The determinants of corporate sustainability performance

This paper investigates the factors that drive high levels of corporate sustainability performance (CSP), as proxied by membership of the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index. Using a stakeholder framework, we examine the incentives for US firms to invest in sustainability principles and develop a number of hypotheses that relate CSP to firm‐specific characteristics. Our results indicate that leading CSP firms are significantly larger, have higher levels of growth and a higher return on equity than conventional firms. Contrary to our predictions, leading CSP firms do not have greater free cash flows or lower leverage than other firms.     

The effect of Regulation Fair Disclosure on expectations management: International evidence

We examine whether Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD) was effective in limiting the expectations management of US firms as well as ADR and foreign-listed firms to meet or beat analysts’ earnings forecasts. Domestic US firms are required to comply with Reg FD; however, ADR firms are explicitly exempted from its provisions. Thus, ADR firms are thought to represent a control against which US firm expectations management is measured. We find a decrease in expectations management for both US and ADR firms. We find that the post-Reg-FD changes for US and ADR firms are not significantly different. This suggests Reg FD was not effective in limiting forecast guidance or, alternatively, both US and ADR firms responded to Reg FD by reducing forecast guidance. We provide additional evidence that ADR firms experienced a significant decrease in expectations management relative to other foreign-listed firms suggesting that ADR firms voluntarily complied with Reg FD. Overall, our evidence suggests that Reg FD worked to reduce expectations management to meet or beat expectations for both US and ADR firms.     

Lifestyle,status and occupational differentiation in Victorian accountancy

New insights are offered to the professionalization of accountants in Britain circa 1881 by examining the private foundations of occupational status and identity as manifested by domestic arrangements and residence patterns. Drawing on literature pertaining to the relationship between consumption and socio-cultural differentiation the study deploys empirical evidence from the British census to analyse status identifiers such as servant keeping, household location and neighbourhood composition. These aspects of lifestyle are taken as signifying practices of middle-class affiliation and narratives of the social identification of professional accountants. The extent to which accountants achieved status through consumption practices is illustrated by comparisons with a range of other occupational groups and social classes in Victorian Britain.     

„Ich glaube, die Deutschen hassen mich“

Based on attribution theory, we assume that readers’ opinion formation (perception of victim’s personality, causal attribution, attribution of responsibility, emotional reactions) in the case of abductions in foreign countries is influenced by newspapers’ presentations of the victim’s altruistic versus egoistic reasons for travelling. Moreover, we assume that reasons for travelling can be conveyed either by verbal or by visual information. To prove this, we conducted an experiment on a fictional abduction by adapting the case of Susanne Osthoff, a German archaeologist kidnapped in Iraq in 2005. The results, indeed, show that verbal media content heavily influences readers’ opinions: When a newspaper article suggested altruistic reasons for travelling, readers attributed more positive character traits to the victim, held the victim less responsible for being kidnapped and for paying ransom money, and felt less anger and more sadness. In contrast, visual information only shaped readers’ opinions when there was no verbal information about the victim’s reasons for travelling available in the text. The causes and consequences of these findings are discussed.     

Theorizing Leisure's Roles in the Pursuit of Ikigai (Life Worthiness): A Mixed-Methods Approach

The purpose of this mixed-methods research project is to theorize the linkage between leisure experience and life worthiness, or what the Japanese call ikigai. A grounded theory analysis of photo-elicitation interview data from 27 Japanese university students led to the inductive development of a substantive theory. This theory was then tested based on online survey data collected from 669 Japanese students using structural equation modeling. Results indicate that leisure pursuits enhance students’ perception of ikigai when they are valued as enjoyable and/or effortful. Moreover, the balance between overall enjoyment and/or effort is found to be a key mediator in the relationship between valuable leisure experience and life worthiness. Ikigai comprises the subjective perceptions that one's daily life is worth living and that it is full of energy and motivation. Our findings are discussed in light of relevant leisure and well-being theories as well as their implications for practice.     

离土与离乡:西部山区农户的非农兼业研究

在可持续生计分析框架下(SLF),本文发展了一个农户模型,阐释了在多重不完全市场条件下,农户的资本禀赋包括人力资本的分布特征和金融可及性等,如何决定农户参与两类不同的非农兼业活动。基于陕西周至山区的农户调查数据,文章的实证结果表明:高人力资本水平是外地打工兼业的关键因素,而本地非农经营兼业还要求农户具备较高的物质资本和社会关系资本等。     

Strategic distortions in analyst forecasts in the presence of short-term institutional investors

We document that analysts cater to short-term investors by issuing optimistic target prices. Catering dominates among analysts at brokers without an investment banking arm as they face lower reputational cost. The market does not see through the analyst catering activity and their forecasts lead to temporary stock overpricing that short-term institutional investors exploit to offload their holdings to retail traders. We also report evidence consistent with catering brokers being rewarded with more future trades channelled through them. Our study identifies a new source of conflicts of interest in analyst research originating from the ownership composition of a stock.     

Analysts’ and Investors’ Reactions to Consistent Earnings Signals

We investigate (1) whether the trajectory of the current‐quarter earnings expectation path (defined by the signs of the forecast revision and the earnings surprise) provides information about future firm performance, and (2) the extent to which analysts and investors react to that information. Our results indicate that analysts underreact more to earnings information revealed by consistent‐signal earnings expectation paths than to earnings information communicated by inconsistent‐signal expectation paths. We also find that the current earnings expectation path provides incremental explanatory power for future abnormal returns, even after controlling for the sign and magnitude of the earnings surprise. Overall, our evidence is consistent with underreaction stemming from analysts’ and investors’ bias in processing the information in consistent‐signal earnings expectation paths.