differences estimation method to address potential endogeneity between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm performance using a natural experiment of COVID-19, with a cross-country sample of 80,454 firm-quarter observations across 51 countries. We find that high-CSR firms show better performance, raise more debt, and invest more during COVID-19. The positive effect of CSR on firm performance is more pronounced in countries with better governance and among non- International Financial Reporting Standards adopters. Our findings suggest that when trust in firms and markets falls during an economic crisis, the trust established between a firm and its stakeholders via socially responsible behavior pays off.     

Illegibly legible: Outcomes of a land records modernisation programme in South India

This article analyses an initiative in 2017 to update and digitise textual land records in Telangana, a south Indian state. Its premise is that experiments to modernise land records have not met with pre-determined standards of success due, primarily, to the historically evolved contradictions around land as a resource and a commodity. In countries like India, the colonial policies on land and the post-colonial success of landlords to manipulate land records had already left the post-War task of ensuring conclusive land titles intractable. In more recent times, however, the agenda of land records modernisation has been absorbed by neoliberalism, which aims to create free land markets and replace traditional subsidies with direct cash transfers. This article shows that, consequently, the task of land records modernisation in Telangana became disembedded from agendas of agrarian egalitarianism and was rendered more complex—historical errors and exclusions were reproduced in new ways; technocratic solutions of the bureaucracy made governmental processes opaque; landed sections continued to subvert implementation; tenants were excluded from the land titles; and there were fears that the scheme would be misused to ease corporate land acquisition. Land records modernisation remains important for agrarian reform, but its success remains contingent on a greater appreciation among policymakers for the historical and political economy aspects of land ownership and possession.     

Discerning the antecedents determining empowerment of life insurance agents: an empirical examination

The purpose of the study is to examine the determining factors which influence empowerment amongst life insurance agents in the Indian context. A questionnaire-based survey was conducted amongst 409 life insurance agents. Principal component analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were performed to identify and validate dimensions and antecedents of employee empowerment. Later, using multivariate multiple regression analysis, the relative importance of these factors in influencing psychological empowerment is empirically tested. The results of analysis indicate that rewards work as an important antecedent for building psychological empowerment, followed by self-efficacy and self-esteem. Even though access to information is reported as a significant antecedent, it was found to be the least important one in determining psychological empowerment. Insights generated in this paper provide guidelines in understanding critical antecedents of psychological empowerment amongst life insurance agents and also suggest implications for better managerial practice.