Citation
Burton, B.M. (2014), "Editorial", Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, Vol. 6 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRFM-02-2014-0007
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Editorial
Article Type: Editorial From: Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, Volume 6, Issue 1
A warm welcome to the first issue of Qualitative Research in Financial Markets in 2014. The first five-year period in the journals life has proved to be very encouraging, with QRFM now attracting high quality work from around the work on such a regular basis that it has underpinned the launch of a dedicated research centre in the area at the University of Dundee in the UK. We will soon be organising centre-based events that bring together the type of work published and supported by QRFM and details of these will follow later this year. The journals publishers, Emerald, have again been generous in supporting the award of QRFM-sponsored best paper prizes at leading conferences and to this end I was delighted to be able to award the most recent of these to Robert A. Olsen, for a paper accepted for the BFWG conference at Queen Mary, University of London in December. Roberts work bringing together the notions of risk perception, affect, qualia and their impact on individuals decision-making will be well known to many QRFM readers and I am pleased to say that whilst the award-winning paper will itself be published later this year, another Olsen paper was already scheduled to be published in this issue and is discussed below.
Turning to the present issue, five papers are included and these, as always, point to the innovative and multi-dimensional way in which qualitative endeavour is permeating a wide variety of aspects of financial market research. In “Smaller university endowments: team characteristics, portfolio composition and performance, the first paper in this issue, Mimi Lord provides fascinating novel evidence regarding the decision-making process in endowment committees within US universities and colleges. Employing interviews – in a grounded-theory context – the study reveals that marked differences exist in both the perceptions of and practices in “top and “low performing endowment teams. In particular, the former were seen as having relatively greater efficacy, independence, expertise and learning commitment. Individuals in the “top group also tended to assess investments on a more favourable basis, with this reflected in their portfolio allocation decisions.
The second study: “Economic performance, export, systemic barriers and equity investments in innovative companies – evidence from Poland by Lukasz Prorokowski, continues the authors investigation of market and firm behaviour in modern-day Poland by showing how innovations in production and strategy provided firms with the flexibility to cope with the worst effects of the global downturn. However, the analysis is shown to have broader implications, including at the national economic level, for investors seeking to exploit the innovation targeted by individual firms and in terms of how this type of corporate approach can be encouraged and nurtured.
The third paper: “Financial risk perceptions: a consciousness perspective is the study by Robert A. Olsen referred to above. In this study, Olsen argues that perceptions of risk in a financial context are likely to be qualia-based, with financial decision-makers perceiving the risk notion to incorporate a major “feeling aspect. Notably, the study suggests that the impact of qualia on risk perception is likely to be most evident in complex investment scenarios, for example those involving foreign stocks, smaller firms and IPOs.
In the next article “Catastrophe risks, cat bonds and innovation resistance Tristan Nguyen and Joerg Lindenmeier build on Rams consumer resistance model to explore the difficulties in developing a market in which widespread use of “cat bonds by private investors is established practice. The study reports that in a context where perceived “immorality is a factor, the relevant risks do not easily translate to the key actuarial measures needed for insurability to emerge. The authors point to the need for “persuasive communication to facilitate improvement in the functioning of the market for these instruments.
This issue concludes with a study entitled “A consensus-based corporate governance paradigm for Islamic banks by Monal Abdel-Baki and Valerio Leone Sciabolazza that continues QRFMs pedigree in publishing topical research relating to the fast-growing world of Islamic banking and finance. This particular article investigates and discusses issues regarding governance practices in the sector. The authors argue that the increased demand for “ethical behaviour in the post-crisis world provides an opportunity for Islamic financial institutions to demonstrate their modern relevance. Having established a relationship between financial performance and governance structures in Islamic banks, the study outlines a three-tiered model that accommodates wider stakeholders interests and could serve as the basis for high levels of investor confidence and long-term growth in the industry.
February 2014
Bruce M. Burton