Board size,corporate regulations and firm valuation in an emerging market: a simultaneous equation approach

We investigate the association between board size and firm valuation for a sample of 169 firms from 2002 to 2011 in South Africa (SA). The SA corporate context is interestingly and uniquely characterised by an urgency to meet affirmative action regulations, such as black empowerment in board appointments, limited qualified and experienced directors, especially black directors, concentrated ownership, weak enforcement of corporate regulations and greater government ownership. These features make SA corporate boards perform a weaker agency (advisory, monitoring and disciplining) role than Western European and US boards, but a stronger resource dependence role, by providing access to resources, such as business contacts and contracts. This suggests that any positive impact of board size on firm valuation is likely to depend on the effective execution of the resource dependence role more than the agency role. Our results suggest that board size has a positive association with firm valuation, consistent with larger boards providing better access to resources. Overall, our results support the resource dependence role of boards more than their agency role. The results are robust across a raft of econometric models that control for different types of endogeneity, as well as different types of accounting and market-based firm valuation measures.     

Networks of Value‐added Trade

Global value chains (GVCs) require new methods for evaluating interconnections among countries, which can no longer be accurately appraised by standard bilateral gross trade flows. This paper uses tools of network analysis to examine the evolution of value‐added trade from 1995 to 2011. GVCs are very centralised and asymmetric networks, with a few large economies acting as hubs, which exposes them to the propagation of idiosyncratic shocks. As GVCs expanded, the networks of foreign value added in exports became denser, more complex and intensively connected. The regional dimension of GVCs is still dominant but is progressively giving place to a more global network. Networks of foreign value added in goods exports outpace those of services exports. However, foreign inputs of services are important for exports of both goods and services. There is a striking rise of China as a supplier of value added, while Germany and the United States maintain a central role in GVCs over the whole period.     

Information Technology Tools in New Product Development: The Impact of Complementary Resources*,†

Emergent research has examined the antecedents to using information technology (IT) in the new product development (NPD) process and the impact of IT on NPD performance. Based on the resource‐based view (RBV) of the firm, this study hypothesizes that particular resources create IT capabilities that significantly enhance NPD outcomes. More specifically, this research extends previous work by investigating whether three complementary resources, namely an executive champion for IT, global engagement, and organizational innovativeness, influence IT capabilities (IT use frequency and IT replacement frequency), which in turn affect NPD outcomes (NPD task proficiency and NPD performance). To test the conceptual model, survey data were collected from 220 NPD and IT managers in a variety of large Japanese firms. The results show that an executive champion for IT and global engagement are predictors of both IT tool use and replacement frequency while organizational innovativeness contributes only to IT tool replacement frequency. The results also indicate that both IT tool use and replacement frequency have a positive effect on NPD task proficiency, which improves NPD performance. This research contributes to the literature by adding understanding of the role of IT in NPD at the firm level in four ways. First, it examines particular organizational complementary resources and their relationship to IT capabilities. Second, it examines the RBV and IT in the context of NPD, an important business process. Third, it measures IT usage in a more granular fashion (i.e., IT tool use frequency and IT replacement frequency) rather than simply IT usage as a dichotomy. Finally, through testing the proposed model with data collected from Japanese firms, this study provides empirical evidence from an Asian country to answer the call for more NPD research to be conducted in countries other than North American and Western European contexts. The findings of the study also provide implications for managers. Importantly, they indicate that an executive level champion for IT is a key influencer in facilitating IT usage and replacement, and likely can help generate awareness of and support for greater IT investments so the firm can create IT capabilities for effective NPD.     

La curva de Beveridge y los determinantes del emparejamiento en el mercado de trabajo

Se exploran los determinantes a corto plazo del emparejamiento entre oferta y demanda de trabajo identificando los desplazamientos de la curva de Beveridge en doce países de la OCDE entre el primer trimestre de 2000 y el cuarto trimestre de 2013. Mediante tres metodologías complementarias (examen visual, técnicas de cointegración y estimaciones no lineales), observamos que el crecimiento de la población activa, la legislación de protección del empleo y las políticas activas de mercado de trabajo (incentivos a la creación de empresas, programas de trabajo compartido) favorecen el emparejamiento, mientras que los niveles de instrucción intermedios, el desempleo de larga duración y las políticas pasivas (prestaciones por desempleo, fiscalidad del trabajo) lo dificultan.     

Distinctive Features of Environmental Innovators: An Econometric Analysis

This paper analyzes the main determinants influencing environmental innovators (i.e. firms developing or adopting environmental innovations) in Spain with respect to non‐environmental innovators. Similarly to other contributions in the literature, our results show that Spanish environmental innovators respond to regulatory stimulus in the form of demand‐pull and technology‐push instruments. They have a high internal technological capability and combine internal and external information sources, mostly in cooperation with knowledge institutions. Environmental innovators are more concentrated in mature, traditionally highly polluting sectors, but new firms are not more environmentally innovative than incumbents. Most importantly, in contrast to other environmental innovation studies, mostly carried out in a German context, we have not found evidence of a market pull from either the domestic or international markets. Furthermore, cost savings are not found to be a distinctive driver for environmental innovators. These differential results are possibly related to the special features of Spain regarding its national innovation system and the degree of stringency of environmental regulation and environmental consciousness of its consumers. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Exploring the customer's intention to switch firms: The role of customer‐related antecedents

This study examined the customer‐related antecedents of the customer's intention to switch firms. Customer citizenship behavior was a key element in this study. Scholars have extensively studied the antecedents of customer citizenship behavior. However, the way that customer citizenship behavior relates to other attitudinal variables and the intention to switch has scarcely been analyzed. The proposed hypotheses were verified using partial least squares variance‐based structural equation modeling applied to 947 users of beauty care service firms in five countries. The results suggest that customer citizenship behavior is an antecedent of satisfaction, trust, and attitudinal loyalty. Two of these variables influence customers’ intentions to abandon relationships with the service provider. The implications of these findings enhance managers’ and scholars’ understanding of the determinants of customers’ intentions to switch firms.     

Valuation of forward start options under affine jump-diffusion models

Under the general affine jump-diffusion framework of Duffie et al. [Econometrica, 2000, 68, 1343–1376], this paper proposes an alternative pricing methodology for European-style forward start options that does not require any parallel optimization routine to ensure square integrability. Therefore, the proposed methodology is shown to possess a better accuracy–efficiency trade-off than the usual and more general approach initiated by Hong [Forward Smile and Derivative Pricing. Working paper, UBS, 2004] that is based on the knowledge of the forward characteristic function. Explicit pricing solutions are also offered under the nested jump-diffusion setting proposed by Bakshi et al. [J. Finance, 1997, 52, 2003–2049], which accommodates stochastic volatility and stochastic interest rates, and different integration schemes are numerically tested.     

Abnormal Returns from Takeover Prediction Modelling: Challenges and Suggested Investment Strategies

While takeover targets earn significant abnormal returns, studies tend to find no abnormal returns from investing in predicted takeover targets. In this study, we show that the difficulty of correctly identifying targets ex ante does not fully explain the below‐expected returns to target portfolios. Target prediction models’ inability to optimally time impending takeovers, by taking account of pre‐bid target underperformance and the anticipation of potential targets by other market participants, diminishes but does not eliminate the potential profitability of investing in predicted targets. Importantly, we find that target portfolios are predisposed to underperform, as targets and distressed firms share common firm characteristics, resulting in the misclassification of a disproportionately high number of distressed firms as potential targets. We show that this problem can be mitigated, and significant risk‐adjusted returns can be earned, by screening firms in target portfolios for size, leverage and liquidity.