Entrepreneurial orientation and innovation in family SMEs: Unveiling the (actual) impact of the Board of Directors

Drawing on stewardship and resource dependence theories, we examine how the board of directors (BoD) influences the link between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and ambidextrous innovation in small and medium sized family firms (family SMEs). Our analysis of 230 Spanish family SMEs shows that family involvement in the BoD has a negative effect on their ability to turn EO into innovation. Moreover, we show that the BoD's strategic involvement in service and control tasks and the provision of knowledge and skills have positive effects, whereas the intensity of BoD activity has a surprisingly negative effect. These findings underscore that the effects of the BoD on the entrepreneurship-innovation link are more complex than previously thought, pointing to the important role of both BoD composition and BoD functioning for enabling innovation in family SMEs.     

How capital markets assess the credibility and accuracy of CSR reporting: Exploring the effects of assurance quality and CSR restatement issuance

This research examines how the credibility and accuracy of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures enhance market confidence by exploring their effect on the cost of capital. How do capital markets react to higher-quality assurance of CSR reporting? Can the hypothetical reduction in the cost of capital that assurance quality produces be explained by restatements of previous information given in these CSR reports? We explore the relationship between assurance quality, as a proxy for credibility and market confidence, and the mediating effect of CSR restatements as indicators of accuracy. We propose regression models with a sample of CSR reports issued by European companies. Building upon the signalling and legitimacy theories, the results support the positive effect of higher assurance quality statements on market confidence by confirming a decrease in the cost of capital; assurance quality gives an indication of credibility to the capital market and restatements related to methodological updates signal accuracy. The reduction in the cost of capital brought on by higher assurance quality appears to be determined by the issuance of CSR restatements, which create legitimacy for both client companies and assurance providers. CSR reporting and assurance have reached a greater level of maturity as demonstrated by the evolution of these practices and financial market perceptions.     

Regional innovation and small high technology firms in peripheral regions

This paper highlights the difficulty of developing HT firms in a peripheral region of Spain. Although the endogenous development of HT firms in these regions is possible, their evolution depends on more central regions. The firm's geographical location and the type of HT production are the most important endogenous factors governing the firm's success.     

Assessment of Interjudge Reliability in the Open-Ended Questions Coding Process

In the process of coding open-ended questions, the evaluation of interjudge reliability is a critical issue. In this paper, using real data, the behavior of three coefficients of reliability among coders, Cohen’s K, Krippendorff’s α and Perreault and Leigh’s I _r are patterned, in terms of the number of judges involved and the categories of answer defined. The outcome underlines the importance of both variables in the valuations of interjudge reliability, as well as the higher adequacy of Perreault and Leigh’s I _r and Krippendorff’s α for marketing and opinion research.     

Pseudo empirical likelihood method in the presence of missing data

In this paper, we propose an estimator for the population mean when some observations on the study and auxiliary variables are missing from the sample. The proposed estimator is valid for any unequal probability sampling design, and is based upon the pseudo empirical likelihood method. The proposed estimator is compared with other estimators in a simulation study.     

Bank Competition with Financing and Savings Substitutes

This paper models the banking competition in loan and deposit markets on two levels. We measure the competition among different banks and among banks and non-bank financing and saving alternatives. We estimate a model of demand, cost, and market equilibrium equations for differentiated products by using data from the confidential reports that Spanish banks provide to the Bank of Spain during the period from 1988 to 2003. This database contains information on the effective interest rates on new loans and deposits, and the expected loan losses obtained from the Spanish Credit Register. The estimated price elasticities show that the products offered by different banks are close substitutes, which puts pressure on the banks’ profits margins. However, the substitutability between bank and non-bank products is much lower than the substitutability among products offered by different banks. The results also show that Spain’s entrance into the Eurozone did not cause a structural change in the demand and cost conditions of Spanish banks. The banks financed most of the imbalances between bank loans and domestic deposits before the crisis through the interbank market.     

Board of Directors and CSR in Banking: The Moderating Role of Bank Regulation and Investor Protection Strength

This paper brings together research on boards of directors as the backbone of corporate governance and corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in the banking industry. The underlying idea is that some characteristics of bank boards, in particular independence and gender diversity, may impact the CSR commitments of banks. By making use of a sample of 159 banks in nine countries during the period 2004–2010, our empirical evidence suggests that banks with more independent directors and more female members on their boards incline toward socially responsible behaviour. Our results also suggest that institutional factors play a significant role in these effects. They show that in greater regulatory and stronger investor protection environments, board independence and gender diversity have more influence on the social behaviour of banks.     

The Trade Consequences of Maritime Insecurity: Evidence from Somali Piracy

In the past decade (2000–2010), pirates from Somalia have carried out thousands of attacks on cargo ships sailing through the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean, causing what others have identified as significant damage to maritime trade. In this paper, we use variations in the spread and intensity of Somali piracy to estimate its effect on the volume of international trade. By comparing trade volume changes along shipping routes located in pirate waters to those that are not, we estimate that Somali piracy reduced bulk commodities trade passing through the Gulf of Aden by 4.1% per year from 2000 to 2010. We find smaller reductions in total trade, consistent with the fact that not all goods are shipped by sea or are targets of pirate attacks. While our estimates suggest that the trade costs of piracy are much lower than what has been suggested in the existing literature, we find that they remain significant and unevenly distributed, with five countries and the EU shouldering 70% of the total costs.     

Relationship Between Sustainable Development and Financial Performance: International Empirical Research

The aim of this paper is to clarify the relationship between companies' sustainable behavior and their financial performance (FP), which has been studied for several years without reaching a consensus on the effect and the direction of it. Hypotheses are tested for an unbalanced sample of 1960 multinational non‐financial listed companies from 25 countries and one administrative region for the period between 2002 and 2010. Due to the use of an international database and the differences among countries, it is possible to observe divergence between institutional settings. For this reason, a corporate governance system (Anglo‐Saxon, Germanic, Latin and Asian) is used as characteristic of the macro‐environment. Results obtained via the generalized method of moments estimator allow us to support the existence of a positive bidirectional relationship between corporate social responsibility and FP, evidencing the existence of a synergistic circle. The use of market value indicated that investors are able to identify economic, social and environmental practices generating a positive effect on FP. These relationships differ between corporate governance systems, due to the specific characteristics of each system. Findings are robust for each sustainable sub‐index (society, human rights, environmental and board). Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

Rental prices in Germany: A comparison between migrants and natives

This paper deals with the question of whether migrants pay a rent premium for apartments of comparable quality and neighborhood characteristics. We use a two-step selection-correction model augmented by a control function to account for nonrandom neighborhood choice. The estimation sample is a uniquely assembled panel comprising the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), information on household and apartment characteristics, as well as georeferenced data describing neighborhood quality. Our estimates reveal that people with migration backgrounds are not penalized in the German local rental market in terms of higher rental payments.