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This paper aims to examine how the use of environmental, social and governance (ESG) incentives intersects with top management power and various corporate governance mechanisms to affect excess annual cash bonus compensation.

The authors use a novel artificial intelligence (AI) technique to obtain data about ESG incentives use by firms in the S&P 500. The authors test the hypotheses with an endogenous treatment-regression and a contrast test.

When the top management team has power and uses ESG incentives, there is a 32% reduction in excess annual cash bonuses implying ESG incentives are an effective corporate governance tool. However, nuanced analyses reveal that when powerful management teams with ESG incentives are from environmentally sensitive industries, have a corporate social responsibility (CSR) committee or have long-term view institutional shareholders, they derive excess bonuses.

Stakeholders will better understand management’s motivations for the inclusion of ESG incentives in executive compensation contracts and be able to identify situations which require closer scrutiny.

Given the increased popularity of ESG incentives, society, regulators, boards of directors and management teams will be interested in better understanding when these incentives might be effective and when they might be abused.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the use of ESG incentives in relation to excess pay. The authors contribute to both the CSR and executive compensation literatures. The work also uses a new methodological technique using AI to gather difficult-to-obtain data, opening new avenues for research.

Although the adoption of lean inventory management for performance improvement has been widely recognized, sticky inventory management is still a stopgap measure for new small and medium enterprises (SMEs) against survival risks. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the nonlinear relationship between new SMEs inventory stickiness and venture survival by focusing on the moderating effects of environmental dynamism and financial constraints.

Classical moderating model is employed to investigate the effects of environmental dynamism and financial constraints on the relationship between inventory stickiness and venture survival. This study uses the accelerated failure time model for survival analysis and tests the relationships based on a large set of new manufacturing SMEs in China over the period from 1999 to 2007.

The main finding is that inventory stickiness has an inverted U-shaped impact on the likelihood of survival. However, the inflection point of this inverted U-shaped relationship lies at the end of the sample. Further moderation analysis indicates that environmental dynamism positively moderates the inverted U-shaped relationship between inventory stickiness and venture survival, while financial constraints negatively moderate this relationship.

Most new SMEs have great potential to increase the likelihood of survival by improving inventory stickiness before achieving effective lean inventory management. Sticky inventory management can help new SMEs achieve better survival in a dynamic environment. However, new SMEs that are financially constrained should prudently implement sticky inventory management.

This paper contributes to the existing understanding about the likelihood of SMEs survival by addressing the role of sticky inventory management. It may be the first study to empirically demonstrate the moderating effect of environmental dynamism and financial constraints on the inverted U-shaped relationship between inventory stickiness and venture survival.

The purpose of this article is to provide an outline of the challenges of thermal management for more-electric, hybrid-electric and all-electric aircraft, and to notionally discuss potential solutions.

A code algorithm was developed to facilitate architecture-level analysis of the coupled relationship between the propulsion system, the thermal management system, and the takeoff gross weight of aircraft with advanced propulsion systems.

A variety of coupled relationships between the propulsion and thermal management systems are identified, and their impact on the conceptual design choices for electric aircraft are discussed qualitatively.

This conceptual article merely illuminates some driving factors associated with thermal management. The software is still in its adolescence and is experiencing ongoing development.

Thermal regulation in electric aircraft is shown to be a topic that should be addressed in tandem with propulsion system architecture definition and component selection. High-power electronics are expected to emit an immense amount of heat, and the common avenues of heat dissipation could substantially impact the aircraft’s weight, drag and performance. Conversely, strategic management of this waste heat could support subsystems or even produce additional thrust.

This paper aims to direct the attention of researchers and designers in the field of hybrid- or all-electric aircraft design toward the challenges and potential benefits of thermal management.

This paper describes a novel conceptual design software and discusses its logic flow and implications.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the sources of direct real estate portfolio returns and their relative performance against Investment Property Databank (IPD) benchmark returns. Active property management consists of the concepts of property transaction execution and operational management, which can be classified as the main drivers of excess return sources.

Using a sample of three different portfolios managed by two institutional investors, the paper is able to estimate the relevant factors of active property management on annual excess returns for commercial and residential property sectors via a panel regression technique.

Empirical evidence shows that property‐specific effects exhibit significant sources of excess returns, but property management cannot be identified as their main driver. Furthermore, the sources of excess returns do not differ significantly across sectors; when controlled for property age and size, it is found that their influence is rather limited.

Information about the drivers of excess returns and their variations among property types may lead to superior investment decisions during portfolio rebalancing, and thus promote more efficient capital allocation. Information about return factors, i.e. about property and operational management, can substantially improve property selection and market timing in the asset allocation process. Hence, investors basing their property investment strategies on the impact of selected return factors could enhance the risk‐adjusted performance of their property portfolios.

This paper aims to contribute to the existing literature by identifying and quantifying the excess return sources of a given property portfolio over a predefined benchmark. Due to the lack of property‐related data, there is only limited research on the sources of direct property returns, such as property characteristics or active property management. The authors explore three main questions in this paper. First, they examine sources of excess returns over a benchmark index for several property sectors. Second, they analyze whether the drivers of excess returns vary significantly across these sectors. Third, they determine to what extent excess property returns are influenced by the “economic age” and “rentable area” of a building.

The chapter investigates three channels through which private benefits are hypothesized to be extracted in dual class companies: excess executive compensation, excess capital expenditures and excess cash holdings.

With a propensity score matched sample of S&P 1500 dual class and single class companies with concentrated control, the chapter analyzes the relationship between the valuation discount of dual class companies and measures of excess executive compensation, excess capital expenditure and excess cash holdings.

Executives in dual class firms earn greater compensation relative to their counterparts in single class firms. This excess compensation is more pronounced when the executive is a family member. The value of dual class shares is discounted most when cash holdings and executive compensation of dual class are excessive. Excess compensation is highest for executives who are family members of dual class companies. The dual class discount is not related to excess capital expenditures.

The research shows that the discount in the value of dual class shares in relation to the value of closely controlled single class company shares is directly related to the channels through which controlling shareholder-managers can extract private benefits.

This paper aims to examine the impact of gender diversity on boards and on top management positions on excess cash holdings.

The authors adopt the quantile regression approach to test the relation between gender diversity and excess cash holding. The sample consists of 1,235 firm-year observations for the period 2005–2017.

The authors find that board gender diversity negatively influences the level of excess cash. This result suggests that women appointed in the boardroom are effective in monitoring managerial actions, including financing policies. The results also show that by forcing companies to have a quota of women on their boards, the presence of women no longer has a negative impact on excess cash holdings. However, when women stand at the chief executive officer or chief financial officer position, they tend to accumulate cash for precautionary motives. These results suggest that women behave differently regarding excess cash holding as monitors compared to their role as decision-makers.

The results may be of interest to legislators who may decide to break the glass ceiling, preventing women from gaining greater access to senior management positions. This is in line with the recommendations of the AFEP-MEDEF Governance Code of 2020, which strongly recommends the recruitment of women to senior management positions. The results are also important to investors, who might be likely to trust companies in which women hold positions on boards of directors which may increase firm value. The results may also have a social impact. Indeed, the role of women in society may be enhanced if such initiatives are taken to increase their representation on leadership positions and in society in general.

The results may also have a social impact. Indeed, the role of women in society may be enhanced if such initiatives are taken to increase their representation on leadership positions and in society in general.

This study investigates the role of women both as controllers and decision-makers in holding excessive amounts of cash. It also highlights new evidence on the impact the approach of appointing women on boards (enabling/coercive and market-based) can have on the relation between gender diversity and excess cash holdings.

The current study aims at examining the impact of upward and downward earnings management on the cross-sections of stock return. The study also examines the moderating role of cross-sectional effects on the association between earnings management and stock returns.

The study employed univariate and bivariate-sorted portfolio-level analysis to investigate the issue. Fama–Macbeth cross-sectional regression is used to analyze the moderating role of different cross-sectional effects. The study used a sample of 3085 Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) listed stocks spanning over 20 years from January 2000 to December 2019.

The findings suggest that investors have different perceptions toward different forms of earnings management. In other words, results exhibit that investors perceive downward earnings management as an element of risk; hence, they discount the returns at a higher rate. On the contrary, results show that upward earnings management is positively perceived by the investors; hence, they hold the stocks even at a lower rate of return. This relation is found to be consistent even after controlling the impact of marker effect, size effect, value effect and momentum effect.

This study is among pioneering studies that consider the direction of earnings management while examining its impact on the stock return. This study is also among the earlier attempts to examine the moderating role of four different cross-sectional effects by taking a uniform sample of stocks over the same period.

The purpose of this study is to address why managers enter the excessive market. A comparison of the facts and perceptions of entrants relative to success in the market shows that many entrants are confident about the viability of their businesses and enter the market. Accordingly, the authors simulate market entry decisions to detect behavioral biases.

The authors adapted the entry decisions simulation method, which is supported by the theoretical foundations of signal detection theory (SDT) and signaling theory. The simulation model is implemented on the Anaconda platform and written in Python 3.

The results of this study suggest that overestimation relates to excess market entry. Also, the proportion of excess entry under difficult conditions is always higher than under easy conditions.

This research helps managers and firms think about their and their competitors' abilities and evaluate them before entering the market. Policymakers and practitioners can also design programs such as experiential learning to help entrants assess their skills.

So far, no research has investigated the role of overconfidence under different market conditions. Accordingly, this study contributes to the current market entry literature by disentangling the debate between absolute and relative confidence and by considering the role of task difficulty.

The study aims at investigating the impact of real earnings management (REM) on the cross-sectional stock return after considering the moderating role of market effect, size effect, value effect and momentum effect.

The study uses weekly and monthly data of 3,085 Bombay Stock Exchange listed stocks spanning over twenty years, from January 2000 to December 2019. REM is measured through metrics developed by Roychowdhury (2006), namely, abnormal levels of operating cash flows, production costs and discretionary expenditure. The study employs univariate and bivariate portfolio-level analysis.

The findings deduced from the empirical results demonstrate that investors perceive downward REM as an element of risk; hence, they discount the stock prices at a higher rate. On the contrary, results show that investors positively perceive upward REM; hence, they hold the stocks even at a lower rate of return. This anomaly is found to be robust for all kinds of considered moderations.

The findings have important managerial implications as investors are found to assign different weights to different forms of REM, depending upon the perception regarding the magnitude of risk involved in different forms. Managers can accommodate this information during their short- and long-term corporate planning.

First, the study is among the earlier attempts to examine the association between REM and stock returns by considering the moderating role of cross-sectional effects. Second, the study considers the direction and endogenous nature of REM while investigating the issue.