Business Commons^™

Harnessing Technology To Improve The Consumer Experience, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

Professor Guo Zhiling is studying the impact of information technology on consumer behaviour and business strategy.

See the papers:

• Assessing the impact of recommendation agents on on-line consumer unplanned purchase behavior
• Assessing the moderating effect of consumer product knowledge and online shopping experience on using recommendation agents for customer loyalty

The Board Will Now Vote, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

Well-structured corporate governance frameworks are necessary to ensure that companies adhere to ethics and best practices, says Professor Toru Yoshikawa.

See the papers:

• Convergence of corporate governance: Critical review and future directions
• The effects of CEO trustworthiness on directors' monitoring and resource provision

Walking Firms Through It Decisions, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

Is it better to be an early adopter or wait till the technology matures? Professor Ma Dan helps companies make data-driven decisions.

See the papers:

• The pricing strategy analysis for the Software-as-a-Service business model
• Cloud services from a consumer perspective.

Unveiling Informal Business Networks, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

Research by Professor Zang Yoonseok is uncovering the implications of informal business networks between top executives and their independent auditors.

See the papers:

• Client conservatism and auditor-client contracting
• The downside of the network ties between CEO/CFOs and auditors through external directorships

The Importance Of Being An Ethical Company, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

Firms must fine-tune their corporate governance mechanisms to prevent unethical behaviour and take quick action once they are found, says Professor Cheng Qiang.

See the papers:

• Is the decline in the information content of earnings following restatements short-lived?
• CEO contractual protection and managerial short-termism

Encouraging Corporate Fair Play In Family-Run Businesses, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

Professor Chen Xia studies corporate governance and financial management of family firms.

See her paper: Family ownership and CEO turnovers

Playing Fast And Furious In The Stock Market, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

Surprising insights into the role of high frequency traders and short sellers revealed by Professor Ekkehart Boehmer’s research.

See the papers:

• Short selling and the price discovery process
• Which shorts are informed?
• The competitive landscape of high-frequency trading firms
• The Good News in Short Interest

Guiding Economic Growth Through National Action Plans: Protect, Respect And Remedy, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

A unique United Nations-commissioned academic research collaboration has issued recommendations on the prevention and mitigation of business-related human rights abuses in the Global South.

See the CALS-SMU reports to UN

See the book: Business and human rights in Southeast Asia: Risk and the regulatory turn

See the paper: A domestic solution for cross border human rights harm: Singapore’s haze pollution law

Estimating Risks And Resolving Paradoxes, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

Professor Lim Kian Guan uses sophisticated mathematical tools to extract information out of options data and provide more accurate risk estimates.

See his paper: Portfolio value-at-risk optimization for asymmetrically distributed asset returns

Smu’S Green Transformation Lab Transforms The Future Of Logistics, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

The Green Transformation Lab celebrates its third year of innovation.

Categories And Competition, Gino Cattani, Joseph F. Porac, Howard Thomas

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School of Business

In this paper, we review, integrate, and extend the literature on markets, competition, and categories as it applies to strategic management theory. Developments in the literatures of economics and organizational theory have shed new light on market categories and category dynamics. These developments highlight the fact that boundary questions are fundamental to the competitive process, and represent a fertile area for research and theory. The objective is to encourage a theoretically grounded rapprochement between current strategic management research and both older and newer research on categories and competition.

Investing In Impact: A Perspective On Social Impact Bonds, Rashika Ranchan

Social Space

Innovation is inherently risky: even if not all interventions work, social impact bonds can help to accelerate the rate of learning about which approaches work better than others.

The Macro Behind Microfinance: Cambodia's Financial Inclusion Success Story, Jonathan Chang

Social Space

Financial inclusion refers to the delivery of affordable financial services to disadvantaged and low-income segments of society. However, as it also involves striking a fine balance between managing businesses’ credit risks and improving customers’ access to credit, different countries have made varied progress in their financial inclusion efforts. To date, across both developed and developing nations, SMEs and individuals still struggle in the face of limited access to adequate financing. Yet there is one country that has made considerable strides in this area: judging from the tremendous success of its microfinance sector, Cambodia seems to have found the sweet spot …

Scaling Impact Investing Through Innovative Finance: A Focus On Women's Livelihoods, Durreen Shahnaz

Social Space

I embarked on a journey from the first steps of my career to utilise finance to do good for the world. This journey has now turned into a global movement that is taking the world by a storm, known as impact investing or social finance.

Exploring The World Of Corporate Finance, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

Professor Wang Rong delves deep into the complex world of international corporations to understand how they and their investors make decisions about money.

See the papers:

• Corporate financial policy and the value of cash
• Analysts' industry expertise

Who’S Watching The Auditors?, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

Professor Lim Chee Yeow is studying whether the provision of non-audit services affects the independence of auditors and the quality of their audit work.

See the papers:

• Non-audit service fees and audit quality: The impact of auditor specialization
• Effects of national culture on earnings quality of banks
• The price contagion effects of financial reporting fraud and reputational losses: Evidence from the individual audit partner level

The Serial Dean, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

Leave your comfort zone and venture into Africa, says Professor Howard Thomas.

See the book / article at:

• Africa: The management education challenge [book]
• Africa: The management education challenge [article in Global Focus]

The Importance Of Internal Controls, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

Professor Goh Beng Wee investigates the benefits and consequences of internal controls to corporate organisations.

See the papers:

• Internal controls and conditional conservatism
• Internal control and operational efficiency

How Hedge Funds Beat The Market, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

From epic tales spun around investment legends Ray Dalio and George Soros, to the secretive, high-octane world of Wall Street, the hedge fund has attained a worldwide notoriety for being an opaque, unwieldy beast. Professor Melvyn Teo studies what makes them tick.

See the papers:

• The geography of hedge funds
• The liquidity risk of liquid hedge funds; The liquidity risk of liquid hedge funds
• Limited attention, marital events and hedge funds

Understanding The Depleting And Replenishing Effects Of Compassion On Resources And Stress Recovery, Samantha Su-Hsien Sim

Dissertations and Theses Collection

Existing literature on compassion in the workplace examines the antecedents of compassion and compassionate organizing with the underlying assumption that compassion for the suffering of others is a positive emotion and has desirable outcomes. I challenge this assumption by conceptualizing compassion as an ambivalent emotion and exploring the effects of compassion on individuals who feel compassion. Using an experience-sampling methodology, outcomes such as helping behaviour, regulatory resources, personal resources, and stress response are examined. Feeling compassion for others can be distressing and requires emotional regulation. At the same time, feeling compassion can also motivate behaviours to alleviate suffering. Thus feeling …

The Paradoxes Of Risk Management In The Banking Sector, Chu Yeong Lim, Margaret Woods, Christopher Humphrey, Jean Lin Seow

Research Collection School of Accountancy

This paper uses empirical evidence to examine the operational dynamics and paradoxical nature of risk management systems in the banking sector. It demonstrates how a core paradox of market versus regulatory demands and an accompanying variety of performance, learning and belonging paradoxes underlie evident tensions in the interaction between front and back office staff in banks. Organisational responses to such paradoxes are found to range from passive to proactive, reflecting differing organisational, departmental and individual risk culture(s), and performance management systems. Nonetheless, a common feature of regulatory initiatives designed to secure a more structurally independent risk management function is that …

Banking On It: Investment Banks As The Next Step For Impact Investing, Mitchell Laferriere

Social Space

For their size, investment banks have comparatively little to do with the rising practice of impact investing: They make up only nine per cent of all the assets under management (AUM) in the impact investment industry. That totals about US$1 trillion in investments in an US$11 trillion market.

Sofi 101: Understanding Social Finance, Christian Petroske, Florian Parzhuber, Haneol Jeong, John Kinsella, Maaya Murakami, Mitchell Laferriere, Remi Cordelle

Social Space

What is social finance? Rachel Kalbfleisch of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) defines it as a collection of approaches to managing money that create value for society or the environment, often while producing a financial return,1 while the MaRS Centre for Impact Investing calls it “an approach to managing money to solve societal challenges”.2 In other words, social finance is a movement that covers various ways of using finance—via socially responsible investments, micro-loans, community investments, and so on—to achieve a social or environmental impact. Who is involved in this process? While charities, socially driven businesses and governments all work …

When Sharing Is Not Just Caring, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

Conventional wisdom dictates that trade secrets have to be protected at all costs, but Professor Gerard George’s research shows there may be a better way of doing business.

See the papers:

• Appropriability and the retrieval of knowledge after spillovers
• What do I want? The effects of individual aspiration and relational capability on collaboration preferences

Managing Cities With Urban Computing, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

SMU Professors Lau Hoong Chuin and Lim Yun Fong are combining their mathematical, computational and business know-how to address challenges facing the inner-city deliveries of orders and shipments.

See the papers:

• A rolling horizon auction mechanism and virtual pricing of shipping capacity for urban consolidation centers
• Achieving economic and environmental sustainabilities in urban consolidation center with bicriteria auction
• Retail precinct management: A case of commercial decentralization in Singapore

Research@Smu: Connecting The Dots, Singapore Management University

Research@SMU: Connecting the Dots

The word “Management” in the name of our university was carefully and deliberately chosen to address the needs of institutions and decisionmakers across all segments of society: business enterprises and the private sector, government and the public sector, and civil society and the people sector. Unless you are already familiar with the breadth and depth of research output from Singapore Management University (SMU), you would naturally assume that we were a “management” university that was focusing exclusively on business – in essence, a large business school. The reality is quite different.

Through this book, you will gain a more complete …

Building Gender-Inclusive Workplaces In Singapore: A Practical Guide For Companies And Human Resource Practitioners, Benjamin Tien Yong Wong, Gillian Pei Wen Loy, Claris Wan Xin Teo

Student Publications

We are a team of students from the Singapore Management University (“SMU”) Diversity Leadership Development Programme and SMU Women’s Connections. We believe that all employees are valuable members of many organisations that operate in Singapore. Companies can therefore harness the potential of stronger teams by ensuring that all employees feel safe, valued and included - regardless of one’s gender. In 2014, Singapore saw more women than men enter tertiary educational institutions. Despite this progress made, a study conducted in 2015 found that women were part of only 9.1 per cent of SGX- listed boards, with almost half of these boards …

Banking On It: Investment Banks As The Next Step For Impact Investing, Mitchell Laferriere

Social Space

For their size, investment banks have comparatively little to do with the rising practice of impact investing: They make up only nine per cent of all the assets under management (AUM) in the impact investment industry. That totals about US$1 trillion in investments in an US$11 trillion market.

Ownership And Identities Of The Largest Shareholders And Dividend Policy: Evidence From Vietnam, Trien Vinh Le, Trang Huyen Le

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This study investigates the relationship between the level of shareholdings and identities of the largest shareholders, and cash dividend policy. The study is conducted with a sample of 180 firms listed on Vietnam stock exchange markets from 2009 to 2013. The fixed effect model is employed to analyze the balanced panel data. The results show that the higher the level of holdings by the largest shareholders, the lower the dividend payout. Moreover, companies with the State and Foreign investors as the largest shareholders have higher dividend payout ratio than companies with local investors and managers as the largest shareholders. The …

Marital Status And Earnings Management, Gilles Hillary, Sterling Huang, Yanping Xu

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

In this note, we examine the effect of CEO marital status on the riskiness of financial reporting. Using multiple proxies, we find that firms headed by a single CEO display a higher degree of earnings management than those headed by a married CEO. The effect is economically significant. Our results persist in an instrumental variable regression, suggesting that our results are not driven by innate heterogeneity in preferences.