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This paper attributes the clustered occurrence of over-guarantee crises of Chinese listed firms to behavioural interactions among them when engaged in guarantee decisions, verifying the existence of the peer effect (PE) and its role in the formation mechanism of such crises.

Reviewing the literature, the authors constructed a panel dataset of Chinese listed firms from 2011 to 2019 to empirically verify two types of PE by constructing industrial and regional PE indicators. The authors conduct grouped regressions according to firm heterogeneity and managers’ individual characteristics to explain the motives for the over-guaranteeing PE and also analysed the interaction between the financial market and the PE to reveal the external governance mechanism.

The authors find that the over-guarantee behaviour of Chinese listed firms exhibits strong industrial and regional correlations, which may lead to guarantee crises clustering. Firms with lower information quality, smaller asset size, and higher managerial overconfidence will be more likely to be influenced by other listed firms to over-guarantee. A favourable financial market environment can effectively inhibit listed firms from imitating the guaranteeing behaviour of peer firms.

This study’s results challenge the traditional theoretical perspective of independent financial decision-making, describe the interaction among listed firms in decision-making, and expand the existing theoretical literature on over-guaranteeing. The stickiness of guarantee behaviour may affect the accuracy of the authors’ estimations, and the differences between the industrial and regional PE require further research.

The PE of over-guaranteeing shows that a single firm has a “spill-over effect” on the guarantee decisions of other firms in the same industry or region. Improving the information environment of listed firms financing decision-making and establishing a more demanding guarantee access mechanism may reduce this dependence on listed firms’ decisions. Firms should also appropriately strengthen decision-making constraints on managers to avoid istortions in financial decisions due to managers’ personal cognitive biases.

Using PE theory, the authors explain the influence mechanisms of financial distress of Chinese listed firms due to industrial and regional clustering of over-guarantee behaviour from the perspective of behavioural interaction.

This study aims to analyze the impact of corporate governance on firms’ external financing decisions in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

The authors analyzed a unique set of panel data comprising 2,425 nonfinancial firms whose shares are traded on stock exchanges in countries in the MENA region. The authors fitted an ordinary least squares model to estimate the regression coefficients. The authors performed a sensitivity analysis using alternative measures of the critical variables and an endogeneity analysis using instrumental variable methods with plausible external instruments.

The results revealed that corporate governance characteristics of firms are strongly associated with their degree of leverage. They also showed that macrofinancial conditions, financial regulations, corporate governance enforcement and social conditions mitigate the impact of corporate governance on firms’ financing decisions.

A larger sample size will further improve the results; however, this is difficult and depends on the extent to which increasing disclosure practices allow more corporate information to reach international databases.

This study provides new evidence on the role of corporate governance on firms’ financing decisions and documents the essential mitigating role of institutions, alerting managers to consider them.

This study is a novel attempt. Based on information from different data sources, this study explored the predictive power of corporate governance, ownership structures and other firm-specific characteristics in explaining corporate leverage in MENA countries. Overall, the analysis provides new evidence of the association between corporate governance and capital structure in the MENA region, highlighting the critical role of institutions.

Discussion regarding the implications of and antecedents to the decision to outsource manufacturing functions has dominated both the academic literature and popular press for over 30 years. However, economic and competitive landscapes across the globe have changed such that the tenability of outsourcing is being re-evaluated by many organizations. Using the rich body of literature regarding the decision to outsource as a starting point, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the reasons why firms insource and the associated implications thereof.

This case study research captures data from 12 firms in the manufacturing industry that have insourced a previously outsourced function. Data were collected via interviews with executives, researcher observations, and archival records over a nine-month period.

The findings suggest that the primary drivers for insourcing were predominantly the same as those cited for outsourcing. However, insourcing decisions are often made in response to a specific, external trigger event and not necessarily in concert with long-term, strategic goals. This is in contrast to firms’ desires to make more strategic location decisions. The findings also show that insourcing/outsourcing location decisions require continuous evaluation in order to optimize competitiveness and align with long-term firm goals.

This research contributes by not only assimilating and gaining an understanding of key factors affecting insourcing decisions, but also by establishing a baseline for future investigation into this burgeoning area via the presentation of testable propositions.

This paper provides insights for supply chain, logistics, and operations management professionals who seek to better understand the critical factors that should be considered when deciding whether or not to insource.

The benefits of insourcing are being considered to a greater extent across industry, yet there is a dearth of academic or practitioner literature that business leaders and academicians can use as the basis for examining this decision. This research provides both the basis and motivation for developing knowledge in this area of increasing importance.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the significant clustering of defined benefit (DB) pension plan freeze announcements during 2001‐2006 is motivated at least in part by accounting concerns due to the Financial Accounting Standards Board's pending adoption of Statement of Financial Accounting Standards No. 158 (SFAS 158).

Using logistic regression models, the paper compares 147 “freeze firms” with a matched sample of firms that did not announce a DB plan freeze. Empirical models control for other DB plan motives including as a response to stricter contribution requirements under the Pension Protection Act of 2006 and improving the firm's competitive position.

The potential SFAS 158 impact is significantly associated with firms' decisions to freeze their DB plans. Firm profitability is also significantly associated with the freeze decision. However, there is no significant association between cash flow positions or pension plan contributions and the freeze decision.

It is possible that economic conditions adversely affecting the funded status of DB plans also motivate the freeze decision. While this study controls for the economic environment, economic factors could exacerbate the potential effect of SFAS 158.

This paper considers potential effects of accounting policy by examining its influence on real management actions and has consequences for a variety of stakeholders including investors, creditors, and, importantly, pension beneficiaries and workers, as DB plans represent implicit contracts between firms and their employees.

The purpose of this study is to understand the impact of the overconfidence of finance managers on the capital structure decisions of family-run businesses in the Indian scenario. Furthermore, this study aims to demonstrate that measurable managerial characteristics explain the capital structure decisions of managers.

The qualitative approach to research, which aims at understanding a given phenomenon among the experts, is followed. Semi-structured interviews are conducted with 21 overconfident finance managers of family-owned businesses. Content analysis is used to analyse the collected data regarding capital structure decisions into several themes to fully explore the issue in the Indian scenario.

In terms of preference for cash or debt, most of the responding overconfident finance managers of family-run businesses agreed that cash is the preferred source of financing over debt financing. This is due to the biased behaviour of overconfident managers, who consider lower availability of debt as a reason to prefer cash over debt financing. The present study reports that overconfident finance managers prefer short- to long-term debt financing. These managers raise certain practical issues, such as stringent debt terms and inflexible repayment schedules, that arise in relation to the long-term debt market. The study also finds that overconfident finance managers do not fully use tax savings. Respondents reported a lack of access to the debt market and a lack of expertise in capital structure decisions as factors in these capital structure decisions. In addition, the study explores various factors, such as the role of government, the Central Bank of India and industry practices, in relation to capital structure decisions. The study finds that the capital structure decisions of these overconfident finance managers are suboptimal because of the presence of overconfidence bias.

This study gathers information from respondents who are finance managers, not top-level managers, of family businesses; the decision not to interview the higher-ranking managers is a potential limitation of the present study. Another limitation is the small number of respondents in a specific firm size. Because of these factors, the generalisability of the findings of this study will obviously be restricted.

The present study has several practical implications. The first is the recognition of overconfidence bias as it affects the decision-making of finance managers. Executives, especially finance executives, will benefit from the recognition of overconfidence bias and will understand how the presence of such bias impacts corporate decision-making. Managers will understand that bias leads to faulty decision-making. The study will provide indirect feedback to policymakers and regulators in terms of understanding the role of macroeconomic variables in economic decisions. The qualitative approach followed in the present study may enhance the understanding of capital structure decisions from a psychological perspective. The majority of studies in the review of literature adopt quantitative approaches; so the qualitative approach adopted here represents a methodological innovation, and it may provide a deeper understanding of the matter.

The existing literature includes quantitative research aimed at understanding the impact of CEO overconfidence on various corporate policies such as capital budgeting, mergers and acquisitions, dividend policy and capital structure decisions. Quantitative research into the presence of overconfidence bias among executives and its impact on corporate policies returns mixed results. To fulfil the need for studies of overconfidence bias among executives with practical implications, this study explores the presence of overconfidence bias among finance managers in family-run businesses and investigates the impact of overconfidence on capital structure decisions.

This chapter presents a personal research journey starting from my interest in firms’ decision-making within the tradition of the behavioral theory of the firm to discovering mergers and acquisitions (M&A) as an ideal decision context to advance the theory. Using my two articles published in the Academy of Management Journal as examples, I showcase how to leverage the specific attributes of M&A together with the institutional context in which they occur to develop and test new theories. Each paper addresses a distinctive research question and provides a unique angle of theoretical insights to the theory of decision-making. In particular, I was able to dig deeper into the mechanisms of institutional logic, power, and coalition building for explaining how firms make strategic decisions, all owing to the significance and versatility of M&A.

Purpose: In reality, financial decisions are made under conditions of asymmetric information that results in either favorable or adverse selection. As far as financial decisions affect growth of the firm, the latter must also be affected by either favorable or adverse selection. Therefore, the core objective of this chapter is to examine the determinants of each financial decision and the effects on growth of the firm under conditions of information asymmetry.

Design/Methodology/Approach: This chapter uses data for the non-financial firms listed in S&P 500. The data cover quarterly periods from 1989 to 2014. The statistical tests include linearity, fixed, and random effects and normality. The generalized method of moments estimation method is employed in order to examine the relative significance and contribution of each financial decision on growth of the firm, respectively. Standard and proposed proxies of information asymmetry are discussed.

Findings: The results conclude that there is a variation in the impact of financial variables on growth of the firm at high and low levels of information asymmetry especially regarding investment and financing decisions. A similar picture emerges in the cases of firm size and industry effects. In addition, corporate dividen d policy has a similar effect on firm growth across all asymmetric levels. These findings prove that information asymmetry plays a vital role in the relationship between corporate financial decisions and growth of the firm. Finally, the results contribute to the vast literature on the estimation of information asymmetry by demonstrating that the classical and standard proxies for information asymmetry are not consistent in terms of the ability to differentiate between favorable or adverse selection (which corresponds to low and high level of information asymmetry).

Originality/Value: This chapter contributes to the related literature in two ways. First, this chapter offers updated empirical evidence on the way that financing, investment, and dividends decisions are made under conditions of favorable and adverse selection. Other related studies deal with each decision separately. Second, the study offers new proxies for measuring information asymmetry in order to reach robust estimates of the effects of financial decisions on growth of the firm under conditions of agency problems.

The paper examines contingent liabilities' effect on the firm's dividend decisions.

Fixed-effects regression and logit model results estimate the influence of contingent liabilities on firms' dividend decisions using a sample of 2,288 firm-year observations of S&P 500 firms from 2012 until 2022. Robustness checks and results from the 2SLS model further support the authors’ findings.

The results show that contingent liabilities negatively affect dividend payment decisions. This analysis further demonstrates that the stated effect of contingent liabilities on dividend decisions is more substantial for firms with financing deficits and those with above-industry-average corporate governance scores.

There needs to be more systematic conceptual reason for measuring uncertainty for firms and its influence on dividend decisions. Future research should use other measures of firm uncertainty to examine the relation of the firm's uncertainty with dividend decisions.

The authors suggest that contingent liabilities create uncertainty for future cash flows, influence a firm's agency costs and provide credible signals on a firm's prospects to the market. The findings support existing literature that measurable firm-specific variables significantly influence a firm's dividend decisions. The results are robust for an alternative explanation.

By investigating the impact of the influence of contingent liabilities on dividends, the authors extend research on dividend decisions and attempt to provide insights into a firm's dividend decisions by incorporating an off-the-balance sheet item (contingent liabilities) as a significant predictor for dividend decisions.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of companies’ Shariah compliance (SC) debt financing decisions, financing with retained earnings (REs), cash holdings, capital expenditures and dividend pay-out policies.

The sample consisted of 1,648 firm-year observations of GCC non-financial firms from various industries. The authors scrutinised the firms over a period of eight financial years from 2012 to 2019. To analyse the research hypotheses, the authors used a panel data model using ordinary least squares and generalised method of moments, depending on historical data.

The results of this study show a negative effect of SC on debt financing decision and dividend pay-out policies but a positive effect on financing decision with REs, cash holdings and the decision on capital expenditures.

This study's findings provide a better understanding of the role of restrictions of financing options in SC companies on financing decisions in the GCC. Whether religious or simply interested in investing in SC companies, investors can benefit from knowing that these companies make financial decisions that may affect their short- and long-term profits for policymakers and regulators. This study may be valuable in evaluating the effect of restrictions imposed by Islamic Shariah on how firms make different financial decisions. Policymakers should encourage the issuance of Islamic financial products and prepare two financial indicators to classify SC firms.

The main contribution of this study is to obtain empirical evidence on the effect of SC on a set of financial decisions. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to focus on non-financial companies committed to Shariah. They do not depend on interest-bearing loans for their financing but are limited to financing by shares, financing with REs and financing using various Islamic financing formulas.

The role of chief executive officer (CEO) personal characteristics in shaping corporate policies has attracted increasing academic attention in the past two decades. In this review, the authors synthesize extant research on CEO attributes by reviewing 232 articles published in 29 journals from the accounting, finance and management literature. This review provides an overview of existing findings, highlights current trends and interdisciplinary differences in research approaches and identifies potential avenues for future research.

To review the literature on CEO attributes, the authors manually collected peer-reviewed articles in accounting, finance and management journals from 2000 to 2021. The authors conducted in-depth analysis of each paper and manually recorded the theories, data sources, country of study, study period, measures of CEO attributes and dependent variables. This procedure helped the authors group the selected articles into themes and sub-themes. The authors compared the findings in various disciplines and provided direction for future research.

The authors highlight the role of CEO personal attributes in influencing corporate decision-making and firm outcomes. The authors categorize studies of CEO traits into three main research themes: (1) demographic attributes and experience (including age, gender, culture, experience, education); (2) CEO interactions with others (social and political networks) and (3) underlying attributes (including personality, values and ideology). The evidence shows that CEO characteristics significantly affect a wide range of specific corporate policies that serve as mechanisms through which individual CEOs determine firm success and performance.

CEO selection is one of the most crucial decisions made by corporations. The study findings provide valuable insights to corporate executives, boards, investors and practitioners into how CEOs’ personal characteristics can impact future firm decisions and outcomes that can, in turn, inform the high-stake process of CEO recruitment and selection. The study findings have significant practical implications for corporations, such as contributing to executive training programs, to assist executives and directors attain a greater level of self-awareness.

Building on the theoretical foundation of upper echelons theory, the authors offer an integrated theoretical framework to consolidate existing empirical research on the impacts of CEO personal attributes on firm outcomes across accounting and finance (A&F) and management literature. The study findings provide a roadmap for scholars to bridge the interdisciplinary divide between A&F and management research. The authors advocate a more holistic and multifaceted approach to examining CEOs, each of whom embodies a myriad of personal characteristics that comprise their unique identity. The study findings encourage future researchers to expand the investigation of the boundary conditions that magnify or moderate the impacts of CEO idiosyncrasies.