Finance and Financial Management Commons^™

Mitigating Industry Contagion Effects From Financial Reporting Fraud: A Competitive Dynamics Perspective Of Non-Errant Rival Firms Exploiting Product-Market Opportunities, Eugene Kang, Nongnapat Thosuwanchot, David Gomulya

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Existing studies show that financial reporting frauds by errant firms cause declines in stock market valuations for non-errant rival firms (i.e. industry contagion effects). We posit that contagion effects may be mitigated by investors’ expectations of non-errant rivals exploiting product-market opportunities at the expense of errant firms. We apply the competitive dynamics literature to argue that non-errant rivals experience lower contagion effects when they have more available slack to engage in competitive actions. This effect is expected to strengthen when rival firms have previously deployed more resources for research and development and advertising investments or have higher prior market share …

From Hype To Reality: A Critical Analysis Of Blockchain-Based Regenerative Finance, Simon J.D. Schillebeeckx, Marco Schletz

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The authors dive deep into the field of ReFi, a concept that enhances financial practices through decentralization and focuses on environmental and societal systems. The authors highlight several key problems of the space and point out that genuinely disruptive ReFi models are still in their infancy. The good news is that ReFi’s potentials are manifold and exciting. In the not-too-distant future, we might see financial applications backed by blockchain that can enhance data credibility, exchangeability, and transparency to redefine how corporations create and apportion environmental value.

China's Mybank: Creating Shared Value, Heli Wang, Lipika Bhattacharya

Asian Management Insights

Online banking has delivered financial inclusivity and profits, but has it also created shared value?

Blockchain And Regenerative Finance: Charting A Path Toward Regeneration, Marco Schletz, Axel Constant, Angel Hsu, Simon J.D. Schillebeeckx, Roman Beck, Martin Wainstein

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The Regenerative Finance (ReFi) movement aims to fundamentally transform the governance of global common pool resources (CPRs), such as the atmosphere, which are being degraded despite international efforts. The ReFi movement seeks to achieve this by utilizing digital monitoring, reporting, and verification (D-MRV); tokenization of assets; and decentralized governance approaches. However, there is currently a lack of a clear path forward to create and implement models that actually drive the “Re-” in ReFi beyond perpetuating the existing extractive economics and toward actual regeneration. In addition, ReFi suffers from growing pains, lacking a common interoperability framework and definition for determining what …

Female Ceos And Investment Efficiency In The Vietnamese Market, Jun Myung Song, Chune Young Chung

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

This paper proposes female CEOs’ overconfidence and risky behavior stem from gender stereotype threats. With two subsamples in Vietnam—firms in the Northern and Southern regions–we empirically show that female CEOs in the North, where there is less gender stereotype, tend to overinvest relative to male CEOs. However, in the South, they are indifferent. Additional analysis reinforces the main finding that female CEOs from the North tend to take more risks even when dealing with market volatility and uncertainty (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic). Such risky behaviors of female CEOs in the North do not deteriorate firm value but instead, possibly improve …

Air Pollution, Regulations On Emission And Firms' Social Responsibility, Jun Myung Song

Sim Kee Boon Institute for Financial Economics

This paper examines whether firms adjust their strategy in emission when air pollution is severe. Considering high PM 2.5 as severe air pollution across 65 countries, I show that firms from countries with severe air pollution have low emission score, suggesting that they put less effort in reducing emission. This is because if they improve emission strategy, firm performance deteriorates. However, such relationship disappears when the government’s environmental stringency is strong, suggesting that government’s intervention is crucial for sustainable environment. This paper concludes with analysis on the factors which can mediate the negative impact of air pollution on firms’ emission …

Tracking The Donor Dollar: A Critical Examination Of Ngo Impact, Joshua Werth

Senior Honors Theses

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) comprise the backbone of civilization. Whether intended or not, governments fail to improve social situations, financial standings, and spirituality comprehensively. NGOs attempt to cover these areas. From Angola to Zambia, countless NGOs exist around the world; however, many fail due to a misplaced focus internally on the annual donations received rather than externally on the disenfranchised. Additionally, even if NGOs manage to stay afloat, they will need help procuring funds and then distributing those resources with the most effective impact for the impoverished. The honors thesis proposed will attempt to determine more effective impact measurements for NGOs, …

The Sun Is Rising In The East: Dual-Class Shares And The Competitive Landscape Of Technological Industries In Asia, Hao Liang, Tran Bao Phuong Nguyen, Wei Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

There has recently been a relaxation of listing regulations to accommodate and attract firms going public with dual-class shares (DCS), notably in Asia. We examine the value implications of DCS adoption by employing an event study around a regulatory change allowing DCS listings in Hong Kong. We find negative market reactions around these regulatory discussions for firms already listed in Hong Kong, especially for firms in technology (tech) sectors. However, the market reaction turned positive for tech firms during Hong Kong’s first DCS listing. We identify two distinct channels that influenced shareholders’ perspectives on DCS: the competition channel, which dominated …

Bringing Excitement To Empirical Business Ethics Research: Thoughts On The Future Of Business Ethics, Mayowa T. Babalola, Matthijs Bal, Charles H. Cho, Lucia Garcia-Lorenzo, Omrane Guedhami, Hao Liang, Greg Shailer, Suzanne Van Gils

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

To commemorate 40 years since the founding of the Journal of Business Ethics, the editors-in-chief of the journal have invited the editors to provide commentaries on the future of business ethics. This essay comprises a selection of commentaries aimed at creating dialog around the theme Bringing Excitement to Empirical Business Ethics Research (inspired by the title of the commentary by Babalola and van Gils). These editors, considering the diversity of empirical approaches in business ethics, envisage a future in which quantitative business ethics research is more bold and innovative, as well as reflexive about its techniques, and dialog between quantitative …

Impact Assessment And Measurement With Sustainable Development Goals, Hao Liang, David Fernandez, Mikkel Larsen

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

With the rapid growth of sustainable and responsible investment and widespread adoption of the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting and integration by organizations, how to assess and measure ESG impact has become a critical issue. Although the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a useful framework for investors and organizations globally to align their standards, the SDGs are vague on how to implement them at an organizational or activity level. Current practice relies heavily on third-party ESG rating providers, whose scores mostly apply to public equities only. They also suffer from biases, inconsistencies, and a lack of sufficient disclosure. …

Delegated Gender Diversity, Hao Liang, Cara Vansteenkiste

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We revisit the value implications of female representation on boards by exploiting the board diversity campaign announcement by Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM)—the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund. In February 2021, NBIM required its portfolio firms to have at least 30% female directors. Using NBIM’s announcement as a shock to investor expectations about female board representation, we document significantly positive returns for firms with a female director shortfall, concentrated in firms with low institutional ownership. Consistent with an investor demand view of board gender diversity, we find that these firms experienced a greater increase in ownership by socially responsible institutional …

Impact Measurement And Standards, Angeline Chua, Hao Liang, Wanyi Yang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Despite rapid economic growth and increasing interest in impact investment worldwide, less attention has been paid to the question of whether this growth is sustainable for people and the planet. In an ideal scenario, growth would happen within planetary and social boundaries. However, current financial value is often prioritised and achieved at cost to society and the environment. For example, small farmers in Indonesia have long practised slash-and-burn agriculture, and in recent decades large companies have industrialised the practice. The peatland blazes in Indonesia release smoke and large amounts of greenhouse gases, which impact both Indonesia itself, and neighbouring countries …

The Acquisition Of Capabilities: How Firms Use Dynamic And Ordinary Capabilities To Manage Uncertainty, Kris Irwin, Collin Gilstrap, Paul Drnevich, Manoj Sunny

Management Faculty Publications

How organizations utilize capabilities to achieve competitive advantage and improve performance has received an abundance of scholarly attention. Both ordinary and dynamic capabilities (DC) enable organizations to achieve higher performance when leveraged appropriately and under favorable conditions. The complexity of an organization's motives for why and how different capabilities are acquired drives us further to explore what complementarities organizations might achieve and under what contexts. Specifically, we explore how firms engaging in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) to acquire dynamic and/or ordinary capabilities experience different market reactions and levels of short- and long-run value creation given environmental uncertainty. Our results support …

Outsourcing Climate Change, Rui Dai, Rui Duan, Hao Liang, Lilian Ng

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper examines whether and how firms combat climate change. Our study provides robust evidence that firms outsource part of their carbon emissions to foreign suppliers and shows how internal and external stakeholders significantly shape firms' environmental policies. Furthermore, firms tend to seek a foreign supplier and decrease their emission abatement efforts as pressure to reduce domestic emissions intensifies. These firms are also less incentivized to develop green technologies. Finally, we find that outsourcing emissions has real and economic consequences, with investors demanding a higher carbon premium for their exposures to carbon risks associated with increased outsourced emissions.

B Corps’ Social Media Communications During The Covid-19 Pandemic: Through The Lens Of The Triple Bottom Line, Manveer Mann, Sang-Eun Byun, Whitney Ginder

Department of Marketing Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

The COVID-19 pandemic and rising demand for transparency has heightened the importance of sustainability communications on social media to generate deeper stakeholder engagement. Although B Corporations (B Corps), businesses committed to the triple bottom line (TBL), could serve as a catalyst for sustainable development, little is known about how they communicate on social media during a crisis. Therefore, we examined social media communications of B Corps to (1) identify salient topics and themes, (2) analyze how these themes align with the TBL, and (3) evaluate social media performance against industry benchmarks. We focused on the apparel, footwear, and accessories (AFA) …

Uri And Its Students: A Contract For The Provision Of A Safe Environment, Danielle Joan Beatrice

Senior Honors Projects

DANIELLE BEATRICE (English; Philosophy; Business) URI and Its Students: A Contract for the Provision of a Safe Environment

Sponsor: Judith Swift (Communication Studies, Coastal Institute)

When students begin to attend college, they expect to be consumed with busy schedules, heavy workloads, and an exciting social life. Students do not anticipate being in dangerous situations. However, this does not mean that such situations do not occur. Therefore, it is essential to teach students to be active participants in educating themselves and their peers regarding prevention and response to emergency situations. My Honors Project aims to increase the awareness of safety-related issues …

Impact Assessment And Measurement With Sustainable Development Goals, Hao Liang, David Fernandez, Mikkel Larsen

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

With the rapid growth of sustainable and responsible investment and widespread adoption of the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) reporting and integration by organizations, how to assess and measure ESG impact has become a critical issue. Although the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a useful framework for investors and organizations globally to align their standards, the SDGs are vague on how to implement them at an organizational or activity level. Current practice relies heavily on third-party ESG rating providers, whose scores mostly apply to public equities only. They also suffer from biases, inconsistencies, and a lack of sufficient disclosure. …

Digital Sustainability And Its Implications For Finance And Climate Change, Gerard George, Simon J.D. Schillebeeckx

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

As the pandemic forced the entire world to a virtual standstill, nature revived a little. The US emitted 10.3% less CO2 in 2020 than in 2019 and other regions similarly experienced emission declines. Depending on the source, global carbon emissions were down between 4 and 8% in 2020.2 Consumers globally have expressed more concern about sustainability, an observation confirmed by large survey research by Accenture, Kantar, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and Ipsos.3 In its latest Emissions Gap Report4 , the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) explicitly connected the pandemic to climate change, nature loss, and pollution. Besides the acceleration of business …

Marriage Of Unequals? Investment Quality Heterogeneity, Market Heat, And The Formation Of Status-Asymmetric Ties In The Venture Capital Industry, Pavel I. Zhelyazkov, Adam Tatarynowicz

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

In this study, we investigate the emergence of status-asymmetric ties among venture capital firms. In particular, we highlight the venture's performance trajectory as a powerful antecedent of upward-status asymmetries (in which a lower-status actor brings a higher-status alter into a venture) as well as downward-status asymmetries (in which a higher-status actor brings in a lower-status alter). We hypothesize that lower-status firms tend to bring higher-status alters into ventures on a better performance trajectory, whereas higher-status firms tend to bring lower-status alters into poorly performing ventures. Furthermore, we argue that these effects will be moderated by market heat, which affects whether …

The Future Of Work Now: Ai-Driven Transaction Surveillance At Dbs Bank, Thomas H. Davenport, Steven M. Miller

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

One of the most frequently-used phrases at business events these days is “the future of work.” It’s increasingly clear that artificial intelligence and other new technologies will bring substantial changes in work tasks and business processes. But while these changes are predicted for the future, they’re already present in many organizations for many different jobs. The job and incumbents described below are an example of this phenomenon. Steve Miller of Singapore Management University and I co-authored the story.

International Portfolio Prospects And Concerns, Dimitrios V. Siskos

Publications

The recent financial crisis amplifies the need for an updated and more universal investment strategy for both individuals and corporate investors. Diversification satisfies that condition, as it provides access to different economies operating in different countries while, simultaneously, it spreads the risk across different asset allocation[1]. However, to benefit the advantages of a diversified portfolio, a sophisticated decision making process and appeal to re-planning are required. Otherwise, international investors have to face the consequences of political-country risk and currency risk. The goal of this research is to correlate the benefits of diversification with risk undertaking for either individual …

Family Ownership And Corporate Environmental Responsibility: The Contingent Effect Of Venture Capital And Institutional Environment, Zhu Zhu, Feifei Lu

Department of Management Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

As scholars and policy makers pay more attention to the environmental impact of economic activities, more focus has been placed on the corporate environmental responsibility (CER) of family firms, which accounts for the majority of businesses in both developed and developing countries. Using a sample of 4714 private enterprises across 23 provinces in China, the current study examines the effect of family ownership on CER investment, as well as the moderating effects of venture capital investment and local institutional development. Results show that concentrated family ownership leads to lower CER spending, however, when venture capital investment comes from developed markets, …

Analyst Career Concerns, Effort Allocation, And Firms Information Environment, Jarrad Harford, Feng Jiang, Rong Wang, Fei Xie

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Analysts strategically allocate more effort to portfolio firms that are relatively more important to their careers. Thus, the other firms the analysts cover indirectly affect a firm’s information environment. Controlling for analyst and firm characteristics, we find that an analyst makes more accurate, frequent, and informative earnings forecasts and recommendations for firms ranked higher within her portfolio based on proxies for importance to institutions. A firm’s relative rank widely varies across analysts, but its information environment improves when a larger proportion of analysts consider it to be relatively important. Analysts experience more favorable career outcomes when strategically allocating their efforts.

Abuses And Penalties Of A Corporate Tax Inversion, James G.S. Yang, Leonard J. Lauricella Professor, Frank J. Aquilino

Department of Accounting and Finance Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

There is a serious problem in international taxation today. Many United States (U.S.) multinational corporations have moved abroad to take advantage of a lower tax rate in a foreign country. As a consequence, the tax base in the U.S. has been seriously eroded. This practice is known as “corporate tax inversion”. This paper discusses the abuses and penalties of this phenomenon. It is rooted in some deficiencies in the U.S. tax law. This paper points out that the U.S. has the highest corporate tax rate in the world. It imposes tax on worldwide income. It permits deferral of tax on …

Sustainable Digital Finance In Asia: Creating Environmental Impact Through Bank Transformation, Ryan Knowles Merrill, Simon J.D. Schillebeeckx, Sofie Blakstad

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Data is arguably the most valuable resource in the digital economy. Used effectively and responsibly it has the potential to serve as a driving force in creating a more sustainable world. The potential is especially potent in the financial sector given its central place in the financial system, and its access to and use of data.Using technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI), mobile technology, internet of things (IoT), and the cloud, data can be captured by sensors in the environment and structured to integrate sustainability into existing financial products and services. These can be creatively combined into entirely new …

Reflective Practice Series: Selected Instructional Models Using Synchronous Video Conferencing Software, Martin W. Sivula

MBA Faculty Conference Papers & Journal Articles

With the vast array of resources available to instructors, one would think that instruction and teaching would yield success for all learners. Now, well into the 21^st century has much changed in the classroom? Certainly, movable desks and chairs, advanced audio and visual equipment, and a plethora of all types of technologies which might be able to enhance training and education. Over the last several decades research on individualized instruction, cognitive science, educational psychology, and multimedia instruction (to name a few) have permeated the literature on instruction. With all the research and the vast array of studies on improving …

The Informational Role Of Overconfident Ceos, Chi Shen Wei, Lei Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We study how overconfident CEOs communicate with the market and whether this has implications on the firm’s information environment. Textual analysis reveals that overconfident CEOs communicate using less negative tone in their 10K/Q filings. Our evidence suggests that overconfident CEOs provide market participants with more value-relevant information as sell-side analysts make more accurate forecasts of their firm’s future earnings. Consistent with a reduction in asymmetric information, implied cost of equity capital is lower. However, not all investors benefit as the information advantage of short sellers disappears in the stocks of overconfident CEOs.

A Signaling Theory Of Institutional Activism: How Norway’S Sovereign Wealth Fund Investments Affect Firms’ Foreign Acquisitions, Gurneeta Vasudeva, Lilac Nachum, Gui-Deng Say

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Combining perspectives from institutional activism and signaling theory literatures, we suggest that an activist sovereign wealth fund (SWF) can serve as an intermediary signaler, providing cues about host countries’ institutional environment to internationalizing firms. By publicizing its investments and engaging in institutional activism, a SWF can signal the institutional quality of host countries to internationalizing firms, thus allowing them to overcome the well-known “lemons problem” in international decision-making. We examine the impact of a SWF’s signals on firms’ ownership choices in their foreign acquisitions. Our empirical analysis of Norway’s socially responsible SWF and firms from Norway and Sweden during 1998–2011 …

The Evolution Of The French Cfos' Role Since The Introduction Of The Financial Market Logic, Redon Marie, Toru Yoshikawa, Berland Nicolas

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper highlights the changes of the Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) role since the introduction of the financial market logic in France. Through an analysis of thirty-seven interviews with CFOs and observations during events organized by the professional association of CFOs, we show that the CFOs’ role evolved in different pathways depending on the relationships between logics. We contribute to the literature that studies professions from an institutional perspective by responding to the question of whether professionals change their role when the logic to which they adhere and from which they derive their role is being challenged, or whether institutional …

Place, Space, And Foreign Direct Investment Into Peripheral Cities, Conor Mcdonald, Peter J. Buckley, Hinrich Voss, Adam R. Cross, Liang Chen

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Perspectives drawn from the economic geography literature are increasingly used to generate insights into locational issues in international business. In this paper, we seek to integrate these literatures further by investigating the locational determinants of foreign direct investment (FDI) into peripheral cities within an emerging economy. Peripheral cities in emerging economies are attracting a growing proportion of global FDI flows, but the international business literature lacks a framework for understanding subnational determinants of FDI, particularly into non-core locations. We draw on the core-periphery model to build and test theory on how spatial interdependencies between subnational locations impact on the distribution …