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This study aims to examine the effects of payment methods used in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) conducted by UK companies spanning the period from 2007 to 2019.

The study used the estimated expected returns method to identify abnormal returns during the deal announcement period, applying event study analysis with both univariate and multivariate regression models to detect cumulative abnormal returns around the announcement timeframe.

The results show a short-term positive return increase for acquiring firms, controlling for deal-specific characteristics like target firm location and payment methods. The authors observed a preference for cash financing across domestic and cross-border transactions. Multivariate analysis revealed insignificance between payment methods and deal characteristics like cross-border acquisitions and diversification.

The study’s focus on publicly traded firms in the UK and the absence of a comparative analysis across different regions and markets limits the sample size and may impact the generalizability of findings.

The study proposes three practical implications. Firstly, firms should tailor payment methods to each transaction, aligning with strategic goals to optimize value and mitigate risks. Secondly, decision-makers must prioritize comprehensive due diligence and strategic alignment throughout M&A processes to enhance success and maximize synergies. Finally, analysing broader strategic contexts and regulatory landscapes when structuring transactions enables goal attainment, such as market expansion or value creation.

The study’s findings can promote transparency and accountability among corporate decision-makers in M&A transactions. Stakeholders can advocate for transparent decision-making processes, enhancing trust in corporate governance.

This study provides valuable insights into the impact of payment methods on shareholder value in M&A transactions involving UK companies, informing strategic decision-making and contributing to the understanding of corporate finance dynamics.

Supply chain revamping (SCR) is an important strategy for firms to improve their supply chain operations in a rapidly changing environment. The purpose of this study is to shed light on the impact of SCR on shareholder value.

Based on Signaling Theory and 184 SCR announcements published by US-listed firms from 2013 to 2018, this study employs event study methodology and empirically examines three issues: Antecedents of SCRs; Primary purposes and actions of SCRs; In addition to the impact of SCRs on shareholder value using stock returns, we also examined the factors that can influence the extent of stock returns.

Firstly, our results indicate that SCRs are primarily driven by firms’ poor prior performance, CEO turnover and external control threats (ECTs). Secondly, the stock market favors SCRs aiming to meet customer needs and those accomplished through network remodel. However, the market reacts negatively to SCRs aiming at cutting costs, improving poor performance, and those implemented through network trim. Finally, the cross-sectional analysis indicates that shareholders prefer firms operating in more competitive or faster-growing industries and those adopting an expansionist strategy than those adopting a streamlining strategy.

Our study provides managers with valuable insights into when firms can benefit from initiating SCRs not only by examining the purposes and actions of SCRs but also by examining the industry- and strategy-specific moderators. Our study illuminates the conditions under which SCR will positively affect shareholder value. Additionally, this study contributes to the existing literature by deepening the understanding of the impact of supply chain decisions on firm performance and identifying the marginal conditions under which the stock market will react positively to SCR announcements.

There are variations in religious social norms and legal environments around the world. In this paper, we aim to examine the interaction between variations in religious social norms and legal environments on real activities manipulations and expense misclassification using a global sample of 63 countries. Our inquiry is motivated by a paucity of research on the interaction between legal environment and religion on earnings management practices in an international setting.

This study draws on a global sample of 63 countries to examine the effect of variations in religious social norms and legal environments on the trade-off between expense misclassification and real activities earnings management practices. Firm-specific financial data come from Global Compustat. Religion data are obtained from World Values Surveys of the World Bank. We obtain legal environment scores from the International Country Risk Guide.

Findings suggest that the interaction between law and religion serves as constraints on both classification shifting and real activities manipulation around the world. We find that religion strengthens the weak legal environment and the strong legal environment strengthens the weak religious environment to decrease both real activities manipulation and classification shifting when law and religion interact in an international setting. Therefore, our results contradict Zang's (2012) earnings management trade-off evidence. Again, our results contradict Malikov et al.’s (2018) evidence that mandatory International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption is associated with increased real activities manipulation.

The study is limited to 63 countries limiting the generalizability of the findings.

This study provides novel evidence and shows that there is a link between law and religion. The interaction between law and religion decreases expense misclassification and real activities manipulation. We contribute that the interaction between religion and law benefits firms and increases shareholder value as real activities manipulation decreases. Therefore, strengthening the legal environment will complement religion, IFRS and other monitoring mechanisms put in place to mitigate unethical expense misclassification and real activities earnings manipulation around the world.

This study aims to investigate the role of negative media coverage of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues in deterring tax avoidance. Inspired by media agenda-setting theory and legitimacy theory, this study hypothesises that an increase in ESG negative media coverage should cause a reputational drawback, leading companies to reduce tax avoidance to regain their legitimacy. Hence, this study examines a novel channel that links ESG and taxation.

This study uses panel regression analysis to examine the relationship between negative media coverage of ESG issues and tax avoidance among the largest European entities. This study considers different measures of tax avoidance and negative media coverage.

The results show that negative media coverage of ESG issues is negatively associated with tax avoidance, suggesting that media can act as an external monitor for corporate taxation.

The findings have implications for policymakers and regulators, which should consider tax transparency when dealing with ESG disclosure requirements. Tax disclosure should be integrated into ESG reporting.

The study has social implications related to the media, which act as watchdogs for firms’ irresponsible practices. According to this study’s findings, increased media pressure has the power to induce a better alignment between declared ESG policies and tax strategies.

This study contributes to the literature on the mechanisms that discourage tax avoidance and the literature on the relationship between ESG and taxation by shedding light on the role of media coverage.

We are the first to investigate the relationship between seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) and anchoring on historical high prices in China.

We use the ratio of the recent closing price to its historical high in the previous 12–60 months (anchoring-high-price ratio) to study its impact on the market timing of SEOs.

Empirical results show that the anchoring-high-price ratio significantly and positively affects the probability of additional stock issuances. Contrary to the USA market, the Chinese stock market reacts negatively to the SEOs at historical highs. Moreover, the anchoring-high-price ratio exacerbates the negative effect of announcements and leads to long-term underperformance. Finally, we investigate the impact of the anchoring-high-price ratio on a company’s capital structure, showing that the additional issuance anchoring on historical highs reduces the company’s leverage ratio in the long run. Overall, our findings support the anchoring theory and can help understand better the anchoring behavior of managers and the company’s decision on additional stock issuances.

We are the first to use the anchoring-high-price ratio to study the timing of SEOs. We find that the anchoring-high-price ratio positively affects the probability of SEOs. Unlike the USA, the Chinese stock market reacts negatively to SEOs at high prices. SEOs anchoring on historical highs reduce a firm’s leverage ratio in the long run. Finally, our results support the anchoring theory.

Abnormal behaviors such as rework, backlog, changes and claims generated by project organizations are unavoidable in complex projects. When abnormal behaviors emerge, the previously normal state of interactions between organizations will be altered to some extent. However, previous studies have ignored the associations and interactions between organizations in the context of abnormal organizational behaviors (AOBs), making this challenging to cope with AOBs. As a result, the objective of this paper is to explore how to reduce AOBs in complex projects at the organizational level from a network perspective.

To overcome the inherent limitations of a single case study, this research integrated two data collection methods: questionnaire survey and expert scoring method. The questionnaire survey captured the universal data on the influence possibility of AOBs between complex project organizations and the expert scoring method got the influence probability scores of AOBs between organizations in the case. Using these data, four organizational influence network models of AOBs based on a case were developed to demonstrate how to destroy AOBs networks in complex projects using network attack theory (NAT).

First, the findings show that controlling AOBs generated by key organizations preferentially and improving the ability of key organizations can weaken AOBs network, enabling more effective coping strategies. Second, the owners, government, material suppliers and designers are identified as key organizations across all four influence networks of AOBs. Third, change and claim behaviors are more manageable from the organizational level.

Project managers can target specific organizations for intervention, weaken the AOBs network by applying NAT and achieve better project outcomes through coping strategies. Additionally, by taking a network perspective, this research provides a novel approach to comprehending the associations and interactions between organizations in the context of complex projects.

This paper proposes a new approach to investigating AOBs in complex projects by simultaneously examining rework, backlog, change and claim. Leveraging NAT as a novel tool for managing the harmful effects of influence networks, this study extends the knowledge body in the field of organizational behavior (OB) management and complex project management.

This study analyzes the performance implications of adopting blockchain to support supply chain business processes. The technology holds as many promises as implementation challenges, so interest in its impact on operational performance has grown steadily over the last few years.

Drawing on transaction cost economics and the contingency theory, we built a set of hypotheses. These were tested through a long-term event study and an ordinary least squares regression involving 130 adopters listed in North America.

Compared with the control sample, adopters displayed significant abnormal performance in terms of labor productivity, operating cycle and profitability, whereas sales appeared unaffected. Firms in regulated settings and closer to the end customer showed more positive effects. Neither industry-level competition nor the early involvement of a project partner emerged as relevant contextual factors.

This research presents the first extensive analysis of operational performance based on objective measures. In contrast to previous studies and theoretical predictions, the results indicate that blockchain adoption is not associated with sales improvement. This can be explained considering that secure data storage and sharing do not guarantee the factual credibility of recorded data, which needs to be proved to customers in alternative ways. Conversely, improvements in other operational performance dimensions confirm that blockchain can support inter-organizational transactions more efficiently. The results are relevant in times when, following hype, there are signs of disengagement with the technology.

This study aims to investigate the effect of seasonality caused by fasting as a religious practice on trading activity.

The authors use an unbiased sample of daily trading by individuals and institutions on the Boursa Kuwait. The authors use panel data on trading activities and Tobit regression models to examine the effect of Muslims’ religious practice of fasting during the holy month of Ramadan on trading behavior.

The authors find that during the holy month of Ramadan, Muslims’ religious practice of fasting leads to a decline in the frequency of both overall stock market trading and the ratio of individual trading volume to total trading volume. The authors find a significant decrease in individual buy-side trading as a proportion of total trading volume and simultaneously a significant increase in institutional buy-side trading.

This study’s findings have important implications for the main players in stock markets of countries with a Muslim majority. Market-makers should be aware of the significant increase in the proportion of institutional buy-side trading volume to total trading volume to minimize the cost of trading with better-informed traders (adverse selection).

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that investigates individuals’ trading activity during Ramadan.

This paper aims to examine the association between perceived firm risk and two reporting mechanisms: risk disclosure and earnings smoothing in the UK context.

This study juxtaposes three competing views, the “null”, the “divergence” and the “convergence” hypotheses, and empirically investigates whether risk disclosure and earnings smoothing affect firm perceived risk for a sample of large UK firms with rich and poor information environments. This study also uses the global financial crisis as an external shock on overall risk in the economy to investigate when and how managers use these two reporting mechanisms to shape the firm perceived risk.

This paper documents that risk disclosures have no significant effect on investors’ risk perceptions, consistent with risk disclosures containing boilerplate and generic statements about firm risk. This paper also finds that earnings smoothing reduces investors’ risk perceptions, reflecting investors’ interpretations about future firm performance. Additional tests reveal that earnings smoothing is not associated with perceived firm risk for firms with rich information environments and expanded risk disclosures. Furthermore, reporting smooth earnings decreases perceived firm risk following the global financial crisis. These findings are robust to alternative specifications and measures of earnings smoothing as well as post-filing perceived firm risk.

This study does not distinguish between the garbling role and the informational role of earnings smoothing. The risk disclosure measurement used in this study, developed based on UK annual reports, may limit the generalizability of findings to other countries.

The findings suggest that managers should revise their risk disclosure strategies to provide in-depth details on firm risk. Investors might require information and thorough assessment to evaluate investment risks when firms provide generic risk disclosures and smoothed earnings by consulting sources like financial intermediaries. Regulators should keep an eye on firms reporting boilerplate risk disclosures and on how smoothing earnings impacts the firm perceived risk following economic turmoil, to guide interventions that promote market stability.

The findings provide new insights into when and how managers use their financial reporting discretion to make firms appear less risky and, therefore, influence investors’ risk perceptions.

Due to the recent increase in unexpected events that negatively affect projects, the concept of resilience has grasped the attention of researchers, as risk management alone fails to address unpredicted events. This study aims to identify resilience dimensions and their designated factors and then construct a comprehensive definition for resilience in construction projects.

This paper adopted a qualitative research design through content analysis of semi-structured interviews with project engineers on behalf of their construction project; 26 interviews were analyzed via ATLAS.ti.

The results demonstrate that resilience in construction projects consists of four main dimensions: preparation, absorption, recovery and adaptation; each dimension comprises separate factors. The evidence from this study demonstrates that the resilience of the organization, project team and project manager supports the construction project when facing unpredicted or abnormal conditions.

The results of this paper will help construction project managers to enhance the resilience of their projects by providing different resilience factors.

The resilience concept in projects is novel and has limited knowledge available, especially in construction projects therefore, it requires additional comprehensive discussion and validation. The findings of this paper will serve as a cornerstone for the development of the resilience field and enrich the indigent literature on resilience in the construction industry.