Constructing an index for brand equity: a hospital example

If two hospitals are providing identical services in all respects, except for the brand name, why are customers willing to pay more for one hospital than the other? That is, the brand name is not just a name, but a name that contains value (brand equity). Brand equity is the value that the brand name endows to the product, such that consumers are willing to pay a premium price for products with the particular brand name. Accordingly, a company needs to manage its brand carefully so that its brand equity does not depreciate. Although measuring brand equity is important, managers have no brand equity index that is psychometrically robust and parsimonious enough for practice. Indeed, index construction is quite different from conventional scale development. Moreover, researchers might still be unaware of the potential appropriateness of formative indicators for operationalizing particular constructs. Towards this end, drawing on the brand equity literature and following the index construction procedure, this study creates a brand equity index for a hospital. The results reveal a parsimonious five-indicator brand equity index that can adequately capture the full domain of brand equity. This study also illustrates the differences between index construction and scale development.     

Political and Interlocking Connections in the Boardroom on Private Equity Placements

This study examines the influence of directors who are politically connected and/or have boardroom interlocking on private equity placements (PEPs) in Chinese listed firms. We document that interlocked directors can significantly influence the propensity to apply for PEPs and approval of PEPs and reduce the cost of PEPs while providing greater access to proceeds from PEPs through lowering information asymmetry and information cost. Although politically connected directors have a significant role in the approval of PEPs, they are more likely to reduce the monitoring effects and increase agency problems, which lead to increased cost of PEPs and reduced proceeds from PEPs. The results also reveal that political connection diminishes the benefits of interlocking directors for firms having directors with both interlocking and political ties.     

Determinants and features of voluntary disclosure in the Chinese stock market

This paper offers in-depth analysis of the determinants and features of voluntary disclosure based on information in the annual reports of 1066 Chinese firms listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges. This extensive sample represents about 80% of all public companies in China. Our findings suggest that voluntary disclosure in China is positively related to firm size, leverage, assets-in-place, and return on equity and is negatively related to auditor type and the level of maturity or sophistication of the intermediary and legal environments. We also find some evidence to suggest a quadratic convex association between state ownership and voluntary disclosure. However, our analysis provides no evidence that extensive disclosure benefits public companies in China in the form of a lower cost of equity.     

Managerial risk-taking incentives and non-GAAP earnings disclosures

We investigate the association between risk-taking incentives provided by stock-based compensation arrangements and non-GAAP financial disclosures. Controlling for compensation to stock price sensitivity, we find that managers with higher compensation to stock volatility sensitivity (vega) are more likely to be associated with voluntary non-GAAP earnings information disclosures. In addition, higher-vega managers are found to be associated with more frequent and less opportunistic non-GAAP earnings information disclosures. Robust to alternative specifications and estimations, our findings suggest that compensation arrangements can encourage managers to make more, higher-quality voluntary non-GAAP disclosures.     

上市公司股权代理成本影响因素研究综述

企业代理成本的存在直接影响企业的价值,对代理成本进行准确计量并找出关键的影响因素进行控制是管理问题之一。文章从影响代理成本的因素入手对已有文献进行总结。     

马克思主义分配理论及其对我国企业薪酬分配的启示

针对我国收入分配差距不断扩大的趋势,以马克思主义分配理论为指导,探讨我国企业薪酬分配效率与公平相结合的理论基础,指出坚持社会主义公有制经济的主体地位不动摇以及按劳分配为主的分配原则是企业薪酬分配效率与公平相结合的制度基础,并进一步分析企业薪酬分配效率与公平相结合需要妥善处理好各项关系。     

CEO政治关系与薪酬-回报的非对称敏感性

本文从信任角度研究了公司如何设计针对具有政治关系CEO的薪酬契约。具体来说,分析并验证了两个推论:第一,由于股东对CEO不完全信任,CEO现金薪酬对负股票回报的敏感性要大于对正股票回报的敏感性;第二,CEO的代表委员类政治关系会增进股东对CEO的信任,从而这类CEO薪酬-回报的非对称敏感程度较低。本文从薪酬契约角度发展了当前高管政治关系的研究,并且为薪酬契约设计研究提供了新的经验证据。     

社会替代性补偿与压力应对:旅游的中介效应验证

后现代意义上的旅游作为对工业文明副产品--工作程式化、生活单调化、环境劣质化、人际疏远化的"逃避",已经超越了对求新求异审美的需求而导向对人的社会化的思考.文章通过构建旅游与压力转移整合模型,对旅游是否包含压力转移功能进行了实证检验.研究结果表明,旅游在压力感知与压力转移之间发挥中介效应,从而证明了旅游包含有社会补偿与整合功能,能够帮助个体在他领域寻求一种替代性办法来重新塑造自我,恢复人格尊严.我们应走出囿于旅游经济属性的窠臼,在构建和谐社会的时代主题下,充分挖掘旅游的社会功能,落实带薪休假制度,改善公民工作生活质量,从而全面促进社会福利的帕累托改进.     

预约定价与税收公平原则关系之探究

预约定价作为调整跨国公司转移定价的新制度体现了税收效率原则,但这一制度是否同样体现了税收公平原则值得认真研究。本文通过对预约定价与税收公平原则相互关系的剖析,重点考察了预约定价影响税收公平原则的若干因素,并结合我国预约定价的实践,得出了相应的结论。     

The effects of employee stock option plans on operating performance in Chinese firms

As a part of the ongoing liberalization of the marketplace, Chinese regulators adopted the guideline called “Regulation of Equity Incentive Plans (trial)” to allow firms to provide employee incentives through employee stock option plans. Firms began initiating the plans in 2006. We investigate the impact of these plans on firm performance by comparing option-award firms with similar non-award matching firms. The change in ROE for the option-award firms is significantly higher than the matching firms. This is primarily due to their performance holding up better during the global financial crisis while the matching firms’ performance deteriorates. The stock price of these firms shows a positive reaction to the announcement, but no long-term abnormal returns. The better ROE performance for option-award firms is strong for subsets of the sample that are likely to benefit more from incentivized employees; specifically, privately owned firms, firms with higher board independence, and smaller firms. After various robustness tests, we conclude that the higher performance comes from the employee incentives, rather than earnings manipulation, a replacement of cash compensation, a binding of employees to executives, or gaming vesting periods.