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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate firm financial success across a broad range of performance measures and identify areas of the performance spectrum for which positive results were most difficult to achieve. Simultaneously, the authors identify the firms that most frequently ranked among the top five in terms of composite financial performance.

The dichotomous Rasch model was applied to 13 financial ratios for two industries for the years 2002‐2011. Of these ratios, the authors identify those that are consistent with the requirements of the Rasch model and suitable for ranking composite firm financial performance in each industry during the sample years. Ratio difficulty rankings are obtained, along with firm rankings reflecting managers' ability to achieve broad‐based financial success.

For the Foods and Aerospace/Defense industries during 2002‐2011, above average performance was most difficult to achieve in the areas of liquidity, financial leverage, and market valuation. Above average profitability and returns on investment seem to have been easier performance targets during this sample period. The authors also list the ticker symbols of firms with managers who consistently achieved top overall financial performance.

The performance data for each industry and time period have to fit the requirements of the Rasch model. In addition, it must be possible to translate continuous metric readings into binary measures without losing relevant information. Future research might explore the use of more sophisticated Rasch models, measures of non‐financial firm performance dimensions, additional industries and time periods.

This research offers managers, investors and regulators a fresh perspective on the evaluation of firm financial performance and managerial ability.

Rasch models are widely used in the human sciences. Application of this methodology to firms offers a more comprehensive view of firm performance and may reveal factors relevant to firm valuation that have previously been ignored, thus possibly impacting the allocation of capital across firms and industries.

To the authors' knowledge, this research represents a first attempt to apply the Rasch approach to an evaluation of managerial ability as reflected in a firm's overall financial performance.

The 2008-2009 subprime mortgage crisis in the USA caused bankruptcies and closures of many financial institutions. Yet many CEOs of US financial institutions were awarded huge bonuses and pay packages despite the economic collapse, suggesting that their incomes were not in conjunction with those of the shareholders, indicating a serious agency problem. This issue raises the question as to whether stock option backdating, another example of an agency problem, was as prevalent as slack lending policies among these financial institutions. This paper aims to compare the relative magnitude of executive option backdating in financial and nonfinancial firms.

Using a sample of CEO stock option grants from 1995 to 2006, obtained from ExecuComp, the authors employ an event study around the grant dates of executive options. The authors compare the abnormal price movements between financial and nonfinancial firms.

The abnormal negative stock returns were found before the award dates for both groups of firms. The after-event abnormal returns of both groups of firms, however, show different trends. For nonfinancial firms, there is an immediate turnaround of the abnormal return movement right after the grants; that is, the price increases, indicating the occurrence of significant backdating events. For financial firms, however, there is no significant price rebound after the grant date. In fact, the price continued to decline throughout the after-event period.

The result shows that nonfinancial firms demonstrate significantly more option backdating behavior than financial firms.

The findings suggest that previous findings on prevalent backdating among all public listed firms are only partially correct. This paper shows that backdating behavior found in previous studies is indeed driven by nonfinancial firms. This unexpected finding contradicts the initial prediction of authors that option backdating may be more likely among financial firms.

Based on previous research, the authors recognize that generally the official grant dates of firms must have been set retroactively, as shown by Lie (2005). The findings, however, show that financial firms demonstrate only partial backdating behavior. This study opens a path for future research to further discover why financial firms exhibit less backdating behavior compared with nonfinancial firms, and if option backdating is not an issue for financial firms, why the share prices of these firms decline significantly prior to the grant date.

Since a firm’s management performance can be evaluated in terms of financial ratios, efficient management using financial factors is proposed as the key element for upgrading a firm’s productivity. Investigates productivity in terms of certain financial factors of large‐scale manufacturing firms in Taiwan. First determines several influential financial factors using factor analysis. Based on these factors, employs fuzzy clustering approaches to categorize the manufacturing firms into several patterns with distinct characteristics of financial factors. Using the characteristics of productivity and financial factors for each pattern, makes two kinds of analysis, and proposes some suggestions to improve the firms’ productivity.

The turbulent decade of the 1980s completely restructured the financial system of the 1990s. Deregulation and rising competition led to record numbers of failures among depository institutions in the U.S., especially savings and loan associations. These failures have caused tremendous taxpayer losses, which are estimated at around $200 billion in present value terms. Financial markets became increasingly volatile, with increased price movements in bond, stock, and currency markets. These events triggered both public and private sector responses, including increased regulatory standards for safety and soundness and financial innovation. Additionally, the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, now known as the New Independent States (NIS), as well as the trend toward trading blocks, including the continuing process of European unification and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico, have greatly increased the demand for growth capital in a global sense.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of audit quality, measured by financial statements audited by the big four accounting firms, on the investors' ability to predict future earnings for profitable and unprofitable firms.

The paper uses the returns‐earnings regression model and interacts all independent variables in this model with a dummy variable, AUDIT, which is set to equal one if financial statements audited by the big four accounting firms, zero otherwise. Future earnings response coefficient is the measure of earnings predictability.

The paper finds that investors are able to better anticipate future earnings when financial statements are audited by the big four accounting firms. However, the findings are not applicable for unprofitable firms.

The findings of the paper have implications for auditing related academic research and the users of financial statements. In particular, the study shows that the big four accounting firms have not lost their audit quality advantage and that financial statements audited by the big four accounting firms are arguably of higher quality than those audited by non‐big four accounting firms.

It is believed that there is no UK study to date examining the association of the quality of financial statements audited by the big four accounting firms and the returns‐earnings association. Consequently, this paper significantly contributes to the limited literature on the perceived value relevance of audit quality.

This article analyzes the moderating role of investment opportunities, business risk and agency costs in shaping the nexus between excess cash and corporate performance.

This research uses dynamic regression models (two-step system generalized method of moments) to analyze the data related to 200 Turkish companies listed on Borsa Istanbul (BIST) for the years between 2009 and 2020.

The findings indicate that when excess cash increases, the financial performance deteriorates only for firms with lower investments compared to firms with more investments. In addition, investment contributes to better financial performance for firms that hold cash surplus, whereas the influence of investment is insignificant for firms that have insufficient cash. Agency costs of equity exacerbate the adverse impact of excess cash on financial performance while agency costs of debt mitigate this effect. Excess cash reduces the financial performance of highly leveraged firms. However, this impact becomes insignificant when debt ratio decreases. The findings also show that investment has more significant role than business risk in building the precautionary motive to hold cash.

The findings of this article are limited to the Turkish market. Future research is still needed in other emerging markets to compare the results and reveal more about the effect of excess cash on firm performance, and how other factors can change this effect.

The findings verify the increased significance of excess cash in the presence of investment opportunities and difficulties in accessing external funds. Nevertheless, the role of the equity related agency problem in reducing the benefits of cash surplus confirms the necessity of policies that support corporate governance, especially in emerging markets.

This article, according to the knowledge of author, is the first to examine the role of agency costs associated with debt and equity, and the compound effect of investment opportunities and business risk on the nexus between excess internal funds and corporate financial performance in emerging markets.

This study aims to examine the impact of intellectual capital (IC) on default risk in Indian companies listed on the National Stock Exchange.

This study applies panel data regression analysis to derive a relationship between IC and default risk for the sample period 2013–2022. The value-added intellectual coefficient (VAIC) of Pulic (2000) has been applied to measure IC performance, and default risk is estimated using the revised Z-score model of Altman (2000).

The results revealed a positive association between Z-score and VAIC. It implies that a higher value of VAIC improves financial stability and leads to a lower likelihood of default. The findings further suggest that new default forecasting models can be experimented with IC indicators for better default prediction.

The findings can have implications for investors and banks. This paper provides evidence of IC performance in improving the financial solvency of firms. Investors and financial institutions should invest their resources in a healthy firm that effectively manages and invests in their IC. It will eventually award investors and creditors high returns through efficient value-creation processes.

This study provides evidence of IC performance in improving the financial solvency of Indian high-defaulting firms, which lacks sufficient evidence in this domain of research. Numerous studies exist examining the relationship between firm performance and IC value, but this area is inadequately focused and underresearched. This study, therefore, fills the research gap from an Indian perspective.

Financial flexibility and investment efficiency are of vital importance in strategic choices at boardrooms, particularly in post-crisis recovery strategies. This study examines the moderating effects of investment efficiency and investment scale on the relationship between financial flexibility and firm performance.

The authors use sample of 10,755 US-listed firms over the period 2010–2021 to examine the relationships between investment scale, investment efficiency, financial flexibility and firm performance. Particular attention is paid to overinvestment and underinvestment.

Findings of this study reveal that financial flexibility mitigates investment inefficiency through reducing overinvestment. Financial flexibility contributes to boost a firm’s accounting and market performance. Additionally, investment efficiency and investment scale have moderating effects on the relationship between financial flexibility and firm performance. However, the influence of investment efficiency is greater than the influence of investment scale. Finally, the authors find that the direct and indirect effects of financial flexibility are stronger on market performance than accounting performance, implying that market is more sensitive to corporate financial policies.

Findings of this study have implications for scholars, decision-makers policymakers, investors and other stakeholders.

This study has its own limitations due to the sample selection issues, country context and the research model adopted by this study.

The novel contribution to the extant literature is incorporating the influence of investment scale and investment efficiency into the relationship between financial flexibility and firm performance.

This study aims to examine the nexus of corporate governance with firms' financial risk-taking behavior under the corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures in the context of non-financial listed firms of an emerging economy.

This study investigates the relationship between corporate governance as evaluated by an index and several financial risks, including idiosyncratic, default and systematic risks. The connection of corporate governance with financial risks is also studied while considering the moderation of CSR disclosures. The data are collected from 2014 to 2018 of 73 top 100-index listed non-financial firms of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX). Panel regression fixed effect and 2-step generalized method of moments techniques are applied to confirm the hypothesis along with the diagnostic tests to confirm that all outcomes of models must be authentic and reliable.

The study’s findings confirm that enhancing the overall corporate governance measures resulted in an augment in the firm’s risk due to weak control and regulations prevailing in emerging economies. Moreover, CSR disclosures enhance stakeholder information, lessen information asymmetry about management policies and mitigate the risk associated with operational uncertainties.

This study has a practical implementation to policymakers that effective monitoring and controlling measures facilitate the corporate management for minimizing the financial risks. Further, the study’s findings shed light that implementing corporate governance measures is not enough to mitigate financial risks until supervisory measures in the form of CSR disclosures are not taken to analyse corporate governance effectiveness.

This paper enhances the key findings in the literature by examining the role of corporate governance measures with respect to firms’ financial risks considering the moderating role of CSR disclosures. Furthermore, this research adds to the body of knowledge regarding the implementation of monitoring measures that assist in the mitigation of firms’ financial risks hence firm value.

The aim of this chapter is to understand effects of the recent crisis on the financial constraints that small and medium size enterprises have experienced in emerging economies. Using the firm level survey data provided by the World Bank, a descriptive analysis is conducted by calculating the average of the financial obstacles that the firms had experienced before and after the crisis, and the existence of statistical difference between the two periods is tested. The results indicate that the small and medium size enterprises suffer more from financial constraints relative to large firms. Financial constraints that the small and medium size firms had experienced are largely affected by the recent global financial crisis, relative to the large firms. However, effects of the financial constraints on real variables such as investment, innovation, and research and development expenditures cannot be examined due to data limitations. This chapter contributes to the limited literature of financial constraints experienced by the small and medium enterprises in emerging economies by taking the effect of the recent global financial crisis into account. The novelty of this chapter comes from the dataset: “The World Bank’s World Business Environment Surveys,” which provides a large sample of emerging countries.