Search results

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of corporate governance (CG) on the shareholding level of retail investors in Indian listed firms.

Primarily, a broad CG-index was constructed based on the Indian Companies Act, 2013; Clause 49 listing agreement; and Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act, 1956. Thereafter, a panel data approach has been used to examine the association between CG attributes and retail shareholdings (RSs) during 2014–2015 and 2018–2019.

Authors find that the firm-level CG quality positively affects retail investors’ shareholding level. The results explain that among various attributes of CG, retail investors pay more attention to firms’ audit and board information while making investment decisions. The results also reveal that the influence of CG attributes on RSs is lesser for group-affiliated, mature and large-sized firms than for stand-alone, young and small-sized firms.

First, the study provides new insight to the firms for increasing retail-shareholding levels and complying with India’s ongoing minimum public shareholding norms by improving CG practices concerning specific CG mechanisms. Second, it illuminates the regulators and policymakers to monitor and strengthen firms’ governance quality in light of ongoing regulatory reforms.

This study is a new investigation that explores the impact of CG on investment decisions of retail investors from the perspective of an emerging economy.

This paper aims to propose an innovative blockchain-based system enabling implementation of a bond-pays model in credit rating industry. Issuer-pays model has led to conflict of interest resulting in rating shopping and inflation. Alternative business models have their own problems, e.g. investor-pays model suffers from “free rider” and public dissemination challenges, whereas government-controlled business models can lead to market distortion. Bond-pays model has been difficult to implement owing to operational difficulties in managing co-ordination amongst multiple entities involved, often with conflicting goals. Blockchain technology enables inter-organizational systems that foster trust amongst non-trusting entities, facilitating business functions such as credit rating to be carried out.

This paper outlines current processes in credit rating business that has led to repeated rating failures and proposes a new set of processes, leveraging capabilities of blockchain technology to enable implementation of an arms-length bond-pays model.

A proof-of-concept system, namely, rating chain has been designed to implement a small part of the proposed model to establish technical feasibility in a blockchain environment.

A fully functional blockchain-based system on bond-pays business model, if built and adopted, could impact how credit rating market functions currently and could contribute to a reduction in rating-related challenges.

The proposal to adopt blockchain technologies in implementing a bond-pays model in credit rating industry is a novel contribution.

Despite their important role for small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) policy reform, the individual scores of the ten categories of business regulations in the World Bank’s Doing Business report are often overshadowed by the equal-weighted overall score and ease of doing business ranking. The purpose of this paper is to examine the causal interrelations between category scores and pinpoint the critical categories for reform.

Based on the latest 2016 Doing Business report, this paper applies the four-stage integrative framework to investigate the causal relationships between category scores and the overall score for business regulations for SMEs. The four-stage analysis includes cluster analysis, data mining, partial least square path modeling, and importance-performance map analysis (IPMA).

The overall score for business regulations is not only influenced by the direct effects of the category scores but also by the indirect effects of the causal interrelations between these scores. The IPMA suggests that policy-makers should examine the priorities of the category scores before making a decision about business regulatory reforms for SMEs. This paper suggests that policy-makers should allocate resources in order of priority – to resolving insolvency, getting credit, trading across borders, registering property, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, enforcing contracts, getting electricity, dealing with construction permits, and, finally, starting a business.

This four-stage methodology is the first attempt to construct a roadmap for business regulatory reforms for SMEs that addresses the problem of equal weighting and subjective causal relationships between category scores.

This study aims to empirically examine the effect of supply chain innovation (SCI) announcements on shareholder value within the context of Industry 4.0 and Industry 5.0.

This study uses an event study method to examine the effect of SCI announcements on shareholder value of the 156 listed companies in China.

First, SCI announcements have a positive effect on shareholder value. Second, SCI with an integrated form more positively affects shareholder value than SCI with an independent form. SCI at the strategy level more positively affects shareholder value than SCI at the operation level. Technology-type SCI more positively affects shareholder value than process-type SCI. Third, this study finds that investors pay more attention to the SCI of companies in the service industry than that of in the manufacturing industry. Finally, the post-hoc analysis finds that digital SCI more positively affects shareholder value than intelligent SCI.

First, most scholars use questionnaire data rather than second-hand data to conduct empirical research to explore the impact of SCI on performance. Second, although scholars focus on performance comprehensively, including operational, financial, relational and environmental performance, no scholars use an event study to explore the impact of SCI on the stock market. Third, no scholars have explored the differential impact of SCI in different industries. Forth, few scholars have classified SCI according to the characteristics to explore the differential impact of SCI. Finally, the differences between SCI of Industry 4.0 and SCI of Industry 5.0 have been described, but no scholars have used empirical research to explore the differences.

The purpose of this paper is to bridge the gap between the theory underlying divergence of opinion (DOP) and a cognitive concept termed as attention by specifically focussing on the volume and price behaviour in initial public offering (IPO) settings.

Employing the hierarchical regression for a sample of 282 Malaysian fixed price IPOs issued from 2004 to 2014, this research investigated the effect of investors’ attention on other information that complements the information revealed by initial return on DOP. Measure of market adjusted turnover (AbTO) from non-IPO setting was used to capture the DOP in the after-market, while investors’ attention was on a dichotomise scale variable which was captured by the increase/decrease of the Google search index (GOGC2) on the month of listing compared to a month prior to listing.

The findings indicate that attention moderates the relationship between initial return (also surrogates underpriced IPOs) and DOP. The findings suggest that disagreement to initial returns is reduced, while liquidity in the after-market is promoted, when investors pay more attention to other information that complements price change. The findings also indicate that behavioural tendency is less when individual participation is weak.

This paper highlights the importance of interaction effects in explaining the behavioural tendency in the after-market.

The weak individual investors’ participation and greater attention reduce the market inefficiency in Malaysia.

The finding is consistent with the view that the level of individual investors’ participation and information disclosure requirements has an implication on behavioural bias, which affects DOP in the after-market.

This article examines the informational content of credit default swap (CDS) net notional for future stock and CDS prices. Using the information on CDS contracts registered in DTCC, a clearinghouse, I construct CDS-to-debt ratios from net notional, that is, the sum of net positive positions of all market participants, and total outstanding debt issued by the reference entity. Unlike the ratio using the sum of all outstanding CDS contracts, this ratio directly indicates how much of debt is insured with CDS and therefore, is a natural measure of investors’ concern on a credit event of the reference entity. Empirically, I find crosssectional evidence that the current increase in CDS-to-debt ratios can predict a decrease in stock prices and an increase in CDS premia of the reference firms in the next week. Greater predictability for firms with investment grade credit ratings or low CDS-to-debt ratios suggests that investors pay more attention to firms in good credit conditions than those regarded as junk or already insured considerably with CDS.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of firm environmental, social and governance (ESG) rating scores on market perception and stock behavior from 2017 to 2021 while controlling for COVID-19 severity score.

The authors used panel regression models with robust standard errors based on cross-country and cross-industry sample of 1,324 ESG firms from 25 emerging countries across four regions. Four separate regression analyses are used. Hausman test is used to determine whether fixed-effect (FE) or random-effect approaches should be used in regression models. Lagrange multiplier test is used to test for time FEs, and F-test for individual effects to choose between pooled ordinary least squares model and FE. Two-unit root tests are conducted to check stationarity. Heteroskedasticity and serial correlation were controlled through a robust covariance matrix estimation.

The authors provide evidence that the stakeholder theory persists in emerging countries. Overall, the results suggest that firms’ stock behavior is positively associated with the level of environmental and social performance in the region. However, the results do not provide empirical evidence to support the link between ESG performance and stock market perception proxied by the price-to-sales ratio. The results suggest that Refinitiv and Bloomberg ESG rating scores have a positive impact on stock performance in emerging markets, albeit the Bloomberg rating score is insignificant.

Favorable impact of environmental and social performance on stock performance suggests that policymakers should take initiatives to raise awareness toward investments in ESG projects. Evidence shows that ESG stock performance in emerging markets does not insulate firms from the COVID-19 severity. Furthermore, this study highlights the inconsistency in calculating the ESG ratings, therefore, a more standardized approach is recommended to support investors seeking sustainable investments.

The findings have social implications for investors with proenvironmental preferences and nonpecuniary motives for ethical investments. Asset fund managers should develop ESG investment strategies to promote investor preferences that are linked to the proenvironmental and prosocial attitudes by increasing their investments in stocks of firms that behave ethically and support the environment. Furthermore, the findings show that investors pay a price for ethical and socially responsible investments as they are evaluating the environmental and social activities, hence, the firm ESG profile influences equity valuation and risk assessment.

The study extends the literature and provides evidence from the unique setting of emerging markets by analyzing the relationship between ESG rating scores and the COVID-19 severity scores on one hand, and stock behavior and market perception on the other.

This study aims to examine the role of fund family size on the money flow of Saudi Arabian open-end equity mutual funds. The author also investigates whether the relationship between fund flow and past return varies based on the fund's family size.

The study analyses 256 equity funds that operated in Saudi Arabia from 2006 until 2017. Pooled and fixed-effect regression models are used to test the relationship between mutual fund flow and family size.

The results indicate that fund flow is higher for large size family funds. The results also show that the relationship between mutual fund flow and past performance is more pronounced for large size families, which supports the concept that investors pay extra attention to funds' return and size.

The author provides evidence of the significant effect of family size of mutual funds on future money flow, which helps fund managers to understand investors' motivations for allocating their cash.

This paper contributes to the literature by examining the impact of family size level on the interaction between fund flow and past performance. This study is believed to be the first to investigate the family size factor in Saudi Arabia using a comprehensive data set.

This paper aims to examine whether International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) adoption and corporate governance attributes increase the management earnings forecasts’ accuracy disclosed in prospectuses for French Initial Public Offerings (IPOs).

The analysis is based on cross-sectional regression explaining the absolute forecast errors by using 45 French firms that made IPOs between 2005 and 2016 in two French financial markets: Euronext and Alternext.

In agreement with the agency theory and the signaling theory, the authors find that the IFRS adoption and the effective corporate governance, proxied by the board characteristics, increase the accuracy of management forecasts. As a result, this latter gives a credible signal in constructing and sustaining shareholders’ trust on the transparency and the reliability of such financial information.

It is plausible that the limited size of the sample represents a limitation of this study. Another limitation is that no other corporate governance attributes such as board meeting frequency, audit committee measures and ownership structure are used.

Shareholders can take benefit from management forecasts accuracy to structure their investment portfolios efficiently to allocate their funds more effectively and mitigate the costs of adverse selection that they have to face. Furthermore, the authors expect the findings to be interesting to IPO firms, as this study highlights the efficiency of larger and independent boards in decreasing managerial discretion, increasing disclosure quality and supervising management. The results could encourage GAAP-adopters countries to move toward IFRS, as this research reinforces the role of IFRS in enhancing the quality of financial disclosure by offering the required information for shareholders.

This study is important because the potential investors should assess management earnings forecasts accuracy before they consider it when evaluating IPO firms. Also, this paper has some implications for the financial market. It is recommended that future investors pay more attention, when assessing the accuracy of management earnings forecasts, to the accounting regulations of the financial reporting along with the corporate governance mechanisms. Moreover, this study could incite French regulators to revise the AFEP-MEDEF code. Under this code, it could insist that larger and independent boards are more effective in performing their governing roles than smaller boards.