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This paper examines whether technological changes that promote communications between investors and managers help bridge the gap in the cost of equity capital among firms in different regions.

We use the online interaction platforms of listed firms in China and utilize brokerage presence (BP) to capture the geographic distribution of financial factors. We explore whether online interactions would reduce the cost of equity to a greater extent for firms located in low brokerage presence regions (hereafter “low-BP firms”) than those in high brokerage presence regions (hereafter “high-BP firms”).

We find low-BP firms benefit more from an improved information environment created by online interactions. We also find that posts about low-BP firms are more value-relevant and useful in processing corporate disclosures. Further, a higher number of interactions significantly enhances more informational efficiency for low-BP firms, and the effect of reducing the gap in financing costs is more pronounced when corporate information is complex.

We conclude that online interactions alleviate geography-induced information frictions and create a relatively level playing field for firms located in all regions.

This study aims to explore how individual-level and organizational-level factors interact to influence pay information (PI) seeking and PI sharing preferences in PI conversations (i.e. the face-to-face communications context). The authors examine how an individual’s judgment of their pay relative to others – or pay equity perception – affects their PI seeking and PI sharing preferences and how those relationships are affected by organizationally created pay transparency policies and pay transparency practices.

Using a 2 × 2 × 2 experimental design on the MTurk platform, the authors used a scenario-based prompt method to manipulate employee perceptions of pay equity and organizational pay transparency and tested those effects on employee pay disclosure preferences. The authors consider both pay policy and pay practice dimensions of pay transparency and both PI seeking and PI sharing dimensions of pay disclosure preferences. The final sample had 597 participants.

The authors find employees’ pay equity perceptions are negatively related to PI seeking behaviors and are even more so when organizations have restrictive pay transparency policies. Also, both pay transparency policy and pay transparency practice increase PI sharing preferences.

The authors provide insight into how individual perceptions drive pay disclosure motivations and the role of organizational policy and practice in influencing pay disclosure preferences within PI conversations. The authors provide insight into the antecedents that shape pay disclosure preferences, which lead to a both PI conversations among coworkers and an increase in one’s pay understanding. This study shows the contextual nature of PI seeking and PI sharing preferences, which are a motivational antecedent to pay-related sensemaking behaviors.

This study analyzes the role of regional cooperative banks in identifying and financing small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) from a proximity perspective. Access to finance is a major challenge for SMEs. Regional cooperative banks can remove this barrier based on cooperative bank's characteristics and geographic proximity to SMEs. Understanding the interplay between these financial actors and firms can contribute to a better support of SMEs development.

The results are based on a case study of eight SMEs located in southwestern France. Interviews were conducted with two regional cooperative funds and eight SMEs. The interview guide included questions related to the company, the projects financed and how financing was accessed.

Results reveal that a combination of three forms of proximity allows regional cooperative banks and SMEs to establish effective financing operations. They show that regional cooperative banks are key players in the existing financing mechanisms for SMEs. Such financing is often used to gain access to larger players at a later stage. The findings suggest the need for public policies that promote the integration of financing actors in regional ecosystems to advance SMEs' development.

This article examines how SMEs access financing, with a focus on regional cooperative banks, which have received little attention in the literature. Moreover, the relationships between these actors are studied through the lens of proximity. Regional cooperative banks are able to finance projects that may have been overlooked by traditional banks due to trust-building local dynamics.

This study analyzes the impact of the information environment (IE) and credit default swap (CDS) transaction costs on information transmission between the stock and CDS markets. Using the daily regression analysis on the Korean firm’s stock and CDS data from 2004 to 2023, the results show that companies with superior IE in the stock market exhibit a larger and more sensitive total information flow from the stock market to the CDS market. Companies with lower transaction costs in the CDS market demonstrate faster information flow. In the case of companies with superior IE, fundamental information is reflected in stock prices with high weight and thus the CDS spreads change reflecting information about stock prices. According to this study’s findings, the primary factor influencing the information flow from the stock market to the CDS market is the information environment of the company in the stock market, rather than transaction costs in the CDS market.

This study examines whether and how the legal origin of foreign institutional investors (FIIs) impacts corporate investment efficiency.

The study employs a large panel dataset of firms from 32 non-USA countries from 2005 to 2018. Financial and institutional ownership data are obtained from the COMPUSTAT Global and Public Ownership databases in S&P Capital IQ, respectively. The study employed ordinary least squares (OLS) regression with year and firm fixed effects. In addition, two-stage least squares with instrumental variable regression (2SLS-IV) and propensity score matching (PSM) approaches were employed to address the potential endogeneity.

The findings of this study suggest that common- and civil-law FIIs differ in their monitoring capabilities to promote investment efficiency. The authors find evidence that increased equity ownership by common-law FIIs, not civil-law investors, strengthens the investment-Q sensitivity, resulting in higher investment efficiency. Consistent with the monitoring and information channel, the results further indicate that the positive impact of common-law FIIs on investment efficiency is stronger in host environments susceptible to agency conflicts and information asymmetry.

This study offers novel evidence on the heterogeneous monitoring role of FIIs with regard to their home countries' legal origins and their impact on investment efficiency in an international context.

The purpose of this study is to understand how consumers' green trust and green brand equity (GBE) vary by perceived brand greenness and age in the US market from the lens of brand knowledge (brand awareness and brand image).

Three multiple-group comparisons of structural equation modeling were used to analyze the data collected from a questionnaire. An experimental design was applied (high vs. low perceived brand greenness). A total of 440 usable responses were collected from an online consumer panel. With a higher percentage of participants older than 60 years, two groups were used, younger (under 55) and older (over 55), within each brand condition to conduct age comparisons.

Consumers' previous brand experience is important. The most promising indicators are brand image and green trust for GBE. A difference was observed between the group comparisons. For the less perceived green brand, existing brand image played a more important role in the process, and there is a need to enhance its green trust. For the higher perceived green brand, more factors should be included to explain their GBE, especially for consumers under 55.

This study identified two moderators, perceived brand greenness and age, in the formation of GBE, which has not been widely explored in the literature. The findings provide significant insights for generational cohorts, focusing for the first time on the joint catalyst effect of greenness and age regarding the influence of GBE on consumers' commitment to green brands. Additionally, the fact that a higher percentage of participants are Baby Boomers enables this study to add to the existing body of literature and bring unique perspectives to understand their and their younger counterparts' attitude toward green consumption.

The purpose of this study is to examine an integrated model, in which brand equity (BE) mediates the effects of social media usage (SMU) and electronic word of mouth (eWOM) on purchase intentions among Indian consumers of branded apparel.

An online questionnaire was used to collect data from 317 Indian customers of branded apparel, and the data were analyzed using the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) with the help of SmartPLS version 4.

First, the results indicated that SMU, eWOM and BE significantly impact consumers purchase intention; at the same time, BE is influenced by SMU and eWOM. Second, results confirmed that BE partially mediates the effects of SMU and eWOM on the purchase intentions of consumers of apparel brands.

The study's dataset is limited in its generalizability as it is based on specific responses from Indian consumers of branded apparel via an online survey. The results of this study would help marketers and advertisers create customized advertising campaigns for the people who are most likely to buy their products. Marketers can also use social media to promote the uniqueness or point of difference (PoD) of their apparel brands.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, no study has been conducted on apparel brands in the Indian context that has tested an integrative model, in which BE mediates the effects of SMU and eWOM on the purchase intentions of customers of apparel brands.

The authors provide a general framework of behavior under asymmetric information and develop indices of diligence, objectivity and quality by an analyst and analyst firm about a studied firm, and relate them to the accuracy of its forecasts. The authors test the associations of these indices with time.

The test of Public Information versus Non-Public Information Models provides the index of diligence, which equals one minus the p-value of the Hausman Specification Test of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) versus Two Stage Least Squares (2SLS). The test of Objectivity versus Non-Objectivity Models provides the index of objectivity, which equals the p-value of the Wald Test of zero coefficients versus non-zero coefficients in 2SLS regression of the earnings forecast residual. The exponent of the negative of the standard deviation of the residuals of the analyst forecast regression equation provides the index of analytical quality. Each index asymptotically equals the Bayesian ex post probability, by the analyst and analyst firm about the studied firm, of the relevant behavior.

The authors find that ex post accuracy is a statistically and economically significant increasing function of the product of the indices of diligence, objectivity and quality by the analyst and analyst firm about the studied firm, which asymptotically equals the Bayesian ex post joint probability of diligence, objectivity and quality. The authors find that diligence, objectivity, quality and accuracy did not improve with time.

There has been no previous work done on the systematic and objective characterization and joint analysis of diligence, objectivity and quality of analyst forecasts by an analyst and analyst firm for a studied firm, and their relation with accuracy. This paper puts together the frontiers of various disciplines.

As of now, the digitization of corporate finance presents a paradigm shift in business strategy, innovation, financing and managerial capability around the globe. However, the prevailing finance scholarly works hardly document the impact of the digitalization of corporate finance on firm performance with global evidence and analysis. Hence, the contemporary debate on whether firm performance is genuinely stimulated because of the digitalization of corporate finance or not has been a pressing issue in the relevant literature. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify a data-driven, concise response to an unaddressed finance issue if the performance of high-digitalized firms (HDFs) outperforms that of their counterpart peers for wealth maximization.

The first stage test models examine the firm performance of relatively high-digitalized firms as opposed to low-digitalized firms based on the system GMM. The second stage test of the probabilistic (logit) model infers that the probability of being HDFs explores because of better performance. Then, the authors execute robust checks based on the different quantile regressions and Z-score-based system GMM. In addition, the authors recheck and present the test results of the fixed effect and random effect to capture time-invariant individual heterogeneity. Finally, the supplementary test findings of firms’ credit strength by using Altman five- and four-factor Z-score models are presented.

By using cross-country panel analysis as 15 years’ test bed for HDFs and low digitalized firms (LDFs), the test results indicate that the overall firm performance of a digitalized firm is significantly better than that of a non-digitalized firm. The global evidence documents that HDFs are exposed to higher values and are financially more persistent as compared to their counterparts. The finding is remarkably concomitant across several possible subsample analysis, such as country–industry–size–period analysis.

This study can be remarkably effective in encouraging managers, policymakers and investors to acknowledge the need for adopting the required digitalization. Overall, this original study addresses a core research gap in the corporate finance literature and remarkably provides further direction to rethink the assumptions of firm digitalization on additive value and thereby identify optimal decisions for wealth maximization. The findings also imply that investors require an additional risk premium if they invest in relatively LDFs, which have relatively lower market value and weaker firm performance.

From an investors point of view, the academic novelty contributes to an innovative and unsettled issue on the impact of digitization of corporate finance on firm performance because there is a new question of high or low digitization of corporate finance in the global market. Hence, this academic novelty contributes to sharing global evidence of the digitalization of corporate finance and its effect on firm performances. In addition, an intensive critical review analysis is conducted based on the most recent and relevant scholarly works published in the top-tier journals of finance and business stream to fix the hypothesis. Overall, this study addresses a core research gap in the corporate finance literature; notably provides further direction to rethink firm digitalization; and thereby identifies optimal decisions for shareholders’ wealth maximization.

This study aims to investigate the effect of the dynamics and potential of the board of directors on investment efficiency and the comparability of financial information in companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange.

The number of observations for this study includes 1,218 observations from companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange during 2014–2020. The authors used econometric statistical methods such as multiple linear regression, the Chow and Hausman test and the Kendall correlation coefficient using Eviews software to conduct the research. To measure the board’s effectiveness, two variables are used, including board dynamics and potential.

The results showed a positive and significant relationship between dynamics, board potential and investment efficiency. Also, no significant relationship was observed between the board dynamics and the comparability of financial information. Finally, a positive and significant relationship exists between the board’s potential and the comparability of financial information.

The importance of this research is the use of board proxies, including the dynamics and potential of the board. In addition, other variables of board characteristics, such as size, independence, ownership and gender, and the relationship between these variables with investment efficiency and comparability of financial information, have been examined in this study.