The Distribution of Information among Institutional and Retail Investors in IPOs

This study examines investor performance in IPOs using a unique database comprising 85,384 investors and 29 offerings from Finland. The evidence indicates that on average institutional investors do not obtain larger initial returns than retail investors, as the incentive to acquire information is limited by allocation rules which favour small orders. This result is in contrast to findings by Aggarwal et al . (2002), who show that institutional investors perform better in a bookbuilding environment. Within each investor category, however, large orders are associated with the best performance, suggesting that information differences figure more importantly within rather than between categories.     

The Impact of Acquisitions on Operating Performance: Some Australian Evidence

This study investigates the impact of acquisitions on the operating performance of Australian firms. For a sample of 36 Australian acquisitions occurring between 1986 to 1991 inclusive, and using matched firms to control for industry and economy-wide factors, the results based on four accrual and four cash flow performance measures show that corporate acquisitions do not lead to significant improvements in post-acquisition operating performance. The consistency of the results with the agency, the hubris and the financial motivation hypotheses suggests that corporate acquisitions in Australia may be undertaken for other than synergistic reasons. The results assist in explaining inconsistent findings reported in the literature.     

平衡记分卡在建筑企业管理中的应用

在本的研究中，分析了平衡计分卡如何在建筑企业管理中应用的问题。从平衡计分卡所含的四个方面出发，阐述平衡计分法在建筑企业实施的步骤，并为四类具体的目标找出最具有意义的业绩衡量指标。此外，结合建筑企业实际情况，分析了在建筑企业管理中应用平衡计分卡值得注意的问题。并针对如何克服平衡计分卡在建筑企业实施中的障碍，进一步给出了几点建议。     

Measures of Marketing Success: A Comparison Between China and the United Kingdom

Despite the importance of assessing business performance, there is little research on the measures used to evaluate marketing effectiveness. This paper replicates in China some UK research into the relative importance of categories of marketing metrics, e.g., financial and non-financial, customer and competitive. The Chinese results are compared with those from the UK. In China, respondents saw financial metrics as less important than their UK counterparts and they appeared to be more marketing oriented, but the difference of consumer orientation across departments of firms in China appears larger than in UK. In both countries the importance given to metrics categories were consistent with orientation, while in China there is no relationship between consumer orientation and the important of direct customer metrics as in UK, but the relationship between competition orientation and the measurement of direct customers was found in China.     

Antecedents and consequences of corporate governance reform: the case of Germany

The paper examines the antecedents and consequences of the voluntary adoption of corporate governance reform in firms embedded in a relationship‐based governance system with less protection of minority shareholders. In such locations, ownership structure should be a key determinant of governance reform. Firms with dispersed ownership are likely to face agency problems but may lack sufficient ownership power in the hand of external owners for adoption to occur. Extensive ownership by external parties facilitates adoption but decreases the need and motivation to adopt governance reform. We examined the adoption of stock‐based incentive plans and transparent accounting regulations (e.g., greater disclosure to shareholders) among large German firms (DAX 100) during the late 1990s. We found an inverse ‘U’‐shaped relationship between ownership concentration and governance reform. In addition, we found that firms adopting governance reform were more likely to engage in corporate divestitures and achieve higher levels of market performance than firms not adopting governance reform. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Ethical Unit Trust Financial Performance: Small Company Effects and Fund Size Effects

Recent papers which have examined unit trusts have controlled either for a 'fund size effect' or for the 'small firms effect' in the investment portfolio. The contribution of this paper is an analysis of the 'small firms effect' whilst simultaneously controlling for the 'fund size effect'. We show that the ethical unit trusts have significantly greater exposure than general unit trusts to the 'small firms effect', and that net of this there is no significant evidence of over or under performance by ethical trusts using an adjusted Jensen measure. Using two cross-sectional approaches, we demonstrate that whilst a 'small firms effect' has a role to play in explaining unit trust performance, fund size is not correlated with the financial performance of unit trusts. This cross-sectional analysis also provides some evidence that ethical unit trusts may perform less well than general unit trusts.     

双向沟通在绩效管理中的作用机制研究

绩效管理是企业将战略转化为行动的过程。绩效管理有别于传统的绩效考核，是一个完整的系统，具备完善的工作流程。绩效管理成败与否的关键在于管理者和员工之间双向沟通的过程，在于过程的连续性与有效性。本文分析了绩效管理各个环节中的沟通目的和作用机制以及就如何保证绩效管理中双向沟通的有效性提出了策略建议。     

Do executive stock option grants have value implications for firm performance?

Consistent with predictions of agency theory, we find direct evidence that executive stock option grants have value implications for firm performance. This inference is drawn from evaluation of various motivations for the use of such grants in executive compensation: value enhancement, risk taking, tax benefit, signaling and cash conservation. We find consistent evidence for the value enhancement motivation to reduce agency costs. As well, they signal for positive price sensitive information. Our results reject the tax benefit and cash conservation motivations. This finding is robust after controlling for the endogenous character of executive stock option grants and other equity-based grants. JEL Classification G32 • J33 • M52     

Global marketing of industrial products: Are interpersonal relationships always critical?

The present paper examines the issue of whether interpersonal relationships are critical for global marketing of industrial products. The fields of relationship marketing, IMP group research, sales research, and network theory have stressed the importance of interpersonal relationships in the business-to-business or industrial marketing context. In contrast to this emphasis on interpersonal relationships, we argue that industrial firms can both conceive and enhance marketing strategies based on developing high quality and consistent processes, products, services or outcomes (consistent processes and outcomes). Such strategies are especially important given the fact that developing interpersonal relationships is expensive due to their reliance on frequent and/or face-to-face communications. In this paper, we examine industry and country contexts that lead to the choice of alternative industrial product marketing strategies and highlight some future research directions and managerial implications.     

Market orientation and customer satisfaction: Evidence from British machine tool industry

This paper examines empirically the relationship between market orientation and business performance in the context of British machine tool industry. An industry-specific market orientation scale was developed. Factor analysis revealed that there were four latent dimensions underlying the market orientation: customer orientation, competitor orientation, departmental responsiveness, and customer satisfaction orientation. Findings suggest that customer orientation and customer satisfaction orientation have a stronger impact on performance than the other dimensions, and that competitor orientation has a U-shape relationship with performance. Departmental responsiveness did not appear to be significantly related to the business performance. Managers could use the multidimensional conceptualization to develop particular kinds of orientations required for better performance.