Search results

The paper aims to present an exchange ratio for merging companies that incorporates the change in the level of riskiness.

The paper is a theoretical one. Its main objective has been achieved exploiting standard modern finance results such as Capital Asset Pricing Model Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM).

The paper offers a formula that determines a risk‐adjusted exchange ratio that takes into account both risk and synergy.

Due to the fact that CAPM is applied and beta factors are required, the formula is fully applicable only to companies whose stocks are traded on a financial market. Empirical test of the exchange ratio formula (using, for instance, an event‐study methodology) should be performed.

The use of the formula allows the identification of whether the offered exchange ratio fully reflects the expected return/risk profile for stockholders of the merging companies.

The paper should be useful in both theoretical and managerial conditions. It carries a way to embed relative riskiness of two companies into a simple formula.

The purpose of this research paper is to clarify why shareholders should be prudent when managers promise value gains from a synergetic merger.

The paper proposes a simple two‐state model of stochastic firm cash flows which allows for a discussion of wealth redistribution in conglomerate mergers, both under perfect information and moral hazard.

It is found that shareholders regularly lose in non‐synergetic mergers, and will not necessarily gain if synergies are positive. In the model, a corresponding critical level of synergies is calculated explicitly. It is shown that there are also new value effects induced by moral hazard, which constitute genuine financial synergies of their own.

The positive synergies are due to the mitigation of asset substitution problems after the merger, and they are an interesting question for generalization in future research.

As one of its practical implications, the findings suggest that managers should provide shareholders with concrete ideas of where promised synergies might come from, and why there should exist any bargaining range for equilibrium exchange ratios which leaves all shareholders better off.

The paper shows that these questions can be answered on a rigorous basis which might improve the pre‐merger decision process between managers, shareholders and the affected groups of stakeholders, respectively.

Acquisition currency is the possibility, enjoyed mainly by listed companies, of paying for acquisitions with paper (i.e. with conversion shares) instead of financial means, decreasing the participating share of the controlling shareholder as little as possible. The paper seeks to address the issues.

The paper describes an original model to deal with the conceptual framework of the problem.

The acquisition currency game is interesting and it is worth playing it. It is clear that at a certain point the mechanism breaks and it is useful to see what happens. A mechanism that continues to increase the P/E does not exist; at a certain point there must be a limit.

The paper illustrates that the model convincingly describes some current behaviour of stock exchange prices and alerts about some dangerous situations.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze how exchange ratios in mergers can be assessed when the companies economic capital valuation is carried out in a stochastic framework with financial assets and minimum guarantees.

The paper is a theoretical one. Its main objective is to present a quantitative model for exchange ratios accounting, introducing a stochastic pricing model in the presence of stochastic cash‐flows and representing contractual embedded real option such as minimum guarantees.

The paper presents a financial model to evaluate the differences in exchange ratios induced by stochastic capital reserves in the merging companies.

Stochastic cash‐flows in the economic capital of the merging companies set up a stochastic capital reserve which represents an additional value and could induce important differences in exchange ratios.

The model is fully applicable, also in the presence of embedded real options such as minimum guarantees, but requires the volatility of the underlying.

The paper should be useful under both a managerial and a theoretical use in order to evaluate stochastic exchange ratios.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how asset risk (i.e. the risk that the value of the leased asset loses unexpectedly most of its value at the end of the contract) is measured and hedged.

The evaluation of the lease contract is achieved by applying the theory of option pricing as the lessor is the writer of a call option on the leased asset. A sensitivity analysis on some parameters is performed.

The paper disentangles the components of the profit of a lease contract and allows to choose the optimal final purchase price. This lets the lessor hedge against asset risk.

The paper's result can be extended by considering more complex options (such as American or exotic ones) into the lease contract.

Results in the paper allow for a more flexible and efficient management of lease contracts where both parties benefit under an economic and a financial point of view.

This is believed to be the first paper that applies derivative evaluation to the analysis of lease contracts.

The present paper aims at understanding how horizontal network collaborations between small and medium enterprises (SMEs) can be designed and implemented to take advantage of a supply chain finance (SCF) perspective.

This study presents an SCF literature background identifying four literature gaps, and in response to them it adopts an action research approach. The empirical analysis is developed on a network-case study: a horizontal collaboration project between small businesses of the Italian wine industry and their supply chains.

SMEs can play an active role in developing – in terms of design and implementation – their collaborative networks by taking advantage of an SCF perspective for themselves, and their customers, based on the reorganization of relationships interface processes. Taking this perspective can be a concrete and crucial way to sustain the development of SMEs and their supply chains in an actual competitive context.

The paper identifies the theoretical gaps in the literature, suggests new research areas that deserve to be more deeply investigated and connects case-related results to the key concepts. The empirical part presents a real case application that proposes a complete roadmap for managers and practitioners who wish to experience similar projects.

This network-case study storyline, presenting an overview of ten years of meetings, with related purposes, is suggesting a roadmap for design and implementation of horizontal network as managerial implications. These kinds of active research projects, with a collaborative mixed team of academics and practitioners, and involving a multilayer group of participants, are positive examples for closing the bridge between companies and academia, which enhance this network of small businesses active in trying to improve their competitiveness working together.

The value of the paper is to embrace a supply chain-oriented perspective for an SME, independent of the financial system and based on inventory flow management. Very little literature focuses on inventory-based research within the SCF framework, designed for real implementation in horizontal network collaboration by entrepreneurial ventures.

The paper aims to propose a knowledge visualization approach and algorithm to support public decision makers to define the inner areas, which represents a strategic topic in the European debate about territorial inequality and development.

The study has been developed by following the design science research, which includes six steps: problem identification and motivation; identification of the objectives for a solution; design and development; demonstration; evaluation; and communication. As for the design and development step, the proposed approach and algorithm ground on association mining to discover hidden relationships existing among municipalities. They have been applied to analyse the 97 municipalities of the Lecce province, and each municipality has been described through 30 multi-domain indicators organized into seven categories, whose data have been collected from institutional datasets, local sources or web-scraping process.

A set of complementary analyses has been generated through the construction of dynamic and interactive knowledge maps that show “similar” municipalities according to the indicators selected.

The approach and algorithm proposed allow discovering similarities existing among distinct municipalities, based on the analysis of a set of multi-domain indicators. The approach may complement or completely substitute the existing ones used to define inner areas, thus overcoming both the methodological limits of the “top-down” line imposed by the central legislator, and the “bottom-up” paradox consisting in the illusion that single (and often small) towns have the economic and cognitive resources necessary to implement effective territorial mapping and development strategies. In such a way, policy makers can be aware on similarities existing among distinct towns and can thus share cognitive and financial resources to define a common plan and a set of practices for territorial development.

This paper aims to analyze the problematic relationship between the Left, the commercial revolution and the progressive growth of mass consumption during the Italian economic miracle.

Taking for example the city of Bologna, the most important city run by the Italian communist party, the paper problematizes the socio-economic and political – institutional processes connected with the emergence of “American-like” commercial and distribution strategies, and of consumerist identities.

Bologna’s administrators governed the commerce through a rationalization supported by urban planning, including the establishment of a chain of “associated supermarkets”, built on municipal areas and financed by a mixed-capital company set up for that purpose. At the same time, they sought to protect small retailers to gain their political consensus and to contain crisis-related anxieties among the consumers, a category which has still an uncertain identity in Italy.

Much remains to be seen in the characteristics of the Italian miracle, and in the manner it was ruled. The case of Bologna illuminates an important piece of the Italian Left’s attempt to interpret and to lead the modernization of the country.

A model on the cognitive elements of engagement is adopted and content analysis, along with sentiment analysis, has been used to explore the post characteristics and the levels of stakeholders' interactions in controversial and non-controversial European industries through three Poisson regressions. At last, an ANOVA test has been used to check the level of interaction regarding the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related aspects.

The intrinsic characteristics of controversial industries cause the stakeholders’ skepticism about their corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. This results in the need to elaborate proper involvement strategies to approach industries' stakeholders. Such need has assumed relevance during the COVID-19 crisis and has traced a certain border between the companies that are more sensitive to the social side of the surrounding environment and the ones that are less involved in risky sectors. The present paper aims to understand the role of social media in stakeholder engagement, and social media's characteristics, and tries to elaborate on companies' CSR communication readiness to the challenges shown by the pandemic.

The study reveals how the success of stakeholder engagement in CSR communication is affected by both controversial sector membership and the characteristics of the posts such as the inclusion of the sustainable development goals (SDGs). In addition, the study emerges how the European companies have focused on social aspects in companies' communication, revealing a certain readiness for the COVID-19 challenges.

Building on a model of cognitive elements of engagement, the present study provides useful insights for companies' next engagement strategies on social media. Moreover, the thematic analysis provides a benchmark for the improvement of current corporations' communication strategies in light of the pandemic effects.

This paper contributes to the literature by investigating the role of Twitter as a stakeholder engagement tool and identifies the drivers for an effective Twitter content strategy. Moreover, the paper provides a useful proxy for current and future research on the COVID-19-related CSR communication.