Business Commons^™

The Impact Of Information Opacity On The Relation Between Founding-Family Control And Cost Of Debt, Liangbo Ma, Shiguang Ma, Gary Tian

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

The literature finds mixed empirical evidence for systematic relations between founding - family ownership and cost of debt. Using a sample of 3380 privately (non-state) controlled but publicly listed firms in China between 2004 and 2010, we find that, on average, founding-family controlled firms pay significantly lower cost of debt, relative to non-founding-family controlled firms. Further investigation reveals that the negative relation between founding-family control and cost of debt exists mainly in firms that are relatively less opaque. Our results are robust to different measures of cost of debt and information opacity. We further generate evidence that in regions with …

Mutual Fund Ownership, Firm Specific Information, And Firm Performance: Evidence From China, Wenhua Sharpe, Gary Tian, Hong Feng Zhang

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

This paper shows empirically that the positive association between mutual fund ownership and firm value in China is mainly driven by the informed trading of mutual funds. Utilizing the unique short term feature of mutual fund holdings for the period from 2001 to 2010, we provide an informational link between a decomposed component of market-to-book ratio (firm specific valuation component) and mutual fund holdings. Specifically, we find that firms with a higher level of mutual fund ownership are associated with a higher specific value. Moreover, the positive association between the specific value of a firm and mutual fund ownership is …

On The Conceptualization Of Strategic Information Technology Alignment: Development And Validation Of A Multidimensional Construct, Magno J. Queiroz, Tim Coltman

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

In this study we conceptualize strategic information technology (IT) alignment as a two-way relationship where business strategy influences IT, and IT influences business strategy. This implies that a multidimensional rather than the traditional unidimensional conceptualization of strategic IT alignment is appropriate. To validate this approach we develop and test a new multidimensional measure that captures the first-order effects of IT alignment at the process-level, where they are expected to be realized. We test the model using survey data from 94 companies that span three countries ─ US, Australia and Germany. Results reveal that the multidimensional measure of strategic IT alignment …

Security Without Secrecy? Counter-Terrorism, Asio And Access To Information, Mark Rix

Sydney Business School - Papers

The Foreign Office declined to disclose the reasons for deciding that specific files should be withheld, with the result that the reason for the continuing secrecy is itself ... a secret.

Sociomateriality And Information Systems Success And Failure, Karlheinz Kautz, Dubravka Cecez-Kecmanovic

Sydney Business School - Papers

The aim of this essay is to put forward a performative, sociomaterial perspective on Information Systems (IS) success and failure in organisations by focusing intently upon the discursive-material nature of IS development and use in practice. Through the application of Actor Network Theory (ANT) to the case of an IS that transacts insurance products we demonstrate the contribution of such a perspective to the understanding of how IS success and failure occur in practice. The manuscript puts our argument forward by first critiquing the existing perspectives on IS success and failure in the literature for their inadequate consideration of the …

Are Value Of Information Methods Ready For Prime Time? An Application To Alternative Treatment Strategies For Nstemi Patients, Seamus Kent, Andrew Briggs, Simon Eckermann, Colin Berry

Faculty of Business - Papers (Archive)

Objectives: The use of value of information methods to inform trial design has been widely advocated but there have been few empirical applications of these methods and there is little evidence they are widely used in decision making. This study considers the usefulness of value of information models in the context of a real clinical decision problem relating to alternative diagnostic strategies for patients with a recent non-ST elevated myocardial infarction.

Methods: A pretrial economic model is constructed to consider the cost-effectiveness of two competing strategies: coronary angiography alone or in conjunction with fractional flow reserve measurement. A …