Does educational diversity of managers matter for the performance of team‐managed funds?

We study the effect of the educational diversity of managers on the performance of team‐managed mutual funds using a large sample of U.S. equity funds from 1994 to 2013. We consider diversity in terms of both final educational degree and field of educational specialisation. We find that, in general, both types of diversity have a positive impact on fund performance, and our results are robust over a wide range of performance metrics and changes in market conditions.     

Unfolding the impact of leadership and management on sustainability performance: Green and lean practices and guanxi as the dual mediators

This study aims to empirically evaluate the predictors that influence sustainability performance among manufacturing firms. Leadership and management, green and lean practices, and guanxi were examined to determine whether these predictors are directly and/or indirectly affecting sustainability performance; 160 valid responses were collected and partial-least-squares-structural-equation-modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze the data. The results showed that leadership and management positively influenced green and lean practices and green and lean practices positively influenced sustainability performance. Leadership and management also positively influenced guanxi. Interestingly, leadership and management and guanxi do not exert a significant direct influence on sustainability performance. The findings contributed to the development of the resource-based-view theory further by empirically exploring the significance of leadership and management coupled with green and lean practices as competencies and capability to drive sustainability performance. The testing of the dual mediators' effects further added value to this study.     

高管校友关系与业绩预测披露行为

本文考察高管对个人社会关系的依赖是否对上市公司的信息环境产生冲击;具体的,本文系统论证了高管校友关系和上市公司信息披露的重要载体—管理层业绩预测之间的关系.结果显示,当公司与其供应商的高管之间存在校友关系或校友关系更广泛时,公司发布管理层业绩预测的概率和频数均显著下降,即高管校友一定程度上取代了业绩预测,成为了供应链上的信息流通渠道.进一步分析显示,当公司的私有信息成本较高或经营环境更不确定时,校友关系对业绩预测的替代作用更强;而当供应商议价能力较强时,这种替代作用显著下降.此外,本文发现高管校友关系也显著降低了业绩预测发布的自愿性和及时性.最后,本文发现校友关系引起的业绩预测披露减少,削弱了外部信息使用者获取公司层面信息的程度,表现为股价同步性和分析师预测分歧度加大.本文结果表明,高管对个人社会关系的依赖降低了上市公司的信息环境质量,可能使中小投资者处于更弱势的地位,一定程度上损害了市场公平性.本文将个人社会关系的经济影响拓展到信息环境领域,为社会关系如何影响公开信息披露行为提供了新的经验证据.     

Contracting and Reporting Conservatism around a Change in Fiduciary Duties*

We exploit an influential 1991 Delaware court ruling to examine simultaneously two types of conservatism that play important roles in resolving creditor–owner agency conflicts: contracting conservatism and reporting conservatism. The ruling expanded managerial fiduciary duties in favor of creditors for Delaware-incorporated firms in the vicinity of insolvency. In those firms, following the ruling, debt contracts are less likely to include conservative adjustments to accounting numbers used for covenant compliance (i.e., contracting conservatism decreases), while public financial reporting becomes more conservative (i.e., reporting conservatism increases). The decrease in contracting conservatism is concentrated in firms that exhibit a greater increase in reporting conservatism, suggesting that reporting conservatism is more cost-effective in resolving agency conflicts. In addition, the substitution effect is more pronounced in firms facing greater business uncertainty and firms with greater board independence.     

Abuse of Market Dominance Under China’s Anti-Monopoly Law: The Case of Tetra Pak

Review of Industrial Organization - In this paper, we analyze a recent antitrust case of abuse of dominance that was decided by a Chinese administrative enforcement agency under China’s...     

Non-GAAP reporting following debt covenant violations

Review of Accounting Studies - We investigate whether firms change their non-GAAP reporting practices after debt covenant violations. We find that the likelihood that a firm will disclose non-GAAP...     

When Do Qualitative Risk Disclosures Backfire? The Effects of a Mismatch in Hedge Disclosure Formats on Investors' Judgments

Disclosure standards mandate the quantitative disclosure of hedging‐instrument‐related risks but not the disclosure of hedged‐item‐related risks. We examine how a match (mismatch) in formats, caused by making quantitative (qualitative) hedged item disclosures alongside quantitative hedging instrument disclosures, affects investors' integration of information from these two related disclosures. Our first experiment varies the hedged item disclosure format (quantitative or qualitative) and the portion of risk hedged (small or large). We find that when disclosure formats are mismatched, the less comparable nature of the two disclosures caused investors to neglect the offsetting relationship when assessing net risks. As a result, risk and investment judgments were influenced by the more prominent quantitative hedging instrument disclosures. Our second experiment finds that the use of a qualitative debiaser that clarifies the relationship between the two disclosures led to the integration of information and mitigated this effect.     

Ownership of Cross–Listed Equities: An Investigation of Turnover, Diversification, and Risk

Using data for a sample of Malaysian stocks that are traded in both Malaysia and Singapore, we show that the turnover rate (trading volume relative to shares held) is significantly higher in the foreign market than in the domestic market. We also find that ownership of cross–listed shares by foreign investors is not motivated by diversification benefits. Instead, we find that the proportion of a firm's shares held in Singapore is directly related to the firm's level of systematic risk.     

Upgrading Textile & Apparel Market in 2007

In 2007,as the process of economic globalization is speeding up,China’s market became more open and attractive to the world.The Chinese apparel industry gained a rare historical opportunity to strengthen self-upgrading and improvement,while facing the competition and challenges from domestic and overseas markets.