Firm-Specific Characteristics and the Timing of Foreign Direct Investment Projects

This paper uses a proportional hazard model to study foreign direct investment by Japanese manufacturers in Europe between 1970 and 1994. We divide each firm’s investment total into a sequence of individual investment decisions and analyze how firm-specific characteristics affect each decision. We find that total factor productivity is a significant determinant of a firm’s initial and subsequent investments. Parent-firm size does not have a significant influence on the initial decision to invest. Large firms simply have more investments than smaller firms. Other firm-specific characteristics, such as the R&D intensity, export share and keiretsu membership, also play a role in the investment process. JEL no. F23, L20     

Strategic individual assessment: Issues in providing reliable descriptions

Individual assessment involves one psychologist making an assessment of an individual for personnel-related purposes. Individual assessment practice is reviewed, and research on reliability is presented. A study examining the comparability of conclusions reached by consumers is presented. Eighty-six students and thirty-eight managers read nine narrative assessment reports (three of each of three job candidates) and attempted to determine which reports described the same candidate. None of the subjects could correctly group the nine reports; a sizeable proportion did no better than chance in grouping the reports. Implications for assessors and consumers of individual assessments are discussed.     

Do Termination Provisions Truncate the Takeover Bidding Process?

We provide new evidence on termination provisions and the takeoverbidding process. Our central contribution is a novel databasefrom Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) documents thataccurately measures the incidence of termination provisionsand the depth of competition in takeover deals. We show thatbiased data in prior research produced incorrect conclusionson the relation between termination provisions and judicialdecisions, bidder toeholds, and deal size. Our comprehensivedata also show that termination provisions are positively relatedto takeover competition. Our evidence is consistent with theinformation/commitment hypothesis in which termination provisionsdo not truncate bidding but instead culminate the takeover process.(JEL G34; K22; D44).     

Intraday time and order execution quality dimensions

We examine intraday execution quality patterns on Nasdaq stocks using proprietary order-level data from a US broker dealer. Orders submitted midday execute slower than orders submitted around the open and close. However, midday orders have lower execution costs. Our results indicate that execution speed and execution cost exhibit offsetting intraday time-dependent patterns and these patterns appear to be induced by variations in informed trading levels. While some traders concentrate their trading activity around the open and close, others prefer to trade midday. Traders have varying preferences for when to trade, and offsetting patterns exist between speed and cost. These factors highlight the complexity in defining an optimal trading time, which, among other things, is dependent on the dimensional preferences of individual traders.     

Who's in charge here? Co‐CEOs,power gaps,and firm performance

At the pinnacles of organizations, comparative tests of unity of command and shared command are nearly impossible because only one individual sits atop most organizations. In organizations led by co‐CEOs, however, such a test is possible because co‐CEOs can truly share power. But do they? Our research pits the unity‐of‐command principle against the shared‐command principle and finds overall support for the former, even within the co‐CEO context. Our sample of 71 co‐CEO pairs at publicly traded U.S. firms shows that increasing power gaps between co‐CEOs are positively associated with firm performance. This positive association wanes and turns negative, however, as power gaps become very large. We conclude that whatever benefits the co‐CEO structure might offer likely lie outside the shared command paradigm. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.