What we know and what we should know about speed of capital structure adjustment: a retrospective using bibliometric and system thinking approach
Qualitative Research in Financial Markets
ISSN: 1755-4179
Article publication date: 14 September 2022
Issue publication date: 28 March 2023
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to conduct bibliometric analysis on the studies dealing with capital structure’s speed of adjustment (SoA) and identify the prominent themes while suggesting future research directions in the area. The existing reviews broadly focus on the capital structure, which provides the scope for conducting a review on this sub-aspect of capital structure.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a three-stage process to conduct this review: identification of academic journals, selection and analysis of target papers. This study uses a combination of bibliometric tools and a system thinking approach to assess the current status of publications and emerging themes within the literature.
Findings
This study has found a progressive evolution of SoA in capital structure research from 1984 to 2021. Studies largely focus on implementing the dynamic models to analyse the impact of adjustment costs, dynamic economic conditions, corporate governance practices and other variables on the firms’ adjustment speed and financial decisions. The network analysis of citations, keywords and clusters gives further knowledge on the intellectual structure of the data.
Research limitations/implications
This study is highly dependent on the papers available within the SCOPUS database. Studies not included herein are not part of this analysis, which may or may not bear an effect on the study’s findings.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the application of systems engineering concept of “system thinking approach” to identify literature gap and suggest directions for forthcoming research is the first of its kind, thus adding a novel and multidisciplinary aspect to this study.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Late Dr. R. Mukundan who introduced authors to the system engineering concept of ‘systems thinking approach’ that was applied in this paper.
Citation
Hegde, A.A., Masuna, V., Panda, A.K. and Kumar, S. (2023), "What we know and what we should know about speed of capital structure adjustment: a retrospective using bibliometric and system thinking approach", Qualitative Research in Financial Markets, Vol. 15 No. 2, pp. 224-253. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRFM-11-2021-0188
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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