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THE firm of Jessop‐Saville Ltd., which dates back to 1774, has become well established as a supplier of special steels and alloys. Their progress in this field has been maintained only by continual research and a readiness to adopt new techniques and equipment.

Sprayed metal coatings are an alternative means of effectively protecting steel structures and equipment exposed to severe environments where other coatings, such as paint, are unsuitable or provide only temporary protection. Selecting the most suitable material for a given application is a very important step in achieving success. For resistance to corrosive environments, zinc and aluminium are the most successful and widely used coatings, both being anodic to iron and steel. The performance of sprayed metal coatings is a function of the environment, coating thickness, adhesion, density and the type of sealer used. The mechanism of adhesion is mainly mechanical, the bond strength being dependent on the application process chosen and standard of surface preparation. This paper describes the results of research work associated with hot sprayed aluminium applied by combustion flame and electric arc processes using compressed air and argon carrier gases. Studies included ductility and adhesion tests, scanning electron microscopy of surfaces and cross sections, and Auger surface analyses.

This research aims to investigate whether local religious norms influence corporate attitudes toward board gender diversity.

The data are collected from American Religion Data Archive (ARDA) website and Boardex. The analysis used in this paper is ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and two-stage least squares (2SLS) models.

The authors find that firms headquartered in religious areas are negatively associated with corporate board gender diversity initiatives, proxied by the change in the total number of female directors, the share of directors that are newly hired females and the percentage of female directors on the board. The results remain robust when the authors employ alternative econometric specifications, including propensity score matching (PSM) and instrumental variable (IV) analysis. Furthermore, through quasi-experiments, the authors find that two exogenous shocks, the Vatican Leaks scandal and the Big Three board gender diversity campaign, attenuate the negative association between religiosity and diversity.

This study unveils an important but previously unidentified factor that restrains firms from exercising one of their socially responsible activities – board gender diversity and provides new insight into the emerging literature on the influence of local culture on corporate behaviors.

The lack of existing literature on factors that contribute to corporate board gender diversity presents opportunities for further study.

The purpose of this study is to explain the mixed results to changes in the DJIA index documented in the literature. The authors show that economic cycles, especially recessionary periods, explain the difference in findings.

The authors examine changes in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) from 1929 to 2019 to evaluate immediate and long-term market reactions after a component change. Using multiple event-study methodologies, the authors examine the full era, the pre- and post-exchange traded fund (ETF) windows and economic cycles using both pre and post-estimation windows.

In aggregate, DJIA additions do not present an increase in wealth; however, wealth effects are positive during expansions and negative during recessions. Deletions have a negative wealth effect. The authors find weak evidence of an indexing effect. Additions are positive post-1998, and deletions remain negative regardless of era. In the long run, firms added to the DJIA have positive abnormal returns in the second year after inclusion. Deletions in recessionary times have negative returns three years after removal, a signal of longer-term wealth decline for these firms.

The DJIA changes periodically to better represent industries relevant to the blue-chip market, and the findings have implications for fund managers and active investors.

The DJIA changes periodically to better represent industries relevant to the blue-chip market, and the findings have implications for fund managers and active investors.

Prior literature presents limited time series of data points and mixed results and implications. The authors find that the economic cycle is a driving factor that supports predicted signs and amounts of wealth change. Furthermore, the authors see limited ETF impact on DJIA changes and some impact of the choice of estimation period.

This paper aims to forgo the conventional (degree of operating leverage) risk measure by replacing elasticity of operating profits with respect to output with elasticity of free cash flow (FCF) with respect to optimal output and by considering exogenous random demand shocks for the firm’s products as a source of risk.

The elasticity risk measure accounts for corporate taxes and the cost of bankruptcy. The methodology is selecting optimal level of production investment and capital structure to generate efficient frontier of expected FCF and its risk in terms of its elasticity with respect to output.

The risk measure leads to efficient frontier between expected FCF and its idiosyncratic managerial risk. The model also resolves the empirical debate on the tradeoff between operating and financial leverages.

It is the first elasticity risk measure that embodied the impact of future level of capital expenditure, total level of assets and their sensitivity to random shocks in the product market.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze underpricing in initial coin offerings (ICO). It bridges the gap between findings in initial public offering (IPO) literature and empirical results from ICOs.

The sample set consists of 279 ICOs between April 2013 and January 2018. A regression analysis is performed with data from the ICOs.

The results show an average level of underpricing of ICOs of 123 percent in the USA and 97 percent in the other countries. The results for the US ICOs are significantly higher than for US IPOs on average and also higher than US IPOs at the beginning of the dot.com bubble. The authors also study the determinants of ICO underpricing. The authors use proxies based on asymmetric information from the IPO literature as well as ICO-related variables. First-day trading volume and a good sentiment on the ICO market go together with more ICO underpricing. Moreover, hot markets make first-day investors to benefit less. Finally, companies that use a large issue size or a pre-ICO (a sale of cryptocurrencies before the ICO) leave less money on the table.

A first restriction is that the authors focus on ICOs and not on crowdfunding, though there are similarities in that both of them are novel ways to finance projects. A second restriction is that the authors had to decide on the definition of a listing day. Cryptocurrencies are traded on many exchanges, and if the exchange is tailored to the cryptocurrency itself, the data on, e.g., close prices are not necessarily to be trusted. The authors, therefore, decided to use close price data from coinmarketcap.com, which requires a listing on two exchanges. This choice implies that there may have been trades before the listing day itself. A third restriction arises from the relative newness of the ICO phenomenon. The authors gathered data on underpricing from coinmarketcap.com and combined that with project information from icobench.com. However, the data were not simply matched and they required manual adjustments based on several other sources. The authors hope that in due time data on ICOs will be as adequate as data on IPOs and that they become more readily available. It might help if regulators or the crypto community would institute publication requirements. Adherence to such requirements would also reduce the extent of fraud and of asymmetric information, so that solid issuers with good projects might benefit from less underpricing.

The research may help in reducing underpricing, as the authors find that issuers can reduce it by holding a pre-ICO and by considering larger issue sizes. If they do so, investors will get fewer opportunities to benefit from underpricing. Investors can, nevertheless, also profit from the knowledge generated in this paper. When market sentiment is positive and first-day trading volume is expected to be high, investing in ICOs is likely to give them higher first-day returns. Finally, the authors hope that this paper will serve as a basis for further research into the exciting and dynamic world of cryptocurrencies.

There is hardly any research on underpricing of ICOs. The paper is interesting for its table with a brief comparison of ICOs and IPOs. It also searches for variables from the asymmetric information theory behind IPOs to be applied in explaining ICOs. It shows high levels of ICO underpricing in comparison to IPOs. It also gives suggestions for issuers of (and investors in) ICOs.

Owing to the importance of the investment behavior in China, the purpose of this paper is to find the influence of executive network and government governance on investment efficiency.

The paper use China’s listed companies as sample to make an investment efficiency determinant model.

In this article, the authors find that larger executive network and higher government governance will lead to more corporate investment efficient. Furthermore, the informal institution – executive network, is not only an effective way to alleviate financing constraints, but also can solve underinvestment problem. While the improvement of local government governance can provide institutional protection, it will also be more conducive to restrain overinvestment behavior.

The authors have not explored conduction path. Especially, the authors have not examined whether information spillover effect or the release of resources constraints in executive network plays a more important role to ease investment insufficient.

Under the Chinese circumstance, relationship governance can not only promote companies to improve investment efficiency, but also provide an important guarantee for sustained macroeconomic growth.

The purpose of this paper is to study the value effects of hedging in the airline industry during a period of high volatility and high fuel costs. The authors also study the determinants of hedging in the airline industry, most importantly whether managerial ownership affects airlines’ tendency to hedge their fuel price risk.

This study’s research design follows closely previous studies in the area. This allows comparison of the results of this study to those reported earlier, and thus the authors can draw conclusions about the effects of the different market conditions during the sample period.

The authors find a positive relationship between hedging and firm value, but the relationship is weaker than what is reported in prior studies. The result appears driven by the early part of the sample, whereas in the latter half of the sample, when uncertainty and fuel price are higher, the hedging premium is smaller. The authors also find that hedging premium is larger for firms that follow passive hedging strategies and that managerial ownership increases the firms’ degree of hedging.

This study provides new results on the old question of whether hedging generates value in the airline industry. The recent period of high volatility and high fuel prices makes this an interesting question to re-visit.

This paper aims to examine the effect employee performance has on subsequent corporate cash holdings.

The authors utilize panel data estimation, including an instrumental variable approach, to identify the relation between employee performance and subsequent corporate cash holdings. These panel data consist of 11,087 firm-year observations over the period 1992 to 2015.

The authors document a positive and statistically significant relation between firm employee performance and subsequent cash balances. A one standard deviation increase in employee performance is associated with an increase in cash holdings ranging from 1 to 2 percent. The findings support the view that firms seek to accommodate the preferences of better performing employees, thereby requiring greater levels of cash. This positive relation is most evident among firms with low bond ratings and firms with low managerial ability – characteristics that are indicative of a firm's ability to access capital markets.

Better corporate governance of the firm is commonly associated with lower levels of cash. The findings of this paper, however, suggest that holding greater levels of cash may be a consequence of corporate efforts to accommodate the needs of their employees. The predictive content of employee performance is orthogonal to existing determinants of corporate cash holdings shown in the literature. Furthermore, this paper shows the potential for firm cash balances to be an alternative and transparent measure that signals better employee performance and more socially responsible firm behavior.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the association of earnings quality with corporate performance of publicly listed firms of China and tries to provide a new explanation. Poor earnings quality is normally characterized by unhealthy profitability and/or untrue financial information, which leads to a misallocation of capital and low corporate performance. The largest emerging economy of China has experienced a fast and fluctuant growth, while the companies have been thought of low earnings quality.

Initial univariate and multivariate analyses are conducted using four earnings quality measures and either accounting-based corporate performance or market-based corporate performance. Further analyses apply unmanaged earnings, earnings-increase management and financially distressed firms.

The authors find that low earnings quality is associated with high corporate performance for the Chinese publicly listed firm in their sample period. Further evidence shows that earnings management is only a contributor to the negative relationship, not its main driver. They argue that the negative association of earnings quality with corporate performance is a phenomenon of a new emerging market within an economy booming period, particularly in China.

The results and argument of this paper may not totally follow the traditional literature. But they provide a new research question that requires further studies.

In theoretical discussion, this paper partitions earnings quality into two components: One results from reporting accuracy and the other results from firm’s operating outcome. In empirical analyses, this paper examines both accounting-based performance and market-based performance, and both managed earnings and unmanaged earnings.