The consequences of managerial indiscretions: Sex,lies, and firm value

Personal managerial indiscretions are separate from a firm's business activities but provide information about the manager's integrity. Consequently, they could affect counterparties’ trust in the firm and the firm's value and operations. We find that companies of accused executives experience significant wealth deterioration, reduced operating margins, and lost business partners. Indiscretions are also associated with an increased probability of unrelated shareholder-initiated lawsuits, Department of Justice and Securities and Exchange Commission investigations, and managed earnings. Further, chief executive officers and boards face labor market consequences, including forced turnover, pay cuts, and lower shareholder votes at re-election. Indiscretions occur more often at poorly governed firms where disciplinary turnover is less likely.     

CEO age and tax planning

This study investigates the association between CEO age and corporate tax planning. Using a sample of 11,537 firm‐year observations from the fiscal year 1997–2013, I find CEO age exerts an economically significant influence on firms’ tax policies, incremental to economic determinants identified in prior research. Specifically, CEO age is positively related to cash and GAAP effective tax rates, and negatively related to permanent book‐tax difference, suggesting that older CEOs are less likely to take actions to lower tax burden. The results hold across different model specifications and robustness tests to address potential bias arising from endogeneity, sample selection issue, and the confounding effect of CEO tenure.     

苏北地区农业完全成本水价农户承受力调查——基于水源地生态补偿的视角

南水北调东线一期工程江苏段的主要目标是向苏北供水,缓解该地区的农业用水短缺问题。但现行农业水价未考虑水源区的机会成本损失,不利于调动水源区环境保护积极性。论文设计单边界CVM引导技术,估算了苏北农户以提高农业水价的方式对水源区生态补偿的支付意愿。研究发现,苏北农户生态补偿支付意愿为7.63元/亩,但在不同作物种植结构和不同城市存在较大异质性。未来3年内,苏北农业用水每年所提供的生态补偿资金总额在1.526~1.679亿元之间。在发达地区探索构建绿色导向的农业水价体系有利于为其他地区提供先行示范效应。     

CEO compensation in EU telecom companies: Does the state design the right incentives?

This paper analyzes the structure of CEO pay in European fixed telecommunication companies, focusing on the impact of state ownership. Results show that, under the (partial or total) control of the state, the level of CEO compensation is lower and pay-performance sensitivity is higher than in privately-controlled firms. This finding suggests the state provides an incentive as well as a monitoring effect. However, when the state holds the majority of the shares, the pay level is significantly affected by the CEO power, suggesting that in these firms, CEOs are more likely to be entrenched with boards and succeed in raising their pay.     

Internationalization speed and subsidiary survival of EMNCs: The moderating roles of CEO international experience and state ownership

In the process of internationalization, effective management of dispersed location-specific knowledge is the key to successful internationalization strategies for companies. Rapid internationalization often prevents multinational corporations (MNCs) from absorbing and internalizing internationalized knowledge in a timely manner and achieving ideal performance. Compared with MNCs in developed countries, emerging market multinationals (EMNCs) are more inclined to implement a rapid internationalization strategy to enhance their own competitive advantage. However, their internationalization process is limited by their lack of managerial resources. Why and how would internationalization speed impact the survival of EMNCs Subsidiary? Using the survival analysis method and taking the Chinese A-share listed companies as empirical setting, our results show that the internationalization speed negatively affects the survival of EMNCs Subsidiary; Both CEO international experience and state ownership weaken the negative impact of internationalization speed on the survival of EMNCs Subsidiary. We argue that rapid internationalization underestimates the Penrose effect in the process of internationalization, that is, underestimates the managerial resources required to learn and accumulate absorptive capacity, and effectively manage dispersed knowledge. Based on the dual context of dispersed knowledge management and managerial constraints, this paper expands the understanding of the impact mechanism of internationalization speed on corporate performance, and also has certain guiding significance for the selection of internationalization speed of EMNCs.     

Attitudes and willingness to donate towards heritage restoration: an exploratory study about Bulgarian socialist monuments

In this exploratory study, an attempt was made to clarify the role of the visitors' perception of the socialist era in relation to their (1) perception of socialist monuments' maintenance level, (2) willingness to visit socialist monuments, (3) willingness to present socialist monuments for tourism purposes, (4) willingness to pay towards a visit to a socialist-era monument, and (5) willingness to donate towards socialist-era sites' restoration. Based on a quantitative study with 236 Bulgarians at Buzludzha peak, the findings suggest that the perception of the socialist era is relevant to the understanding of the individual's willingness to visit socialist monuments, presenting them to international and local visitors, the evaluation of their maintenance level, and the willingness to support their restoration. The findings' theoretical and practical contributions are discussed, highlighting the importance of the individuals' perception of a heritage site when revealing their attitudes towards its restoration.     

Balancing the risk of ‘Lazearian’ interrupters and the benefits of educational and social peers: tracing parental preferences for class-size reduction

Using Danish survey data from a choice experiment, parental preferences for class-size reduction are estimated. While parents with children in large classes are willing to pay for class-size reduction, parents with children in small classes are reluctant and even express negative utility for further class-size reduction. We interpret this as parents balancing the risk of ‘Lazearian’ interrupters and the benefits of educational and social peers when forming their preferences for class size.     

Me,myself and I: The role of CEO narcissism in internationalization decisions

Internationalization decisions represent major objects of international business research; in this context, the respective role of decision-makers, i.e., strategic actors has been under study for now nearly 50 years. However, some important individual characteristics of strategic actors, which seem to influence individual decision-making in a significant way, have been – in contrast to general management research – widely disregarded. Among those characteristics, narcissism plays a decisive role. Trying to provide a first attempt to fill this research gap our paper aims at theorizing on as well as empirically analyzing potential relationships between narcissistic tendencies of CEOs and their internationalization decisions. The empirical study of major German manufacturing firms over the period 2004–2013 shows that CEOs with a high degree of narcissism tend to intensify business activities abroad in general while the expected effect on intensified activities in markets with a high psychic distance cannot be identified. These research results help to better understand the drivers of firms’ internationalization, stress the importance of recognizing managerial decision-making in the context of analyzing business activities abroad, and improve the prediction of CEOs’ decision-making behavior in general.     

The effect of firm scale and CSR geographical scope of impact on consumers' response

The role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in shaping consumer perception and attitude has received many attentions both in the academia and practitioner world. While this domain has invited numerous research, but research highlighting how consumers react toward learning the size of a firm conducting CSR and geographical scope of the CSR impact is still scarce. We investigate how consumers shape their attitude and consumption behavior after knowing that the CSR action is done by a small, locally-owned business that brings impact to the local community through an experimental study. Our study adds a shade in understanding how the effect of a firm size and geographical scope of CSR impact might increase consumers' favorable attitude and behavior toward the business and its products. Our findings show that when consumers learn that the firm conducting CSR is a small, locally-owned (in coffee shop business) that directs its action toward local beneficiaries, they demonstrate more favorable attitudes toward the action and the firm, which manifest in the form of better intentions to acquire the product as well as willingness to pay premium prices for it. Our findings confirm the US consumers' love affair with local businesses, in particular. While the findings generally benefit small, locally-owned businesses, they also suggest recommendations for large, multinational businesses to design their marketing strategy in an attempt to increase favorable reactions from consumers.     

Non-compensation-related consultant service and CEO compensation

This study examines how consultants’ non-compensation-related consulting service (NCS) affects the contractual usefulness of accounting and stock information in executive compensation, as reflected in pay-performance sensitivity. The hypothesis is based on anecdotal evidence suggesting that consultants’ provision of NCS is likely to adversely affect the quality of CEO compensation plans. We investigate whether the consultants providing NCS are involved in potential conflicts of interest. The results show that CEO pay is higher in companies where consultants provide NCS and have a higher NCS fee ratio. The pay-performance sensitivity in CEO compensation decreases when consultants engage in NCS. The overall results are consistent with NCS representing a conflict of interest and compromising the quality of compensation committees.