Corporate Finance Commons^™

A Meta-Analysis Of Corporate Innovation Intention And Its Driving Mechanisms, Yaping Hu, Xuerong Shen, Yi Zheng

Journal of Scientific Information Research

[Purpose/significance] Stimulating corporate innovation intention is a pivotal issue for promoting innovation. However, the academic discourse on its key drivers presents significantly divergent and even contradictory conclusions, leading to theoretical ambiguity and practical guidance challenges. This study aims to systematically and quantitatively integrate empirical research in this field to clarify the true effects of core driving factors and their operational boundaries. [Method/process] Adopting a meta-analysis approach, this study systematically retrieves and screens literature, ultimately analyzes 29 empirical studies and examine four potential moderating variables which include location, data type, industry, and culture. [Result/conclusion] The study finds that government support, internal …

The Seller Valuation Of Family Firm Exits: Socioemotional Wealth And Ceo Equity Ownership, Masahiro Nishii

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This study examines seller valuation in family-firm exit using the initial asking price from private M&A sales. In the sale of a family firm, it is known that seller valuation may go beyond financial value alone because owners often hold strong emotional attachments to the firm. However, it remains unclear whose judgment brings that non financial value into seller valuation and why this varies across types of family CEOs.

Drawing on socioemotional wealth theory, the study develops the mechanism at the CEO level. I argue that the anticipated SEW loss translates into seller valuation through the CEO’s judgment. When the …

Investigating The Impact Of Artificial Intelligence On Financial Decision-Making And Professional Practice, Elijah Jones

Finance Undergraduate Honors Theses

The following study is an investigation into the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) as it relates to financial decision-making and professional processes. The focus of the study is to address the gap between theoretical applications analyzed by researchers and real-world use. The existing literature extensively analyzes the exponential growth of AI in finance over the years and its uses in relationship management, predictive analysis, trading, risk management, and more. While the studies show the potential transformative capability that AI has regarding workflows, there is limited data that shows how these newfound technologies are actually being adopted by professionals. To address …

Biodiversity Risk And Firm Valuation: Regional Heterogeneity And Value-Chain Exposure In Global Capital Markets, Madelein Wentzel

Doctoral Dissertations (DBA)

This study examines whether biodiversity-related risks are priced in global equity markets and whether that pricing varies across regions, using a cross-sectional sample of more than 10,000 globally listed firms with biodiversity and financial data drawn from the fourth quarter of 2025. Consistent with a regional heterogeneity hypothesis, the results show that biodiversity risk is significantly negatively associated with firm valuation in developed markets such as the United States and OECD countries, while the relationship is weaker, insignificant, or even positive in certain emerging regions including Latin America and the Middle East and Africa. The analysis further distinguishes between value-chain …

Exploring Determinants Of Value For Money And Bundling Effects On Public–Private Partnership Projects: A Data-Driven Empirical Study, Gaurav Khadka

Department of Construction Engineering and Management: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Public–private partnerships (P3s) are widely used to deliver public infrastructure, yet current understanding of what drives variation in Value for Money (VfM) and the effectiveness of project delivery strategies such as bundling remains largely conceptual and grounded in perception-based evidence. Consequently, governments lack empirically validated guidance on which project, financial, and macroeconomic conditions meaningfully influence VfM outcomes and whether bundling improves project performance within the P3 context. This study addresses these gaps through an integrated analysis of 180 Canadian P3 infrastructure projects (1992–2020), one of the most comprehensive datasets of realized VfM internationally, incorporating project characteristics, financial arrangements, and macroeconomic …

Discounted Cash Flow Valuation Of Ethiopian Airlines Group: Country Risk, Currency Volatility, And Soe Dynamics In An Emerging Market Context, Rediet Wale Yirga

2026 Spring Honors Capstones Projects

This study presents a discounted cash flow valuation of Ethiopian Airlines Group, a state-owned enterprise in sub-Saharan Africa's largest aviation market. No published academic study has applied rigorous quantitative valuation to the airline within an emerging market framework. This research addresses that gap by constructing a multi scenario DCF model using audited financial data from FY2019/20 through FY2023/24, with projections through FY2029/30. The model incorporates a country risk premium using Damodaran's methodology and accounts for ETB/USD depreciation following Ethiopia's 2024 exchange rate liberalization. Sensitivity analysis identifies exchange rate volatility, fuel costs, and discount rate as primary drivers of enterprise value …

Cash Holding As A Mediating Variable In Economic Uncertainty And Corporate Leverage, Vina Christina Nugroho

International Conference on Business and Management Research (ICBMR)

This study explores how economic policy uncertainty (EPU) affects corporate leverage, with a focus on the role of cash holdings as a mediating variable. Using panel data from 3,947 non-financial firms in China between 2014 and 2023, the analysis applies fixed-effect regressions to examine this relationship. The results show that higher EPU significantly reduces corporate leverage, and firms with greater cash reserves tend to hold less debt. Further analysis reveals that this effect varies by investment intensity. High-investment firms reduce both cash and leverage under uncertainty, while low-investment firms increase cash reserves before lowering debt.This research offers insights into how …

Esg Greenwashing And Ownership Structure Under Information Asymmetry, Luu Thu Quang, Nguyen Dang Hai Yen, Vo Thien Trang, Tran Hoang Vu

European Management Studies

Purpose: This is the first paper to investigate how ownership structure influences ESG greenwashing, with a focus on the moderating role of information asymmetry. The study is set in Vietnam’s stock market, where state ownership remains significant and disclosure standards are still developing.

Design/Methodology/Approach: We construct a unique hand-collected dataset of annual reports from listed firms between 2020 and 2024. Greenwashing is measured using both disclosure–performance gaps and narrative-based textual analysis. Ordinary least squares and two-stage least squares regressions are employed, with robustness checks using alternative proxies for information asymmetry.

Findings: Results show that in transparent environments, …

When Social Fundraising Is Active But Hard To Measure: Nonprofit Lessons From Social Media Roi Research, Dr. Blair W. Loveland

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

This article examines a nonprofit measurement problem that appears when social media is used to support fundraising but the organization cannot clearly connect that activity to a measurable financial result. The article draws on a non-experimental quantitative survey of 106 participants in roles tied to marketing, sales, or revenue reporting. The findings showed that social media use was common, but visibility into spending, formal ROI tracking, and end-to-end attribution was often weak. Seventy percent of respondents who answered the spend question did not know their organization's annual social media spend, 59 percent of respondents who answered the ROI question said …

Navigating Uncertainty: A Deep Insight Into Tariffs’ Effects On The Automotive Industry, Gavin J. Gautier

Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to address the financial, strategic, and external effects caused by tariffs within the automotive industry, with a specific focus on the effects caused by the Section 232 tariffs imposed on aluminum and steel. More Specifically this thesis will examine a comparative analysis of General Motors between 2017 and 2018 during the Section 232 enactment. While traditional studies tend to observe the input-cost effect, my hope is to examine the broader effects at the firm-level, such as inventory shifts, cost management, and risk hedging procedure. Through an evaluation of GM’s 10-K filings, key financial ratios, …

The Driving Forces Of Relative Ceo To Employee Pay, Yixi Ning, Xavier Garza-Gomez, Hongxia Wang

Finance and Economics

In this paper, we examine the driving forces of CEO to median employee pay ratios from a macro-perspective using a sample of large corporations included in the DJIA index from 1949 to 2022. We find that CEO-employee pay ratios increase with the Industry Production Index and inflation rate, but decrease with GDP per capita growth rate, unemployment rate, stock market, and industry trends. Our results also show that CEO pay structure changes from salary and bonus-dominated to option and stock-dominated pay enable CEOs to enjoy a much better pay package compared to lower-level employees, while executive pay-related regulations in the …

China Samr’S Review Process In Cross-Border Technology M&A, Gabriel A. Paknia

Honors Scholar Theses

China's State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) holds discretionary authority over the merger review process. This paper examines whether SAMR's review of technology and semiconductor transactions since the governing body's inception in 2018 reflects political-economic incentives beyond what competitive harm analysis alone would explain. The paper is broken into three core pillars: accessing SAMR's regulatory code to identify how flexibility to exercise discretion is codified, scrutinizing SAMR's full adverse outcome record for overrepresentation of technology and semiconductor deals, and deconstructing a semiconductor megamerger to illustrate those mechanisms with the backdrop of real time geopolitical events. I find that technology and …

From Ancient Harmony To Modern Sustainability: Assessing The Coupling Of Taoist “Harmony Between Humanity And Nature” With Esg And Its Impact On Firm Innovation And Performance, Biyi Wang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Against the backdrop of intensifying global ecological crises, the ESG evaluation system has become a core metric for corporate sustainable development worldwide. However, the Western-dominated ESG system lacks crucial cultural dimensions in its application within Chinese corporate practices. The ecological wisdom embedded in the Taoist concept of “Harmony between Humanity and Nature” offers a significant philosophical foundation for the ESG localization. Extant research has focused on the influence of Confucian culture on ESG, with insufficient exploration of the modern managerial value of “Harmony between Humanity and Nature”. A scientific coupling framework linking this concept with ESG indicators has yet to …

2026 Private Capital Markets Report, Craig R. Everett

Pepperdine Private Capital Markets Report

The Pepperdine private cost of capital survey was originally launched in 2007 and is the first comprehensive and simultaneous investigation of the major private capital market segments. This year’s survey specifically examined the behavior of senior lenders, asset‐based lenders, mezzanine funds, private equity groups, venture capital firms, angel investors, privately‐held businesses, investment bankers, business brokers, limited partners, and business appraisers. The Pepperdine survey investigated, for each private capital market segment, the important benchmarks that must be met in order to qualify for capital, how much capital is typically accessible, what the required returns are for extending capital in today’s economic …

Macroprudential Easing Measures In The Context Of Contractionary Monetary Policy: The Case Of Brazil In 2014, Marcos Antonio Paliari, Marcos Roberto Vasconcelos

Journal of Banking and Financial Economics

This paper evaluates the effects of a macroprudential policy of regulatory easing implemented amidst a contractionary monetary policy in Brazil. The intervention, carried out by the Central Bank in the third quarter of 2014, relaxed reserve requirements on time deposits to stimulate bank credit for vehicle financing. Using a Difference-in-Differences approach with fixed effects by credit modality and month, the analysis is based on monthly disbursement data for consumer loans from 2011 to 2018. Twelve rolling monthly windows are used to capture the dynamic evolution of the policy’s effects. Results based on a synthetic control group indicate statistically significant and …

Can Financial Literacy Enhance Esg Disclosures?, Xiaoran Jia, Kiridaran Kanagaretnam, Kiat Bee Jimmy Lee, Chee Yeow Lim

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using an international sample of firms and two country-level measures of financial literacy, we find robust evidence of a positive relation between financial literacy and firms' Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) disclosures. In cross-sectional analyses, we find that the effect of financial literacy in enhancing ESG disclosures is more prominent in poorer information environments, weaker legal institutions and weaker ESG reporting environments. Lastly, we find that financial literacy also enhances ESG performance. Our study contributes to and extends the literature by providing strong evidence that citizens' financial literacy enhances firms' ESG disclosure and the associated ESG performance.

Corporate Response To The Black Lives Matter Movement: Determinants Of Speaking Out In Support Of Social Causes, A. J. Yuan Chen, Patricia M. Dechow, Samuel T. Tan

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We document that firms vary in their timeliness of support for the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement following the death of George Floyd in May 2020, and that timeliness is an indicator of authenticity. We predict that firms that speak out quickly in support of BLM (via Twitter or their websites) have made more investments in diversity and inclusion, relative to firms that speak out slowly (via conference calls or annual reports) or that remain silent. Consistent with this prediction, quick-disclosing firms have greater workforce diversity, have boards with greater ethnic diversity, and are more likely to tie executive compensation …

Application Of Open-Source Small Large Language Models For Finance Report Analysis, Tue Vu, Mark Austin, Marcel Tuijn

SMU Data Science Review

The rapid integration of generative AI in finance introduces both opportunities and challenges, particularly when analyzing sensitive data such as Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings. This study investigates the use of open-source Small Large Language Models (SLLMs), deployed locally through the Ollama and LangChain frameworks, combined with Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) for extracting financial insights relevant to index performance and reporting quality. Two key objectives guide this work: (1) benchmarking multiple open-source SLLMs for sentiment analysis, multiple-choice reasoning, and financial question answering, and (2) assessing the feasibility of locally deployed SLLMs for domain-specific financial queries. A standardized set of 50 …

The Impact Mechanism Of Low-Carbon Circular Development On Comprehensive Performance: Evidence From Manufacturing Firms, Xuejun Hu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

The advancement of the dual-carbon goals and the deepening of green transformation have positioned the impact of low-carbon circular development on firm performance as a central issue in corporate sustainabilityresearch. Taking Chinese A-share listed manufacturing firms from2007 to2022 as the research sample, this study constructs an indicator systemof firms’ low-carbon circular development from two dimensions—resource utilizationefficiency and emission control efficiency—and assesses comprehensive performance from financial and non-financial metrics. On this basis, the combined weighting–TOPSIS method is employed to measure the levels of low-carbon circular development and comprehensive performance. Amultidimensional fixed-effects panel model is used to examine their relationship. Furthermore, total …

Financial Leverage And Firm Performance: An Empirical Review And Analysis, Iqbal Md. M Islam

Journal of Global Business Insights

This paper examines the dual impact of financial leverage on corporate performance by analyzing empirical data across developed and developing nations, industries, and different periods. Leverage can enhance profitability through tax benefits and improved efficiency, but it also maximizes financial risk, making its effects highly context dependent. Theoretical frameworks such as the Trade-off Theory, Modigliani-Miller Theorem, Agency Theory, and Pecking Order Theory offer diverse perspectives on how debt influences firm outcomes. Empirical findings reveal mixed results; moderate leverage may lower capital costs and boost performance, whereas unnecessary debt can lead to financial distress. Disparities emerge between developed and developing economies. …