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     

Insider Ownership and Firm Value: Evidence from Real Estate Investment Trusts

Real estate investment trust (REIT) provides a unique laboratory to study the relation between insider ownership and firm value. One, a REIT has to satisfy special regulations which weaken alternative mechanisms to control agency problems. Empirically, I find a significant and robust nonlinear relation between Tobin's Q and REIT insider ownership that is consistent with the trade-off between the incentive alignment and the entrenchment effect of insider ownership. Two, many REITs are Umbrella Partnership REITs (UPREITs) which have dual ownership structure. They have both common shares and Operating Partnership Units (OP units). Property owners can contribute their properties to the UPREIT in exchange for OP units. Their capital gains taxes remain deferred as long as they hold onto their OP units and the UPREIT does not sell the properties they contributed. OP units owners are locked in with the firm and have incentive to monitor firm management, but their interests diverge from the common shareholders because their tax bases are much lower. Consistent with the trade-off between positive monitoring effect of OP units and tax-induced agency costs, I find that UPREIT's firm value increases with the fraction of OP units, but the effect is significantly weaker for the UPREITs where insiders hold OP units.     

Firm orientations, innovativeness, and business performance: Advancing a system dynamics view following a comment on Hult, Hurley, and Knight's 2004 study

Hult, Hurley, and Knight's [Ind. Mark. Manage. 33 (2004) 429.] study reports correlations for each of the three subfactors of market orientation (competitor orientation, customer orientation, and interfunctional coordination) and innovativenss. However, their report fails to discuss the nature of these relationships. Such findings are worthy of discussion because they support prior evidence demonstrating the centrality of customer orientation in linking competitor orientation and interfunctional coordination with both innovativeness and business performance. Also, the finding that interfunctional coordination relates strongly with innovativeness supports the paradigm shift toward relationship marketing. The point needs mentioning that several different (more than one) standardized effects, structural equation models explain similar amounts of variance of business performance besides the models that Hult et al. examine. Thus, the implication by Hult et al. (p. 436) that “…learning orientation has no significant direct effect on performance” is accurate only for the model tested (shown in their Fig. 2). Applying the “quick clustering” method helps to inform interpretation when nearly all relationships among variables are statistically significant. The present article includes a proposal for advancing from one-directional structural equation modeling of innovativeness and business performance to system dynamics modeling that includes real-world feedback loops.     

我国上市公司的多元化战略与公司绩效

本文以2004年深沪两市的696家非金融公司作为样本,通过建立有效的多元化经营指标,考察了中国上市公司多元化战略与其绩效(CROA)的关系。实证研究表明,多元化有一定的正面效应,即能够降低公司经营风险,但是从整体上来看,多元化的成本仍然大于收益,导致多元化程度与公司绩效负相关。这一实证结果与多元化给企业带来巨大成本的理论一致。     

企业差异化优势的构建组合及应用

本文以迈克尔·波特的差异化战略理论为基础,沿着市场景框和整体产品两个维度,探讨了差异化优势构建的组合,提出了应用差异化优势组合需要把握差异化“度”和持续性。     

Pollution control and foreign firms’ exit behavior in China

China faces a common dilemma of how to maintain rapid economic growth while also reducing the pollution that has accompanied growth. Will stricter pollution controls drive away the foreign firms that have helped spur growth in China? This paper studies the effects of the Two-Control-Zone (TCZ) pollution control policy on foreign firms’ exit behavior in China. Based on firm-level data from 1998 to 2009, we find that foreign firms’ responses are not significantly different from domestic firms on average once environmental regulations impose an added cost of business. However, foreign firms’ responses to stricter pollution controls tend to differ based on various firm characteristics. Our estimation indicates that larger size, higher productivity and exporting all make foreign firms less likely to exit than similar domestic firms in regions with stricter pollution control.     

Exporting,R&D investment and firm survival in the Indian IT sector

This paper examines the effect of exporting and R&D investment on firm survival for a panel of Indian IT firms. We show that exporting has competing effects on firm survival. On the one hand, exporting and investing in productivity are complementary activities, while, on the other, exporting activity is an additional source of uncertainty for the firm. We show that both effects influence survival, but operate at different points in time. Specifically, the hazard facing exporters is higher than non-exporters in the initial phase following entry into the export market, reflecting the fact that exporters are particularly vulnerable to shocks in the start-up phase. However, over time, exporters benefit more from productivity gains than non-exporters and the hazard facing exporters falls below that confronting non-exporters.     

How Productive Is Workplace Health and Safety?

In this paper, we investigate the causal impact of workplace health and safety practices on firm performance, using Danish longitudinal matched employer–employee data merged with unique cross‐sectional representative firm survey data on work environment conditions. We estimate standard production functions, augmented with workplace environment indicators, addressing both time‐invariant and time‐varying potentially relevant unobservables in the production process. We find positive and large productivity effects of improved physical dimensions of the health and safety environment, specifically, “internal climate” and “monotonous repetitive work”.     

Outsourcing and firm performance nexus: An analysis using the conventional and panel double-bootstrap procedure

Industrial performance is an essential element of economic progress. In this study, we examine the impact of outsourcing on industrial performance using the firm-level data of 191 textile companies in India over the period 2000–2015. First, we follow the conventional non-parametric two-stage procedure and analyse the nexus between outsourcing and firm performance under a single-objective setting. We then test the influence of outsourcing on the performance of multiple-objective firms using reverse directional distance function scores. To address the bias in efficiency estimation and the serial correlation issue in the second-stage regression, we use truncated regression and the double-bootstrap procedure for panel data analysis. Our results show an improvement in industrial performance over the study period. Our analysis following the conventional two-stage procedure shows that the outsourcing of manufacturing activities and professional jobs contributes to industrial performance. The relation between outsourcing and firm performance essentially remains the same in a more reliable analysis using a panel double bootstrap procedure.     

What is a multinational corporation? Classifying the degree of firm-level multinationality

The degree of firm-level multinationality is a key dimension that spans all theoretical frameworks, levels of empirical analysis and domains of investigation in international business research. There is, however, no agreed approach to defining or measuring firm-level multinationality. This is reflected in inconsistent approaches to sample selection and empirical testing, and it has curtailed the advancement of the discipline. We propose that instead of searching for the elusive, all-encompassing definition of an MNC, international business scholars should instead agree on a classification system for the degree of firm-level multinationality. We illustrate the advantages of this approach by constructing a simple classification system that takes into account the firm's breadth and depth of multinational engagements. We illustrate our matrix of firm multinationality by classifying a novel sample of over 1000 firms from seven countries, and we demonstrate how it can guide theory development and empirical testing. We also provide examples of potential future research directions.