Business Commons^™

Economic Freedom, Investment Flexibility, And Equity Value: A Cross-Country Study, Chih-Ying Chen, Peter F. Chen, Qinglu Jin

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Prior studies show that equity value has convex relations with earnings and book value of equity, respectively, due to growth and adaptation options (Burgstahler and Dichev 1997a; Zhang 2000). These studies, however, do not consider the role of institutions in affecting firms' ability to exercise growth and adaptation options. In this study, we investigate whether these convex relations vary with the degree of a country's economic freedom, which may influence the frictions and costs of exercising these options. We develop four hypotheses: In countries with greater economic freedom, (1) a firm's capital investment in response to profitability is greater; (2) …

Ceo Contractual Protection And Managerial Short-Termism, Xia Chen, Qiang Cheng, Alvis K. Lo, Xin Wang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

How to address managerial short-termism is an important issue for companies, regulators, and researchers. We examine the effect of CEO contractual protection, in the form of employment agreements and severance pay agreements, on managerial short-termism. We find that firms with CEO contractual protection are less likely to cut R&D expenditures to avoid earnings decreases and are less likely to engage in real earnings management. The effect of CEO contractual protection is both statistically and economically significant. We further find that this effect increases with the duration and monetary strength of CEO contractual protection. The cross-sectional analyses indicate that the effect …

Understanding The Building Blocks Of Selection Procedures: Effects Of Response Fidelity On Performance And Validity, Filip Lievens, Wilfried De Corte, Lena Westerveld

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study aims to advance our conceptual understanding of selection procedures by exploring the effect of response fidelity (i.e., written constructed response vs. behavioral constructed response) on test performance, validity, and applicant perceptions. Stimulus fidelity (multimedia stimulus) was kept constant. In a field experiment, 208 applicants for entry-level police officer jobs completed a multimedia situational judgment test with written constructed responses and behavioral responses. We hypothesized the behavioral response mode (a) to be a better predictor of police trainee performance one year later, (b) to be less cognitively saturated, (c) to exhibit higher personality (extraversion) saturation, and (d) to be …

Computer Supported Collaborative Learning: A Business Simulation Activity Using Social Media, Siyoung Chung, Hichang Cho

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Social media are dramatically changing the way welive and make social relationships with others. While students areso immersed in social media in their daily life, social mediaadoption in classroom has been slow. Educators who wish toexperiment with social media for CSCL struggle to find ways toincorporate the expected benefits and advantages of social mediato teaching lessons. This paper reports on the experiences ofusing social media for a business case simulation activity in ahigher learning context. Drawing on a qualitative feedback andsocial media log data of 27 teams of 135 undergraduate students,this paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of socialmedia as …

Confessions Of An Angry Employee: The Dark Side Of De-Identified “Confessions” On Facebook, Arunima Krishna, Soojin Kim

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Employees’ communication behaviors are an important area of research for public rela-tions. In this study, employees’ communication behaviors in a de-identified context havebeen studied from the perspective of online flaming by analyzing “confessions” posted on aFacebook confessions page. The theoretical perspectives of the uses and gratification theoryand employee communication behavior in public relations literature were adopted in thisstudy. Positive and negative “confessions” were analyzed to identify employees’ motiva-tions in posting them. While negative posts expressing anger and frustration at policies,personnel, and the management in general dominated the page, positive posts indicatedexpressions of pride, nostalgia, and gratitude for social support from …

Comments On The Exposure Draft On The Conceptual Framework For Financial Reporting (Ed/2015/3), Tan, Pearl Hock-Neo

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

No abstract provided.

Q&A With Brad Peters, Chairman And Founder, Birst, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

The man behind one of Silicon Valley’s leading Cloud Business Intelligence and Analytics firms shares his thoughts on the future of the data business

The Art Of Power Selling, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Generating market awareness and qualified leads is critical to sales success and it need not be as hard or expensive as you might think.

Default Clauses In Debt Contracts, Ningzhong Li, Yun Lou, Florin Vasvari

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

We examine the determinants of events of default clauses in syndicated loan and bond contracts, provi- sions that allow lenders to request the repayment of principal and to terminate lending commitments. We document significant variation in the use of default clauses and their restrictiveness within the same type of lending contract but also across loans and bonds. We find that default clauses in public bond contracts are less restrictive than those in syndicated loan contracts. We also document that two ex ante proxies for bankruptcy costs, the level of intangible assets and capitalized research and development expenditures at the time …

Analytics And Cybersecurity: The Shape Of Things To Come, Gary Pan, Poh Sun Seow, Calvin Chan, Chu Yeong Lim

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

No abstract provided.

Kpmg Global Anti Bribery And Corruption: Rising To The Challenge In The Age Of Globalization, Themin Suwardy, Poh Sun Seow, Pan, Gary

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

Corruption continues to corrode the global economy, 18 years after member governments of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) signed a convention1 that establishes legally binding standards to criminalize the bribery of public officials. Since then, a growing number of governments have passed anti-bribery and corruption (ABC) laws. The U.S. is no longer the lone policeman on the beat; the UK and other European governments have implemented anti-corruption regulations too, as have emerging economies including China and Brazil.

Despite tougher enforcement of regulations to combat bribery and corruption, illicit payments to counter-parties continue to burden economies, diverting resources …

Managing Risk And Resilience: From The Editors, Gerben Van Der Vegt, Peter Essens, Margareta Wahlstrom, Gerard George

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Ten years of Global Risks reports by the World Economic Forum show a daunting list of risks that challenge humankind, including water and food crises, terrorist attacks, cybercrime, financial crises, and extreme weather events, among others (World Economic Forum, 2015). The annual number of these high-risk events worldwide has steadily increased from around 350 in 1980 to almost 1,000 in 2014 (UN, 2015). Managing the devastation of these disaster events extends beyond concerns about mortality; economic losses are rising from around U.S.$50 billion in the 1980s to around U.S.$250 billion in the last decade (UN, 2015). Similarly, cataclysmic effects caused …

Opaque Financial Reporting Due To Unemployment Concerns, Jeffrey Ng, Tharindra Ranasinghe, Guifeng Shi, Holly I. Yang

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

This paper examines the link between rank-and-file employees’ unemployment concerns and financial reporting opacity. Following Agrawal and Matsa (JFE, 2013), we use exogenous variations in state unemployment insurance benefits to capture changes to unemployment concerns. We find that when unemployment concerns are lower, there is less opaque financial reporting. This relation is stronger when workers face higher unemployment risk, labor union participation is high, and executives have higher equity incentives. Using Tobin’s Q to capture firm value, we also find that the economic rationale to engage in opaque financial reporting reduces when unemployment benefits are high. Our findings suggest that …

From Data Analysis To Intelligent Accounting: Impact Of Analytics On Accounting Function, Gary Pan, Poh Sun Seow

Research Collection School Of Accountancy

No abstract provided.

Organizational Image, Identity, And International Divestment: A Theoretical Examination, William P. Wan, H. Shawna Chen, Daphne W. Yiu

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

International divestment is a prevalent phenomenon and should be viewed as an integral part of the internationalization process. Nevertheless, the field of international business and strategy has paid scant attention to this topic. We develop a conceptual framework to examine a firm's propensity to divest internationally and the type of foreign operations it will divest. We posit that a firm's international divestment decisions are influenced by its organizational image and identity. Premised on this behavioral perspective, this article develops a theoretical model and generates a set of propositions to shed light on the topic of international divestment.

Related Securities And Equity Market Quality: The Case Of Cds, Ekkehart Boehmer, Sudheer Chava, Heather Tookes

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We document that equity markets become less liquid and equity prices become less efficient when markets for single-name credit default swap (CDS) contracts emerge. This finding is robust across a variety of market quality measures. We analyze the potential mechanisms driving this result and find evidence consistent with negative trader-driven information spillovers that result from the introduction of CDS. These spillovers greatly outweigh the potentially positive effects associated with completing markets (e.g., CDS markets increase hedging opportunities) when firms and their equity markets are in “bad” states. In “good” states, we find some evidence that CDS markets can be beneficial.

Effects Of The Use Of Points, Leaderboards And Badges On In-Game Purchases Of Virtual Goods, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Lakshmi Sushma Daggubati, Amith Tarigonda, Raghu Vinay Nuvvula, Ofir Turel

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Game design elements are major factors in gamification. In this study, we seek to examine the impact of game design elements on users’ in-game purchases of virtual goods. The purchase of virtual goods due to players’ intrinsic motivation has been studied but little is known about the purchase of virtual goods due to the use of game design elements (i.e., Points, Leaderboards and Badges) built into the games. Extending our knowledge to this realm can help researchers to better understand gamers’ behaviors, and game designers and marketers to better promote and sell virtual goods in online games.

Creating Greater Synergy Between Hci Academia And Practice, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Dennis Galletta, Melinda Knight, James R. Lewis, John Pruitt, Gavriel Salvendy, Hong Sheng, Anna Wichansky

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper presents perspectives from both academia and practice on how both groups can collaborate and work together to create synergy in the development and advancement of human-computer interaction (HCI). Issues and challenges are highlighted, success cases are offered as examples, and suggestions are provided to further such collaborations.

New Product Development Flexibility In A Competitive Environment, Janne Kettunen, Yael Gruksha-Cockayne, Zeger Degraeve, Bert De Reyck

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Managerial flexibility can have a significant impact on the value of new product development projects. We investigate how the market environment in which a firm operates influences the value and use of development flexibility. We characterize the market environment according to two dimensions, namely (i) its intensity, and (ii) its degree of innovation. We show that these two market characteristics can have a different effect on the value of flexibility. In particular, we show that more intense or innovative environments may increase or decrease the value of flexibility. For instance, we demonstrate that the option to defer a product launch …

Self-Esteem And Women’S Performance In Mixed-Gender Negotiations, Serena Changhong Lu, Elizabeth Layne Paddock, Jochen Reb

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Past research shows gender stereotype threat effect negatively affects women's economic negotiation outcomes, but little is known about moderators of this effect. The present research investigated self-esteem (SE) level and social contingent self-esteem (SCSE) as potential buffers to the gender stereotype threat effect. Based on the contingencies of self-worth model (Crocker & Wolfe, 2001), we hypothesized that SE level interacts with SCSE to determine women's outcomes at the bargaining table such that high SE women with low SCSE do not confirm gender stereotypes and achieve higher performance in mixed-gender negotiations. Drawing on the integrated process model of stereotype threat effects …

Dynamic Pricing For Hotel Rooms When Customers Request Multiple-Day Stays, Selvaprabu Nadarajah, Yun Fong Lim, Qing Ding

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Prominent hotel chains quote a booking price for a particular type of rooms on each day and dynamically update these prices over time. We present a novel Markov decision process (MDP) formulation that determines the optimal booking price for a single type of rooms under this strategy, while considering the availability of rooms throughout the multiple-day stays requested by customers. We analyze special cases of our MDP to highlight the importance of modeling multiple-day stays and provide guidelines to potentially simplify the implementation of pricing policies around peak-demand events such as public holidays and conferences. Since computing an optimal policy …

Estimating The Reproducibility Of Psychological Science, Alexander A. Aarts, Et Al, Stephanie C. Lin

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Reproducibility is a defining feature of science, but the extent to which it characterizes current research is unknown. We conducted replications of 100 experimental and correlational studies published in three psychology journals using high-powered designs and original materials when available. Replication effects were half the magnitude of original effects, representing a substantial decline. Ninety-seven percent of original studies had statistically significant results. Thirty-six percent of replications had statistically significant results; 47% of original effect sizes were in the 95% confidence interval of the replication effect size; 39% of effects were subjectively rated to have replicated the original result; and if …

Do Family Firms Learn More From Other Family Firms Than From Non-Family Firms? Adoption Of The Board Reform, Toru Yoshikawa, Jung Wook Shim

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Family firms differ from non-family firms because their owners are often motivated not only by economic incentives but also by non-economic considerations. This study investigates the effects of such non-economic motivation, especially the extent of family involvement and family legacy, on the adoption of a new practice, i.e., board reform that was newly introduced in the Japanese context in the late 1990s. Our empirical results show that while family firms are less likely to implement the board reform than non-family firms, board interlocks with other family firms facilitate the adoption. We also found that such factors as large family ownership …

Singapore’S Housing Policies: Responding To The Challenges Of Economic Transitions, Sock Yong Phang

Research Collection School Of Economics

Singapore has developed its own unique state-driven housing system, with more than three quarters of its housing stock built by the Housing and Development Board and homeownership financed through Central Provident Fund savings. As a result, it has one of the highest homeownership rates amongst market economies. This paper provides a historical perspective of the main housing problems faced by successive prime ministers and their respective policy responses. Under the leadership of Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew (1959-1990), the government established an integrated landhousing supply and housing finance framework to channel much needed resources into the housing sector to deal …

One-Child Policy And Family Firms In China, Cao, Jerry X., Douglas Cumming, Xiaoming Wang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Family business plays important roles to fuel economic growth in China. Due to the one-child policy, family firms are increasingly facing human capital constraints for within-family succession. Having only one heir decreases the probability of continuing family management by over 3%, reduces the probability of adult children working in family firms by 14%, and significantly decreases founders' expectations of having young heirs for succession. Having fewer children negatively affects founder's expectation to go public, reduces family firm's reinvestment rate and R&D. Overall, the evidence suggests that the human capital constraints due to the one-child policy impose significant negative impacts on …

Tail Event Driven Asset Allocation: Evidence From Equity And Mutual Funds Markets, Wolfgang Karl Hardle, David K. C. Lee, Sergey Nasekin, Xinwen Ni, Alla Petukina

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The correlation structure across assets and opposite tail movements are essential to the asset allocation problem, since they determine the level of risk in a position. Correlation alone is not informative on the distributional details of the assets. Recently introduced TEDAS -Tail Event Driven ASset allocation approach determines the dependence between assets at tail measures. TEDAS uses adaptive Lasso based quantile regression in order to determine an active set of negative nonzero coefficients. Based on these active risk factors, an adjustment for intertemporal correlation is made. In this research authors aim to develop TEDAS, by introducing three TEDAS modifications differing …

State Political Identity And Meta-Governance: Comparative Analysis Of Governance Modes In Vegetable Retail In Urban China, Qian Forrest Zhang

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

A government's political identity is a key factor in meta-governance; it powerfully shapes a government's policy aims and implementation preferences at the most abstract level and forms a stable governance mode. Dissonance between a pre-existing governance mode and the government's evolved political identity will lead to governance failures and pose political challenges to the government. In the case of vegetable retail in Shanghai, the neoliberal developmental state transformed the hierarchical governance into market governance; but as it evolves into a corporatist welfare state, market imperfections come to be perceived as governance failures, and the government responds by reintroducing hierarchical measures.

The Business Of Innovation, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

The ability to solve business problems creatively is admirable…and sometimes a matter of necessity

Driving Uber’S Success, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Besides being a disruptive innovation, Uber’s exponential growth has been based on smart lobbying and use of social media

Would You Pay Extra To Support A Local Brand?, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Global has more appeal but there is a home-country advantage