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The study's purpose is to examine market returns around dividend announcements that contrast with a pattern of prior dividend announcements.

The paper identifies firms that have a smooth dividend pattern of once-a-year dividend increases but at some point break that pattern and announce an unchanged dividend. The sample design allows the opportunity to investigate the market reaction to unchanged dividend announcements when an increase was likely to have been expected.

The results indicate that failing to increase the dividend is associated with significantly positive abnormal returns that are greater in magnitude for more entrenched dividend-increase records, supporting a contrast-effect hypothesis.

The results indicate that dividends are interpreted not only relative to the immediate dividend amount but also how the decision contrasts with dividends over a prolonged period. This finding suggests that the information content of the announcement of an unchanged dividend can vary according to the prior dividend pattern.

The high prevalence of product-harm crises (PHC) represents a continuing challenge to which firms sometimes react by announcing several smaller recalls (i.e. slicing) but at other times by announcing the recall of all faulty products at once (i.e. chunking). The slicing vs chunking phenomenon has not been identified by prior literature; this study aims to explore two research questions: Why do firms sometimes slice and other times chunk PHC? Do slicing and chunking affect firm performance differently?

The authors examined recall guidelines from the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and conducted expert interviews as well as a quantitative analysis of 378 product recalls to determine the antecedents of slicing vs chunking. The authors further performed an event study to examine the impact of slicing vs chunking PHCs on firms’ financial performance.

The authors find that slicing vs chunking is not a deliberate strategy but rather the consequence of firms’ resource availability and constraints. Furthermore, the authors show that larger firms have a lower likelihood of slicing versus chunking. By contrast, larger R&D expenditures, and greater reputation, as well as larger recall sizes, increase the likelihood of slicing versus chunking. Finally, the results reveal that, compared to chunking, slicing PHC has a strong negative impact on firms’ stock value.

The authors relied on recalls in the US automobile industry. A possible extension would be to study the same phenomenon in other industries or other geographical areas. In addition, the results need to be generalized to other types of negative news that can be either decoupled (slicing) or coupled (chunking), especially negative news for which firms have more discretion regarding the timing of their announcements than for product recalls.

As shown by prior research (Eilert et al., 2017), firms should aim to announce recalls quickly in the wake of a PHC. Importantly though, the results indicate that speed should not come at the expense of comprehensiveness in identifying all defective products, so that only one recall is needed. As suggested by our findings about PHC, investors may react negatively to the slicing of other types of negative news; thus, the results suggest how to best communicate to external stakeholders during crises in general.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that examines why firms sometimes slice and at other times chunk PHC and identifies the performance implications of these two types of recalls in response to PHC.

To provide an introduction for the special issue on surveys, to give an overview of the survey literature and debate, and to provide direction for future research using the survey method.

Survey of the relevant literature.

The survey technique can be productively applied to a large number of finance topics but researchers must be careful to incorporate the same degree of rigor used with other research methods.

Summarizes and ties together the papers included in the special issue and explains the overall contribution of the special issue on surveys.

This paper introduces readers to the International Journal of Managerial Finance, highlighting its value and scope to the academic and professional community.

This paper provides opinions of the editors on the nature and context of Managerial Finance as a research field.

Managerial Finance incorporates a broad number of subjects and the journal will provide a forum for the timely dissemination of research material in this area.

The International Journal of Managerial Finance will actively promote research in the area of managerial finance and support, through conferences and special issues, the growth and interest in researching the financial decision‐making process.

Research in the area of managerial finance will benefit from a journal committed to enhancing and developing research and professional know‐how for managing financial decisions.

This introduction provides a synopsis of what the International Journal of Managerial Finance is interested in publishing as well as how it intends to support researchers in this area.

The purpose of this research is to analyze both survey and non‐survey data to draw conclusions about the status of survey‐based research in finance.

The paper surveys editors from 15 core and 35 non‐core finance journals to learn their views about specific issues involving survey research and reviews 49 finance journals over the period 1985‐2005 to identify and classify published survey research.

Editors indicate that survey‐based manuscripts typically go through the same review process as other manuscripts. They view the chief strengths of surveys as producing data unavailable from other sources and suggesting new avenues for future research. The major weaknesses of surveys are the difficulty of generalizing the results and non‐response bias. A review of 49 finance journals shows that 63.3 percent published at least one survey article during this period. The most common topic area for published surveys was financial management.

The paper contains the normal limitations associated with the survey method including potential non‐response bias.

Survey‐based research has a definite place in financial research if such research is done to the same standards as other types of research.

This is the first study to examine the use of survey research in finance by asking journal editors their opinions and by inspecting finance journals' record of publication.

When finance managers face decisions, they do not always make clinical evaluations using rational methodology, but systematically depart from utility maximisation. This article addresses biases that are related to risk propensity, and categorises them under five headings: decision makers' characteristics and perception; reference levels; mental accounting and the assumption of mean reversion; the longshot bias or overconfidence; and the desire for immediate gratification. The research reported in the paper seeks to understand the mechanisms of these biases using a study of decision making by Australian finance executives in a setting that is representative of a typical business decision.

This paper uses a case study that was designed to identify why decision makers facing choices will prefer a risky alternative. Data were collected using e‐mail contact and an electronic survey. Respondents (n=67) provided demographic data, and answered questions that probed their attitudes and decision styles. Risk propensity was quantified by respondents' attitude towards a risky decision, and was explained using independent variables related to decision maker traits.

Just over half the executives proved willing to take a risk, and almost half the variance in their risk propensity was explained roughly equally by respondents': endowment, perception of risk's role in decisions, assessment of alternative choices, and expectation of the decision's outcome. Manipulation of the cases along four dimensions varied the decision's facts, but they proved only marginally significant to risk taking.

The study provides a practical explanation of the risk taking behaviour of finance executives; confirms that context is more important to decisions than their content; and adds to the growing body of applied behavioural research in finance.

The performance of actively managed mutual funds is largely dependent upon the investment decisions of the fund managers. The purpose of this study is to examine the decision processes in German fund companies and their impact on fund performance.

The paper uses a telephone survey to assess the behavior and attitudes of German mutual fund managers. The design of the survey allows a linkage of fund manager data with information about mutual funds and fund management companies.

The evidence shows firstly, that it is possible to conduct a high quality survey study even though managers know that their answers will be linked to their performance and secondly, that the behavior of managers depends heavily on the characteristics of the funds and the characteristics of the fund company.

In the paper, factors are identified which influence the short‐term performance of fund managers. In further studies, one should examine whether these factors also determine the long‐term performance of fund managers.

This is the first survey study that attempts to link the information provided by fund managers to information about the funds and fund companies.

To investigate the extent to which finance managers in non‐financial firms speculate in the currency markets and particularly to investigate the effect of individual‐owners on such speculation.

This paper uses survey data in order to analyse the extent of currency speculation in non‐financial firms. It uses survey data and publicly available data in an ordered probit regression analysis in order to analyse the decisive factors behind the extent of currency speculation in non‐financial firms.

Currency speculation is widespread among non‐financial firms and takes the form of selective hedging as well as speculation not related to the underlying business. The extent of speculation is positively related to the size of the firm, to the international involvement of the firm, and to the conservatism of its capital structure. If an individual (often the founder or a descendant of the founder) is the largest shareholder in the firm, the extent of such speculation is significantly reduced.

The findings are based on Danish, non‐financial firms listed on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange.

The contribution of this paper is to provide evidence on the negative relationship between individual‐owners (ownership structure) and the extent of currency speculation in non‐financial firms and more generally to investigate the factors behind such speculation.

The purpose of this paper is to report on the systematic translation and content validation method used to produce the Brazilian Portuguese version of the Duke Special Survey on Corporate Policy by Graham and Harvey.

In accordance with the requirements for cross‐cultural application of surveys, the paper accounts for obvious differences in language, culture, and the institutional setting and employ well‐known techniques from the field of psychology, such as the use of backtranslation, to ensure faithfulness to the original survey. A panel of experts served as judges in evaluating the clarity of language and the practical pertinence and theoretical dimensions of the questionnaire. Coefficients of content validity for each item and for the instrument as a whole are reported.

The results illustrate how a questionnaire designed for one country should be rigorously translated and validated prior to use in another country.

Although the content validity of the translated version of the Duke Special Survey on Corporate Policy for use in Brazil is generally satisfactory, a few items may prove to be a challenge for the Brazilian CFO to answer, particularly those questions concerning features that are uncommon in the Brazilian financial market.

This paper explores the field study method in finance by borrowing from the vast experience of psychology research in the rigorous translation and validation of survey instruments. This study also highlights the similarities and differences in the interpretation of questions between emerging and developed markets.

The purpose of this paper is to capture the richness of customer perceived value by determining its benefit and cost dimensions in a complex service setting. Perceived value is argued as equivalent to value-in-use; that is value that emerges for or is created by the customer.

A series of in-depth interviews was conducted with a diverse group of clients of financial planning services as well as with financial planners in Australia.

Six benefit and four cost dimensions of complex service are identified, namely expertise, education, motivation, support, relationship and convenience benefits, as well as monetary, time and effort, emotional and lifestyle costs. The results also indicate proposed outcomes of these dimensions, along with relevant moderators, leading to a broad conceptual framework for future empirical validation.

This study contributes to the sparse conceptual development of value perceptions, or value-in-use, in a complex service context. In particular, the authors identify the benefit and cost dimensions, specifically addressing aspects of value that are linked to the long-term relationship between provider and customer. The authors also develop a conceptual model of value, including both outcomes and situational moderators of the various value dimensions. Finally, the conceptualization of perceived value is discussed with respect to the value co-creation literature.