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Advisors play a key role in the mergers and acquisitions (M&A) process, but research to date has rarely focused on how their influence impacts these transactions. The present chapter takes stock of the present literature on M&A advisors from finance, economics, and management in order to integrate the currently diverging research traditions into a coherent framework. The current research has focused on proximal acquisition outcomes, like acquisition premiums or expected performance in the form of cumulative abnormal returns, but there is limited theoretical understanding of the advisors impact on the post-acquisition period. Moreover, while the role of advisor reputation has been highlighted on both the management and finance literatures as an important aspect of the role advisors play in the M&A process, there seems to be much to be addressed. Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, the nature of the relationship between the advisor and the acquirer or target presents challenges to researchers where the advisor acts both as a provider of expertise in the M&A process, but may be simply acting on their own best interest. The new framework that the authors present here provides management scholars with a roadmap into a cohesive research agenda that can inform our theoretical understanding of the role of M&A advisors.

During the months leading up to and immediately following President Donald Trump’s election, the unique intersection of classroom academic freedom and teacher and students’ first amendment rights would be duly tested, as headlines reminded citizens, parents, and pundits that the reach of raw emotions and political viewpoints did not stop at the schoolhouse door. School and classroom-based events would eventually test the norms of community, the interpretation of legal precedents, the resolve of district and school leadership, and the rights or limits thereof of the teachers themselves. This analysis is grounded on case studies of eight such incidents, all of which occurred at the high school level in public school districts. These eight cases are analyzed in terms of the incidents, the teacher’s actions or speech, the consequences, the relevant legal precedents surrounding academic freedom, the parental, student, and community reaction, and the short- and long-term impacts moving forward.

This study aims to empirically investigate the impact of the Sharīʿah Governance Framework (SGF) on improving Sharīʿah governance practices in Islamic banks in Malaysia and in addressing its related issues.

Data collection was carried out using a comprehensive questionnaire survey, which was developed primarily based on SGF-2010 and arguments in the literature. The sample for this study includes key functionaries in Sharīʿah governance including senior managers, Sharīʿah committee (SC) and Sharīʿah team members of Islamic banks in Malaysia.

The analysis of scores obtained from the questionnaire survey–including 41 items representing current significant issues in Sharīʿah governance–indicates that SGF-2010 has been successful in achieving its objectives and in addressing related issues. The results of the paired sample t-test show significant improvements in Sharīʿah governance practices in Malaysian Islamic banks in light of the aforementioned guideline by Bank Negara Malaysia.

Findings of this research suggest that among the five essential pillars of Sharīʿah governance, namely, accountability and responsibility, independence, competence, confidentiality and transparency, most of the improvements and changes brought about by SGF-2010 are attributable to accountability and responsibility. However, there is still room for improvement in other components of the SGF, particularly with regard to transparency and the independence of the SC and Sharīʿah team.

Given the importance of Sharīʿah governance and considering recent endeavours to improve Sharīʿah-compliant culture among Islamic banks in Malaysia, this research is among the first attempts to empirically and comprehensively delve into this subject and evaluate its main issues by directly contacting key players in the Islamic banking industry and providing first-hand highlights. This research also compares the findings based on SGF-2010 with the requirements of SGF-2017 and Sharīʿah Governance Policy Document (SGPD-2019), which were released after this research was completed, where applicable.

Using a unique sample of about 563,000 competitively bid municipal revenue bonds with financial advisors issued during the period 1998–2012, the purpose of this paper is to examine the role and influence of financial advisor quality in the municipal bond market.

The authors use a sample of about 563,000 competitively bid municipal revenue bonds with financial advisors issued during the period 1998–2012. The authors estimate a selection model where the authors identify the factors leading to the selection of a high-quality financial advisor. The authors then, using the inverse mills ratio from the first regression, estimate the association of high-quality advisor (and other factors) with the cost of borrowing.

The results suggest that high-quality financial advisors provide a credible signal to market participants about issue and issuer quality. This signal translates to a greater number of bids for issues that use high-quality financial advisors, resulting in improved liquidity and lower borrowing costs for these issues. The results also show that the beneficial effects obtained by using higher quality financial advisors are prevalent across all categories of issues such as for refunding and non-refunding issues, and for both insured and non-insured issues. The benefits are also generally observed for issues of most size categories. The results also suggest that the passage of the Dodd–Frank Act requiring mandatory registration of financial advisors and enhanced scrutiny has only increased the benefits to issuers from using higher quality financial advisors.

This paper differs from previous research in several important ways. First, the study is, to the authors’ knowledge, the first study that explores the relationship between financial advisor quality and liquidity in the municipal sector. The authors show using higher quality financial advisors enhances liquidity for the issues by attracting a significantly large number of bids. Second, the sample is exclusively comprised of competitively bid revenue issues all of which rely on financial advisors. This enables us to examine more unambiguously the influence of financial advisor quality, without the confounding effects of issues without financial advisors. Third, time coverage (1998–2012) and size of the sample (roughly 563,000 bond issues) enables us to conduct varied sub-sample analyses with greater power since the resulting sub-sample partitions themselves are of very large size. This provides better and additional insights into the role of financial advisor quality. The more current data when compared to prior research enables us to examine the impact of financial advisor quality inter-temporally with special attention devoted to the period after passage of the Dodd–Frank Act.

To help executives understand the communications implications of the current climate and devise successful strategies. To promote a better understanding of the importance of reputation, its determinants and the role of communications in managing it.

Economist intelligence unit conducted a survey of 175 senior executives in North America, Europe and Asia Pacific for Hill & Knowlton looking at executive attitudes to a wide range of litigation issues. We analyzed this research and came to a number of important conclusions.

That reputation is central to business success and is importance to a range of audiences. That litigation is a serious concern. That corporate social responsibility is gaining ground but full value is not been achieved from it

The companies who adapt quickest to the new environment can derive competitive advantage, but to do so they must be willing to take ultimate responsibility for communications out of the PR team and on to the boardroom table; break down the functional silos and deliver integrated communications; think afresh about their role and responsibility and, most of all, be willing to take a more confident and pro‐active approach to handling the challenges of the age – showing the same confidence that created the successful businesses that they are.

A combination of quality attitudinal research plus practical advises from a leading advisor on reputation management.

The purpose of this research is to contribute to the understanding of how customer contact persons influence attitudinal and behavioral loyalty in three different customer groups, who differ in terms of their motivation and ability to understand stock market information. The mutual fund product is one of last century's big success stories. Consumers invest a lot of money in complex financial products that they do not understand. Therefore, they need professional advice to make decisions.

The study is based on a nationally representative random sample of mutual fund owners. The elaboration likelihood (EL) model predicts that high, moderate, and low elaborators are different. Three such customer groups were therefore analyzed.

A path model shows that customer contact persons influence attitudinal and behavioral loyalty and that the impact is higher for high elaborators (higher knowledge and motivation to process stock market information) than for low elaborators. This suggests that the role of the contact person differs for different customer groups, i.e. the notion of multiple roles for variables.

Future studies of complex services should acknowledge that different groups of consumers with different needs, preferences, and behaviors have different needs and preferences, and that they react differently

Customer contact persons must be rewarded for delivering value to customers. Unless they do, they will loose their unique opportunity to influence customers' decisions. They must adapt their communication to different customer groups, and acknowledge that the perception of what is valuable advice may differ.

This paper demonstrates that a very simple and easy to use model can show the value of customer contact persons. All linkages in the model are tested, which is not done in prior research. In addition, different groups of consumers have different needs, preferences, and behaviors, a fact that is almost never acknowledged in prior research.

Agency theory suggests that if managers are not monitored, takeover negotiations may be contaminated by agency conflicts, which may weaken a firm's bargaining position. This paper argues that some blockholders are more effective monitors than others, and tests whether the negotiating power of a target or bidder is influenced by their respective blockholder composition. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper classifies target and bidder outside blockholders as either aggressive monitors or moderate monitors, and tests whether the degrees of monitoring effectiveness influence a firm's share of the total wealth created by the takeover (a proxy for bargaining power).

This paper finds that firms that have the types of outside blockholders with a greater tendency to monitor managers elicit higher takeover gains. This suggests that negotiating power in takeovers is conditioned on the types of blockholders that monitor the target and bidder. The results support the premise that better monitoring leads to higher gains for shareholders in a takeover. In particular, the findings suggest that the greater the tendency of outside blockholders to monitor managers, the lower the level of takeover-related agency conflicts and the stronger a firm's relative bargaining power.

These findings imply that agency conflicts on either side of a takeover bid may be reduced by better monitoring, but especially among bidders.

This paper seeks to research potential evidence of capital market irregularities by scrutinizing whether the IPO (Initial Public Offering) phenomenon can be found in Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).

The study employs stock price data of 90 US REITs and derives their performance on the first trading day, but also on a one‐, three‐, and five‐year basis.

The primary offerings puzzle frequently observed in traditional IPOs is a market imperfection that also exists for REITs from 1991 to 2008. REITs display, on average, both significant first trading day under‐pricing and negative aftermarket performance, predominantly on a five‐year basis.

The research at hand offers evidence that stock irregularities can be found within the US REIT industry, albeit these do not necessarily serve as evidence against efficient markets. Notwithstanding the fact that it may be difficult to exploit the abnormal performance on the first day, investors can nonetheless earn substantial profits by shorting IPO stocks on a long‐term basis. Even net of transaction costs, such a strategy should have a positive abnormal return. However, these investments have to be executed cautiously as the profitability of such a strategy has to pay attention to the reputation of the underwriter, the cycle in which the IPO takes place and various other important factors.

The research at hand offers evidence that REIT market irregularities oppose underlying rational human behavior.