The State of Asian Corporate Governance: A Presentation by Jamie Allen: CARE Conference | Hong Kong Polytechnic University | June 9, 2014

Since the 1998 Asian financial crisis, there has been considerable corporate governance reform in the region. But such reform has proceeded on two tracks. On one track, international rules are dominant, and common accounting and financial reporting standards are essentially accepted as necessary for trade and investment. On the second track, however, local cultural norms continue to exert a strong influence on the functioning of the boards, the quality of dialogue with shareholders, and the way they manage related party transactions and capital raising. As a consequence, in these matters of internal governance—where legacy issues and culture, and not international standards, continue to be the main driving force behind governance—there continue to be significant differences among Asian countries. And thus even as convergence is occurring in certain aspects of governance, it is expected to remain limited, particularly in the functioning of boards and internal governance. As for the case of China, there was such a flurry of rule‐making in the early 2000s—a national Code of Corporate Governance in 2002, and a Directive on Quarterly Reports in 2003—that people in Hong Kong used to enjoy saying that China's corporate governance standards were higher than Hong Kong's. But if that may have been true on paper, the reality has been quite different.     

An Empirical Examination of the Stated Purposes of Issuer Tender Offers to Purchase Common Stock

This paper documents the purposes of issuer tender offers to repurchase stock, as stated in Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) disclosures, over the period 1994‐2006. We explore whether stated purposes relate to announcement period returns and find returns are significantly lower when repurchases replace dividends, distribute cash from unspecified sources, or occur subsequent to third‐party tender offers. Announcement period returns are significantly higher when repurchases are viewed by management as the best investment opportunity available or when they occur subsequent to previous repurchase programs. Finally, we find evidence in support of signaling theory and Jensen's (1986) agency cost of free cash flow theory.     

The Conflict Between Conservation and Recreation When Visitors Dislike Crowding: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis of the Spatial Distribution of Recreational Beach Users

We investigate conflicts between wildlife conservation and recreational use that can occur at open-access sites when visitors dislike crowding. A theoretical model is proposed which determines the spatial distributions of visitors to a beach, given their willingness to walk to avoid crowding and the configuration of beach access points. This model is estimated for three sections of coastline in eastern England using data from aerial video photography. Visitor density is strongly and negatively correlated with distance from access points. Willingness to walk has a highly skewed population distribution. We discuss the implications of these findings for the management of conflicts between conservation and recreation at open-access sites.     

A Hierarchical Model of Perceived Value of Group-Oriented Travel Experiences to Major Events and its Influences on Satisfaction and Future Group-Travel Intentions

This study seeks a deeper understanding of the forms of value that travel consumers derive from a group-travel experience to a major event. We focus on specific group-travel value dimensions of social, hedonic, monetary, functional – major event, functional – event-destination tourism infrastructure, epistemic, and convenience. A sample of 389 consumers is used to substantiate our framework. We also empirically examine this model with satisfaction and future group-travel intentions – with satisfaction found to fully mediate the relationship between the perceived value of the group-travel experience and future group-travel intentions. This framework can serve to advance further theory development in this domain.     

An Exploratory Study of the Level of Disaster Preparedness in the Canadian Hospitality Industry

Disaster planning is an important, but often neglected, part of leading an organization. Currently there exists little data on the level of disaster preparedness of organizations in the Canadian hospitality industry. In this article we present the results of a survey of a representative sample of organizations in this industry to assess the level of disaster preparedness. Results reveal an overall low level of preparedness. Implications of these results are discussed and recommendations for research and practice are suggested.     

Flexible recession: the temporary staffing industry and mediated work in the United States

The evolution of the temporary staffing industry (TSI) in theUS is examined, with particular reference to the structuralfunctions of temporary work during the boom of the 1990s, the‘flexible’ recession of 2001, and the subsequent‘jobless’ recovery. It is argued that the TSI isincreasingly playing a systemic, macroregulatory role in theUS labour market, where it now accounts for a disproportionateshare of the costs of labour-market adjustment. The developmentpath of the TSI is closely intertwined with the wider restructuringof the US economy, where it has assumed a significant presenceas a purveyor of low-cost, flexibly mediated labour.     

Agency costs and the structure and performance of international joint ventures

This article develops a principal-agent contractual model for the issue of the structure and performance of international joint ventures. From this model, hypotheses are generated relating the number of partners in a joint venture and the cross-cultural divergence of the partners with joint venture performance. These hypotheses are empirically assessed using a population of over 3,500 developed-country joint ventures.     

Unexpected Inflation,Capital Structure,and Real Risk‐adjusted Firm Performance

Managers can improve real risk‐adjusted firm performance by matching nominal assets with nominal liabilities, thereby reducing the sensitivity of real risk‐adjusted returns to unexpected inflation. The net asset value of US equity real estate investment trusts (REITs) serves as a good proxy for nominal assets and, accordingly, we use a sample of US REITs to test our hypothesis. We find that for the firms in our sample: (i) their real risk‐adjusted performance, and (ii) their inflation‐hedging qualities are inversely related to deviations from this ‘matching‐nominals’ argument. In addition to providing managers with a vehicle to maximize real risk‐adjusted performance, our findings also provide investors with the tools to infer inflation‐hedging qualities of equity investments.