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The purpose of this paper is to examine the stock market reaction to the Gulf oil spill and determine if the markets exhibited rational pricing. On April 20, 2010, the US Coast Guard received a report of an explosion and fire aboard Transocean’s Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig. The resulting spill exceeded the Exxon Valdez oil spill as the worst in US history. With the total cost of the disaster reaching almost $54 billion for British Petroleum, clearly the spill had far-reaching effects on its market value. However, the more interesting question is what valuation effects might exist for other oil and gas firms, due to an increase in perceived risk for all offshore drilling and/or the likelihood of an increase in the regulation of the industry.

Because the new information was released piecemeal over time and has the potential to affect a number of firms simultaneously, Gibbon’s (1980) multivariate regression model methodology (MVRM) was used to examine share price reactions of firms in the oil and gas industry in the aftermath of the oil spill. This methodology allows one to test whether significant abnormal returns occur on days where new information is released. Further, one is able to test whether the market reaction was the same for each firm or whether the market differentiated between firms.

Evidence of abnormal returns was found for the majority of the information dates in our investigation. Further, the results reject the notion that the market reaction was the same for all oil and gas firms, leading to the conclusion that the market did differentiate between firms.

This research is important because the results support rational pricing of the US stock markets following this unexpected and catastrophic event. The market was examined over the period following the oil spill on multiple dates when important new information is provided. This study contributes to financial and economic research on market efficiency and reactions to major risk events.

Studies of research influence commonly look at the overall field of finance. The purpose of this paper is to examine the sub-field of corporate finance at four different points in time to determine its evolution and range of influence, specifically focussing on the relative influence of seven leading journals.

Not all articles appearing in the set of journals are in corporate finance. The authors examine each article published in the journals for four key periods and identify those that are corporate. The impact factors (IFs) published in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) are for all articles appearing in a journal. The authors are interested only in the corporate articles, so the authors calculate separate corporate IFs based on the citations to the corporate articles using the JCR technique.

The authors find a broad corporate research environment with influence that extends well beyond finance. The authors also find differences in the relative influence of the journals not only in their total influence, but in where the influence occurs outside finance and other business journals and even more broadly in the social sciences.

The exclusion of journals outside the seven selected may not uncover other areas where corporate finance articles impact research more broadly. Also, classification of articles is inherently subjective.

The authors draw comparisons between journals and corporate finance topic areas; indicating the breadth and depth research in these areas attain. These results should prove beneficial to researchers in determining areas of influence for their work, consequently providing opportunities for additional exchanges of ideas resulting in better and more informed research in the overall social sciences. Further, our approach to analyzing journal influence could prove fruitful for additional research.

The findings allow for a greater understanding of the influence of individual journals and their subsequent rankings by a number of different means. The authors propose that the means and measures employed here can lead to a greater understanding of how influential a journal really is. Further, the authors contend that the study provides comparisons of the scope and depth of influence for each journal in a way that could lead to new avenues of research.

This paper aims to examine literature on corporate governance from the gender perspective adopting the two novel approaches: bibliometric analysis and content analysis.

For citation mapping and comprehensive content analysis, total 393 Web of Science indexed journal articles were selected. Initially, this study identifies the most productive authors, journal sources, countries and affiliation within the study topic.

Findings from the intellectual structure explore four underlying research stems in the corporate governance and gender literature: participation of women on corporate boards and their characteristics, women directors and their roles in board across different countries, gender diversity in the board and corporate social responsibility and firm financial performances, risks and stock prices.

From the content analysis, it is revealed that corporate governance and gender studies have predominantly investigated the gender diversity issues as a catalyst of corporate governance, with a focus on women on corporate boards and firm financial performance, risks and stock price, while the area of board gender diversity and corporate social responsibility remains relatively under-researched.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent to which the size of multilateral banks (MBs) influences their usage of currency derivatives to manage currency risk. It provides an empirical assessment of whether economies of scale and scope found in other studies apply to MBs.

A quantitative hypothesis regarding the relationship of the size of MBs to their usage of currency derivatives was tested using regression, correlation and analysis of variance.

The results show that there is a significant positive relationship between size (as measured by total assets) of MBs and the total principal amounts of currency derivatives used. These results suggest that MBs are enjoying economies of scale and scope in using currency derivatives in managing currency risk.

The data used were obtained from annual reports that may not fully provide relevant information that could influence the usage and size of currency derivatives. Future studies may therefore use surveys to obtain data to conduct multivariate regression analysis to provide further insights on other determinants of currency derivatives usage.

The study is of value to those interested in multilateral banking. It breaks new ground by using non-survey method for the first time in investigating the relationship between size and currency derivatives used by MBs. The results are also useful for financial institutions selling currency derivative products to MBs in identifying which to target. For managers of small MBs it may be cost effective for them to use internal hedging techniques as economies of scale applies in currency derivative markets. The results of the study are also useful to policy and regulation of MBs.

In early 2012, an equity analyst, was examining the jet fuel hedging strategy of JetBlue Airways for the coming year. Because airlines cross-hedged their jet fuel price risk using derivatives contracts on other oil products such as WTI and Brent crude oil, they were exposed to basis risk. In 2011, dislocations in the oil market led to a Brent-WTI premium wherein jet fuel started to move with Brent instead of WTI, as it traditionally did. Faced with hedging losses, several U.S. airlines started to change their hedging strategies, moving away from WTI. But others worried that the Brent-WTI premium might be a temporary phenomenon. For 2012, would JetBlue continue using WTI for its hedges, or would it switch to an alternative such as Brent?

The purpose of this paper is to argue that strategic responsiveness is of paramount importance for effective risk management outcomes and to introduce an empirical study to demonstrate this.

Real options logic is adopted to explain how effective risk management capabilities improve performance and how innovation and financial slack enhance this effect. The propositions are examined across 896 companies using two‐stage least square regressions.

The study reveals that risk management effectiveness combines both the ability to exploit opportunities and avoid adverse economic impacts, and has a significant positive relationship to performance. This effect is moderated favorably by investment in innovation and lower financial leverage.

The analysis is based on a sample of large firms, which may affect the generalizability of results. Nonetheless, the study shows that effective risk management capabilities differentiate the firms and determine success and failure. It further underscores the importance of combined innovation policy and capital structure decisions as firms deal effectively with risk and uncertainty.

The findings indicate that corporate management must consider commitments for innovation and financial slack to enhance positive risk management effects. This result is in dire contrast to traditional beliefs that tighter resource management and higher financial leverage lead to better economies.

This is one of few studies to explicitly consider strategic responsiveness as instrumental for effective risk management outcomes while investigating the economic effects associated with the ability to combine generation of upside gains and downside loss avoidance.

On June 4, 1942, a small US naval force defeated a much bigger Japanese fleet off Midway Island. This was the first defeat suffered by the heretofore invincible Japanese military, and changed the course of the Pacific war. The Battle of Midway provides an informative case study of strategic decision‐making processes, because of its unexpected outcome and volatile environmental factors. Building from Daft and Weick’s (1984) “interpretation system” model, this paper develops an analytical framework to study the formulation of strategic decisions at the Battle of Midway. The three interacting components of the framework – decision parameters, decision processes, and decisions and implementation – are examined, with emphasis on how bounded rationality, cognitive biases, leadership styles, management structures, and organizational cultures combine to impact strategy formulation. Research and strategic implications are highlighted.

Life studies are a rich source for further research on the role of the Afro‐American woman in society. They are especially useful to gain a better understanding of the Afro‐American experience and to show the joys, sorrows, needs, and ideals of the Afro‐American woman as she struggles from day to day.

Multinational structure has been linked to operational flexibilities that can improve corporate adaptability and a knowledge‐based view suggests that multinational resource diversity can facilitate responsive opportunities. The enhanced maneuverability from this can reduce earnings volatility and hence the corporate performance risk. But, the internationalization process may also require irreversible investments that increase corporate exposures and leave the risk implications of multinational enterprize somewhat ambiguous. Hence, the purpose of the paper is to present an empirical study of the implied relationships between the degree of multinationality and various risk measures including downside risk, upside potential, and performance risk.

The paper provides a brief literature review, develops hypotheses, and tests them in two‐stage least square regressions on archival data to control for pre‐selection biases.

The analyses indicate that multinationality is associated with lower downside risk as well as higher upside potential and leads to reduced performance risk. The study finds no trace of diminishing effects from higher degrees of multinationality.

The empirical study uses a sample of large US‐based corporations, which could affect the generalizability of results. However, this is consistent with other studies and eases comparability of findings.

The findings add to the ongoing debate about the risk effects of a multinational corporate structure and confirms that a diverse multinational presence is associated with positive risk outcomes.

The paper complements a limited number of studies with equivocal results and adopts alternative risk outcome measures. The study extends the industry scope by introducing a comprehensive sample of firms operating in different manufacturing and service businesses.