Business Commons^™

Excel And Simulation For Accountants, Clarence Goh

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Simulation is an extremely useful decision‐making tool for accountants. While many companies have invested heavily in developing sophisticated software to help them run simulations, simulations can also be run on tools such as Excel. In this article, I will use a simple example to demonstrate how an accountant could use Excel to run simulations.

Keeping Investors Onboard: A Corporate Social Responsibility Crisis Response Framework, Clarence Goh

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

There is evidence to suggest that managers use CSR reporting as a means to manage their firms’ CSR reputations. In this study, I jointly examine CSR reputation and CSR crisis response in the context of CSR crises, and how they can influence investor judgments and decision making. In particular, in the context of CSR crises, I build on situational crisis communication theory to develop a CSR crisis response framework which managers can use to examine and understand how specific types of CSR crises can influence their firm’s CSR reputations, which can in turn influence investor judgments and decision making. Following …

The Lessons We Learned From A Smart Nation: Germany, Thomas Menkhoff, Jonas Schorr

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

A study trip tp Germany by a group of Singapore Management University students offers insights into how this European nation has built its cities sustainably and innovatively.

Inflation Expectations In Singapore: A Behavioural Approach, Alexander Clark, Aurobindo Ghosh, Samuel Hanes

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The expectations of economic agents have significant impact on their decisions and are key determinants of macroeconomic outcomes such as inflation, economic growth and unemployment. For example, if a worker believes that consumer prices will rise sharply next year, she would demand a wage increase. Similarly, a homeowner with a fixed interest mortgage might make an early repayment if she expects price levels to fall, knowing that the real value of her mortgage debt will increase. In these cases, expectations about inflation could lead to changes in behaviour and in the aggregate, influence prices and become self-fulfilling.

Quantitative Easing Auctions Of Treasury Bonds, Zhaogang Song, Haoxiang Zhu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The Federal Reserve uses (reverse) auctions to implement its purchases of Treasury bonds in quantitative easing (QE). To evaluate dealers’ offers across multiple bonds, the Fed relies on its internal yield curve model, fitted to secondary market bond prices. From November 2010 to September 2011, a one standard deviation increase in the cheapness of a Treasury bond (how much the market price of the bond is below a model-implied value) increases the Fed’s purchase quantity of that bond by 276 million and increases the auction costs on that bond by 2.6 cents per $100 par value, controlling for standard covariates. …

Dynamic Inventory Pooling Policies To Deliver Differentiated Service, Yuanguang Zhong, Zhichao Zheng, Mabel C. Chou, Chung-Piaw Teo

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Resource pooling strategies have been widely used in industry to match supply with demand. However, effective implementation of these strategies can be challenging. Firms need to integrate the heterogeneous service level requirements of different customers into the pooling model and allocate the resources (inventory or capacity) appropriately in the most effective manner. The traditional analysis of inventory pooling, for instance, considers the performance metric in a centralized system and does not address the associated issue of inventory allocation. Using Blackwell’s Approachability Theorem, we derive a set of necessary and sufficient conditions to relate the fill rate requirement of each customer …

People In More Racially Diverse Neighborhoods Are More Prosocial, Jared Nai, Jayanth Narayanan, Ivan Hernandez, Krishna Savani

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Five studies tested the hypothesis that people living in more diverse neighborhoods would have more inclusive identities, and would thus be more prosocial. Study 1 found that people residing in more racially diverse metropolitan areas were more likely to tweet prosocial concepts in their everyday lives. Study 2 found that following the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, people in more racially diverse neighborhoods were more likely to spontaneously offer help to individuals stranded by the bombings. Study 3 found that people living in more ethnically diverse countries were more likely to report having helped a stranger in the past month. Providing …

To Give Or Not To Give? Choosing Chance Under Moral Conflict, Stephanie C. Lin, Taly Reich

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Although prior research suggests that people should not prefer random chance to determine their outcomes, we propose that in the context of prosocial requests, a contingent of people prefer to rely on chance. We argue that this is because they are conflicted between losing resources (e.g., time, money) and losing moral selfregard. Across five studies, in both choices with binary outcomes (whether to volunteer) and ranges of outcomes (how much to donate), some people preferred to be randomly assigned an outcome rather than to make their own choices. This did not negatively affect prosocial behavior in binary choices and improved …

Short Covering Trades, Ekkehart Boehmer, Truong X. Duong, Zsuzsa R. Huszar

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Short sellers are known to have private information about security prices. Empirical evidence of short selling, however, is based on only half of short sellers’ trading activity; specifically, the opening of the position. Using disclosed large short position data from the Japanese stock market, we provide the first detailed evidence of covering trades and find a positive reaction to short covering that only partially reverses. While these results are consistent with substantial transaction costs for closing large short positions, they also reveal that some short sellers are privately informed about positive future events and have timing ability in covering positions.

Lyf@Smu: A Collaborative Approach To Innovation, Kevin Koh

2018 Reimagine Future Learning Spaces

No abstract provided.

Re-Imagining Space For Next Generation Learners, Mark Roehrs [email protected], Fiona Nixon [email protected], Tamagin Blake-Smith [email protected], Razvan Ghilic-Micu [email protected]

2018 Reimagine Future Learning Spaces

No abstract provided.

Using Mobile Technology To Improve Educational Space Usage And Student Engagement, Rajesh Balan

2018 Reimagine Future Learning Spaces

No abstract provided.

International Comparative Study Of Informal Learning Spaces Policies, Design Principles And Outcomes On The Teaching & Learning Practices And Campuses Transformation, John Augeri

2018 Reimagine Future Learning Spaces

No abstract provided.

Baguettes In Paris By Paris Baguette, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

South Korea’s biggest bakery chain officially makes a classic French food item better than the French; the U.S. and parts of Asia already know that. Is the rest of Europe about to find out?

Didi’S Strategic Move Towards Globalisation, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

This January, Didi Chuxing, China’s largest car-hailing app, announced that it has acquired the remaining shares of Brazil's 99 car share service, Uber's main rival in Latin America. The news came days after Uber raising from Softbank a new round of capital with the valuation at USD48 billion.

Engaging The Sports Fan In The Smartphone Age, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Technology has made sports accessible to more people. It has also changed sports’ relationship with the most ardent fans

How To Build A Retail Website That Keeps On Selling, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

E-commerce appeal is a dynamic art and firms need to keep up

With e-commerce giant Amazon launching its online retail service in Australia to a muted reception, new research from Eric Lim and his colleagues, Fei Liu, Bo Xiao and Chee-Wee Tan, on the impact of product appeal and website quality on online purchases is timely.

Library Services Platform: A Platform For Innovation, Salihin Mohammed Ali

Research Collection Library

In Aug 2015, SMU Libraries migrated to a Library Services Platform (LSP) called Alma. Branded as the next-generation Integrated Library Systems (ILSs), LSPs take advantage of cloud computing and Web technologies to manage physical, digital and electronic materials in a unified manner. Since the adoption of Alma, SMU Libraries have transformed the way it organizes and functions namely in areas of talent management, assessment and service development.

Customer Satisfaction Index Of Singapore 2017: Full Year Overview, Institute Of Service Excellence, Smu

Research Collection Institute of Service Excellence (2007-2024)

The Customer Satisfaction Index of Singapore (CSISG) computes customer satisfaction scores at the national, sector, sub-sector, and company levels. The CSISG serves as a quantitative benchmark of the quality of goods and services produced by the Singapore economy over time and across countries. The fourth quarter results mark the end of measurement for CSISG 2017. Singapore’s 2017 national score was computed using the data collected during these four quarters.

Financial Reporting Changes And Internal Information Environment: Evidence From Sfas 142, Qiang Cheng, Young Jun Cho, Holly I. Yang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Using the adoption of SFAS 142 as an exogenous shock, we examine the effect of changes in financial reporting on firms’ internal information environment. SFAS 142 removed goodwill amortization and required firms to perform a two-step impairment test. We argue that complying with SFAS 142 induces managers to acquire new information and, therefore, improves managers’ information sets. Interviews with executives and auditors confirm this argument. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that firms affected by SFAS 142 (i.e., treatment firms) experience an improvement in management forecast accuracy in the post-SFAS 142 period compared with those not affected. The increase is …

Trade Secrets Law And Corporate Disclosure: Causal Evidence On The Proprietary Cost Hypothesis, Yinghua Li, Yupeng Lin, Liandong Zhang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study exploits the staggered adoption of the inevitable disclosure doctrine (IDD) by U.S. state courts as an exogenous shock that generates variations in the proprietary costs of disclosure. We find that firms respond to IDD adoption by reducing the level of disclosure regarding their customers’ identities, supporting the proprietary cost hypothesis. Our results are stronger for firms in industries with a higher degree of entry threats, for firms in more volatile industries, and for firms with a lower degree of external financing dependence. Overall, this study represents one of the first efforts in identifying the causal effect of proprietary …

Internal Control And Operational Efficiency, Qiang Cheng, Beng Wee Goh, Jae Bum Kim

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine whether effective internal control over financial reporting has implications beyond that of financial reporting to firm operational efficiency. We predict and find that operational efficiency, derived from frontier analysis, is significantly lower among firms disclosing material weaknesses in internal control relative to firms with effective control. This result exists even in the years leading up to the disclosure of material weaknesses, but disappears after remediation of the internal control problems, suggesting that the remediation of material weaknesses improves operational efficiency. Overall, our study extends the literature on the reporting effects of strong versus weak internal control, and helps …

Return Predictability And The Real Option Value Of Segments, Pingui Rao, Heng Yue, Xin Zhou

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Theory suggests that firm value should include the value of real options; that is, firms have the option to expand more profitable businesses and liquidate less profitable businesses. In a diversified firm, each segment has its own real options. Applying real options theory to a diversified firm at the firm level neglects the value of segment-level options. If investors overlook segment-level options, mispricing will occur. Using data from 1981 to 2013, we find that a hedge portfolio buying diversified firms in the highest decile of the estimated real option value of segments (RVS) and selling those in the lowest RVS …

How Data Analytics May Turn Smes Into Smart Enterprises, Gary Pan, Poh Sun Seow

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

No abstract provided.

Essays In Corporate Finance, Meng Gao

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This dissertation studies the impact of credit rating on firms’ financing behavior and investigates insider trading activities.

The first essay documents how firms’ concerns about credit rating change affect their choice between the use of debt and lease. Firms approaching a credit rating change tend to use less debt relative to operating leases to finance their new projects. In this paper, I propose a new method of measuring the potential of a credit rating change. Using the new measures, I find that not only the concerns about being downgraded but also the at- tempts to get upgraded have significant impacts. …

Research Note: Investor Perceptions Of Comparable-To-Industry Versus Higher-Than-Industry Pay Ratio Disclosures, Khim Kelly, Jean Lin Seow

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

The usefulness of the CEO-to-employee pay ratio disclosure to investors is subject to significant debate. Our experiment examines participant responses to higher-than-industry and comparable-to-industry pay ratio disclosures in a company. A prior experiment by Kelly and Seow (2016) (hereafter KS) found that incrementally disclosing a higher-than-industry pay ratio on top of higher-than-industry CEO pay had indirect negative effects on the company’s perceived investment potential, via negative perceptions about the fairness of the CEO pay and workplace climate. We find that the negative indirect effects of pay ratio disclosures on perceived investment potential in KS are replicable in our study, and …

Global Ambitions: Positioning Singapore As A Contemporary Arts Hub, Su Fern Hoe

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

This chapter has two objectives. The first is to critically interrogate the state’s efforts in utilising the visual arts as a means to position Singapore as an international arts hub and marketplace. As Kwok Kian Woon and Low Kee-Hong have noted, “Singapore’s cultural policy has everything to do with staying on top as a focal node in the late-capitalist world system of the new millennium” (Kwok and Low, 2002, p. 154). This chapter offers an overview of the programmes and initiatives introduced by the state from the 1990s to the present in order to encourage the entry of international art …

Do Your Friends Make You Buy This Brand?: Modeling Social Recommendation With Topics And Brands, Minh Duc Luu, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Consumer behavior and marketing research have shown that brand has significant influence on product reviews and product purchase decisions. However, there is very little work on incorporating brand related factors into product recommender systems. Meanwhile, the similarity in brand preference between a user and other socially connected users also affects her adoption decisions. To integrate seamlessly the individual and social brand related factors into the recommendation process, we propose a novel model called Social Brand–Item–Topic (SocBIT). As the original SocBIT model does not enforce non-negativity, which poses some difficulty in result interpretation, we also propose a non-negative version, called SocBIT(Formula …

The Arts And Culture Strategic Review Report: Harnessing The Arts For Community-Building, Su Fern Hoe

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The Arts and Culture Strategic Review (ACSR) was initiated in 2010 to chart the next phase of cultural development in Singapore. The final report, which was released in 2012, appears to propose a paradigm shift in focus for arts and cultural policy making in Singapore: from the desire to manage the arts and cultural sectors into profitable creative industries to the utilisation of the arts and culture as expedient tools for social cohesion and community building in Singapore. This shift has resulted in government programmes placing (renewed) importance and emphasis on “community arts” as a cultural activity. This chapter critically …

Nurturing The Cultural Desert: The Role Of Museums In Singapore, Su Fern Hoe, Terence Chong

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

The absence of official platforms and institutions such as museums and visual arts spaces; while the artistic amateur scene was flourishing, there were no museums or national galleries where collections of the best local and regional artworks could be found, appreciated and studied by artists and citizens. This cultural desert was the result of the government’s attention to bread and butter issues. How, then, did Singapore transform from “cultural desert” of yesteryear to a city with 51 museums and 118 art galleries in 2013, as well as an arts scene that saw more than 3.2 million visitors to the national …