Small firms and the value of improvements in corporate governance mechanisms

Since 2002, many firms have been required to alter their board of directors and committees to increase management monitoring. Kinney and McDaniel (1989) and Chhaochharia and Grinstein (2007) provide empirical evidence suggesting that investments in corporate governance may differ based on firm size, and that under-investing in monitoring may be more pronounced in smaller firms. To further test whether the benefits of recent changes in companies' governance mechanisms accrue to smaller firms that have underinvested in governance, we examine the stock market reaction to changes in board structure over the twenty-four months following the passage of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act. We construct a new composite measure of board structure and regress buy-and-hold abnormal returns on changes that occur in the Board Structure Index, finding that improvements in corporate governance quality result in economically significant abnormal returns accruing only to the smaller firms with weak initial board structures.     

Developing a Learning Community Approach to Business Ethics Education

In this paper we discuss a project, still in progress, that moves away from a traditional lecture based educational pedagogy. We present a team taught approach to ethics teaching that embraces a progressive philosophy of education and is focused on the development of a discussion based learning community. We describe our primary pedagogical tools of case discussion and the development of student expert role assignments as a locus, and how they relate to the learning community, course content and course objectives. Finally, we provide our preliminary review of outcomes and emerging issues.     

A Cross-Cultural Examination of the Endorsement of Ethical Leadership

The western-based leadership and ethics literatures were reviewed to identify the key characteristics that conceptually define what it means to be an ethical leader. Data from the Global Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness (GLOBE) project were then used to analyze the degree to which four aspects of ethical leadership – Character/Integrity, Altruism, Collective Motivation, and Encouragement – were endorsed as important for effective leadership across cultures. First, using multi-group confirmatory factor analyses measurement equivalence of the ethical leadership scales was found, which provides indication that the four dimensions have similar meaning across cultures. Then, using analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests each of the four dimensions were found to be universally endorsed as important for effective leadership. However, cultures also varied significantly in the degree of endorsement for each dimension. In the increasingly global business environment, these findings have implications for organizations implementing ethics programs across cultures and preparing leaders for expatriate assignments. Christian J. Resick is Assistant Professor of Industrial and Organizational Psychology at Florida International University. His research is aimed at understanding how people interact with and influence various aspects of their work environments, including cultures, climates, leaders, and teammates along with the implications for various aspects of organizational behavior. A particular focus of Christian’s work examines ethical leadership and the critical linkages between leadership and organizational ethics. He received his Ph.D. from Wayne State University. Paul J. Hanges is a professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Maryland and the head of the Industrial/Organizational Psychology program in the department. He is an affiliate of the Cognitive Psychology program and the R. H. Smith School of Business. Paul’s research focuses on three topics (a) social cognition, leadership, and cross-cultural issues; (b) personnel selection, test fairness, and racial/gender discrimination; and (c) research methodology. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Applied Psychology and The Leadership Quarterly and is a fellow of the Society of Industrial and Organizational Psychology and the American Psychological Association. Marcus W. Dickson is Associate Professor of I/O Psychology at Wayne State University in Detroit. His research generally focuses on issues of leadership and culture (both organizational and societal), and the interaction of those constructs. He is a former Co-Principal Investigator of the GLOBE Project, and his work has appeared in Journal of Applied Psychology, Applied Psychology: An International Review, and The Leadership Quarterly, among others. Jacqueline K. Mitchelson is a doctoral candidate in Industrial and Organizational Psychology at Wayne State University. Her current research areas are leadership, organizational culture, individual differences and work-family conflict.     

The determinants and effects of actual,abandoned and contested mergers

This paper reports the results of research aimed at exploring why some takeover bids give rise to merger while other do not and, using as a basis of comparison matched samples of actual and abandoned mergers, the performance effects of mergers. In this work, 50 cases of abandoned mergers occurring between 1965 and 1975 were analysed against a matched sample of 50 actual mergers. In addition, 33 cases of contested bids were also analysed. Variables used reflected managerial, shareholder and financial strength considerations. Analysis covered a period three years before to three years after each bid. Techniques of analysis were differences of means and discriminant analysis. The results show that there are important differences between target companies that are acquired and those that successfully resist takeover bids. They also show the influence of managerial and financial variables as the key to a successful takeover bid rather than variables reflecting shareholder interests. Analysis of the effects of the outcome of the bids suggests that companies involved in abandoned mergers recorded a stronger performance over the subsequent 1–3 years than those that made acquisitions, especially where shareholder and financial considerations are concerned. Target companies that resisted takeover bids showed a significant performance improvement.     

论贸易自由化对澳大利亚制造业中的横向、纵向行业内交易的影响

一、前言 尽管有大量的有关行业内贸易（IIT，即同时出口和进口类似的产品）现象的文献，但经验的结果是不一致的。除了变量度量的问题外，未能把IIT分成横向差异产品交易和纵向差异产品交易或许也是个起作用的因素。最普遍的IIT指数——格拉贝-劳埃德（GL）指数确实没有分清横向差异产品和纵向差异产品；尽管事实上理论已表明这两类产品的决定因素是不同的。这已在近年来的大量经验研究中得到了再证实。横向的IIT指的是特征或属性不同的类似产品的交易，而纵向IIT则是涉及质量不同的类似产品的交易。克鲁格曼（1980，1988）和兰开斯特（1980）已证明了横向IIT是受规模经济和偏好多样化影响的，而法尔维（1981）则证明了具备的生产要素决定纵向IIT。因此，IIT必须被分成横向差异产品交易和纵向差异产品交易并被分别建模。将这两者混淆可能产生矛盾的结果。     

Corruption: what are the effects on government effectiveness? Empirical evidence considering developed and developing countries

This study analyses the impact of corruption on government effectiveness for a sample of 130 countries. The findings suggest that less-corrupt countries have better quality of public service, better quality in the formulation and adoption of policies and greater credibility and government's commitment to such policies. The findings also suggest that the effect of corruption on government effectiveness is higher in developed countries. Moreover, the estimates also reveal that countries with the most indebted governments and with higher inflation rates have less-efficient governments, and an increase in rule of law represents a good strategy to improve government effectiveness. In turn, regarding developing countries, the findings show that countries with more democratic regimes have a higher degree of government effectiveness.     

An alternative interpretation of the discontinuity in earnings distributions

We show that the asymmetric effects of income taxes and special items for profit and loss firms contribute to a discontinuity at zero in the distribution of earnings. Income taxes draw profit observations towards zero while negative special items pull loss observations away from zero. These earnings components are thus expected to contribute to a discontinuity even in the absence of discretion. We show our results are not an artifact of deflation and that other common components of earnings do not have similar effects on the earnings distribution around zero.

The Joint Effects of Justice Climate,Group Moral Identity,and Corporate Social Responsibility on the Prosocial and Deviant Behaviors of Groups

While research has focused on why certain entrepreneurs elect to create innovative solutions to social problems, very little is known about why some social entrepreneurs choose to scale their solutions while others do not. Research on scaling has generally focused on organizational characteristics often overlooking factors at the individual level that may affect scaling decisions. Drawing on the multidimensional construct of moral intensity, we propose a theoretical model of ethical decision making to explain why a social entrepreneur’s perception of moral intensity of the social problem, coupled with their personal desire for control, can significantly influence scaling decisions. Specifically, we propose that higher levels of perceived moral intensity will positively influence the likelihood of scaling through open as opposed to closed modes in order to achieve greater speed and scope of social impact. However, we also propose this effect will be negatively moderated by a social entrepreneur’s higher levels of desire for control. Our model has implications for research and practice at the interface of ethics and social entrepreneurship.