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1 – 10 of 959Fernando Angulo-Ruiz, Naveen Donthu, Diego Prior and Josep Rialp-Criado
This study aims to ask whether the funding behaviour of companies is different during a recession. Specifically, the authors study whether firms fund marketing resources and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to ask whether the funding behaviour of companies is different during a recession. Specifically, the authors study whether firms fund marketing resources and capabilities with internal or external financing during a recession and under which conditions of strategic financial flexibility debt might be used to fund marketing resources and capabilities in recessions.
Design/methodology/approach
This study estimates empirical models using a newly merged data set covering 17 years, from 2000 to 2016. The authors merge firms’ marketing and financial information from Advertising Age, the American Customer Satisfaction Index, Compustat and the Centre for Research in Security Prices. The sample includes a panel of 653 firm-years of 67 top corporate advertisers.
Findings
The results indicate that firms take recessions as opportunities to be proactive and invest in short- and long-term marketing capabilities, companies with higher strategic financial flexibility relative to their industry peers tend to rely more on debt to fund short- and long-term marketing capabilities during recessions, firms use internal financing to fund their marketing budgets and short-term marketing capabilities in recessionary and non-recessionary periods and firms use internal financing and signals from past stock returns as mechanisms to fund long-term marketing capabilities.
Research limitations/implications
The findings contribute to the body of knowledge on the antecedents of marketing resources and capabilities. The results extend the pecking order theory to include recessions and provide nuances of the financing drivers of resources and capabilities.
Practical implications
Companies should be proactive during recessions and invest in short- and long-term marketing capabilities. When negotiating marketing budgets with chief financial officers, marketing practitioners could suggest the sources to finance specific marketing resources and capabilities. Based on the results of top corporate advertisers, the authors recommend companies to fund marketing capabilities with internal resources (e.g. cash flows, retained earnings), and if cash is not available, companies need to rely on their superior strategic financial flexibility to access long-term debt and fund investments in marketing capabilities. The authors also recommend companies to fund long-term marketing capabilities by re-allocating investments. As well, signals from past performance are an important source to gain access to capital and fund investments in long-term marketing capabilities.
Originality/value
This study provides a more complete picture of the financial antecedents of marketing resources and capabilities in general and during a recession. The authors provide light on the moderating role of strategic financial flexibility during recessions. This study also clarifies the potential signalling of past performance for funding marketing resources and capabilities.
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The question of the best commercial method of retailing milk requires to be dealt with from the various standpoints of the different classes of milk vendors.
Inspectors visiting districts in connection with the Foreign Meat and Unsound Food Regulations have made detailed inquiries in certain instances in regard to local methods of…
Abstract
Inspectors visiting districts in connection with the Foreign Meat and Unsound Food Regulations have made detailed inquiries in certain instances in regard to local methods of administration of the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts. Special visits for this purpose have also been made to other districts where inquiry appeared to be specially called for. In the course of these inquiries it was found that in some instances the public analyst had made a report to his local authority on some special investigation which had been undertaken in the district respecting a particular article of food, but that copies of such report had not always reached the Board. During an inquiry in the county of Cheshire Dr. Coutts ascertained that the county analyst had made valuable reports in regard to butter and Cheshire cheese of which the Board were unaware. Reports of this nature are of much interest to this sub‐department, and it would be of advantage if local authorities would send to the Board copies of all special reports made by the public analyst.
Imran S. Currim, Jooseop Lim and Yu Zhang
This paper aims to address two unique and important questions. First, how do recessions directly affect firms’ marketing spending decisions? Second, and more importantly, do firms…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to address two unique and important questions. First, how do recessions directly affect firms’ marketing spending decisions? Second, and more importantly, do firms which are more committed to marketing spending through past recessions achieve better stock market returns?
Design/methodology/approach
This study is based on a combination of National Bureau of Economic Research, COMPUSTAT and Center for Research in Security Prices data on 6,000 firms between 1982 and 2009 which are analyzed using panel data-based regression models.
Findings
The authors find that firms cut marketing spending during recessions. However, firms committed to marketing spending during past recessions achieve better stock market returns. The findings are found to be robust across B2B and B2C industries, different periods and US firms which vary on the proportion of their global revenue from non-US sales.
Research limitations/implications
Top executives cut marketing budgets during recessions; however, if they can resist the pressures, and strategically continue to make marketing investments during recessions, they will achieve higher stock market returns.
Originality/value
This is the first paper to establish the longer-term (not short-term) positive stock market performance of continuous (not episodic) marketing spending through past recessions, i.e. the view that marketing spending is necessary (not discretionary) for stock returns.
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Hannah Oh, John Bae, Imran S. Currim, Jooseop Lim and Yu Zhang
This study aims to answer two unique related questions on the overarching relationship between a CEO’s personal religious affiliation, the firm’s advertising spending decision and…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to answer two unique related questions on the overarching relationship between a CEO’s personal religious affiliation, the firm’s advertising spending decision and its shareholder value. First, does the CEO’s religious affiliation, a proxy for risk taking, influence the firm’s advertising spending decision? Second, does the advertising spending decision mediate the relationship between the CEO’s religious affiliation and the firm’s shareholder value?
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses data on the religious affiliations of CEOs of publicly listed US firms, 1992–2014, from Marquis Who’s Who; advertising spending and shareholder value from Compustat, and panel data-based regression models including CEO characteristics from ExecuComp, and firm-, industry- and time-based controls.
Findings
We find higher advertising spending levels for Protestant over Catholic-led firms, and advertising spending mediates the relationship between a CEO’s religious affiliation and the firm’s shareholder value.
Research limitations/implications
Marketing theory needs to incorporate the missing but fundamental effect of the CEO’s religious affiliation-based values on decisions and outcomes.
Practical implications
Boards of Directors may need to align the CEO’s and their firm’s spending goals.
Originality/value
While previous studies focused on the influence of religious affiliation on consumers’ attitudes and behavior, and executives’ financial and R&D spending decisions, this study, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, is the first to investigate the effect of a CEO’s religious affiliation on the firm’s advertising spending decision and its shareholder value.
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Peter Navarro, Philip Bromiley and Pedro Sottile
Business cycles strongly influence corporate sales and profits, yet strategy research largely ignores the possibility that corporate management practices related to the business…
Abstract
Purpose
Business cycles strongly influence corporate sales and profits, yet strategy research largely ignores the possibility that corporate management practices related to the business cycle influence profitability. This paper aims to offer initial empirical support for the view that high peformance firms use a variety of business cycle management (BCM) practices that low performance firms do not.
Design/methodology/approach
This exploratory study examines the association of firm performance with business cycle management behaviors identified in the prescriptive literature and further developed from a set of case analyses. The empirical analysis uses a matched sample of 35 pairs of high vs low performers from the S&P 500.
Findings
Discriminant and conditional logit analyses provide preliminary evidence that business cycle‐sensitive behaviors such as countercyclical hiring and investment associate positively with firm performance.
Research limitations/implications
Future research should use larger data sets and strictly archival data to overcome the limitations of the small sample size and data coding with some subjective elements.
Practical implications
This research suggests a variety of business cycle related practices dealing with staffing, capital investment, acquisitions and divestitures, capital financing, credit policy, pricing, and advertising may improve firm performance.
Originality/value
This is the first paper to offer evidence of the impact of business cycle related practices across a range of practices and industries.
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Hettie A. Richardson, Allen C. A mason, Ann K. Buchholtz and Joseph G. Gerard
Despite its strategic importance, researchers have given little attention to when CEOs are willing to delegate decisions to top management team members. Prior studies and…
Abstract
Despite its strategic importance, researchers have given little attention to when CEOs are willing to delegate decisions to top management team members. Prior studies and conventional wisdom suggest that CEOs will be more willing to delegate in times of good performance. Drawing from prospect theory, we suggest an alternative view: that CEOs will be risk‐averse and, therefore, less willing to delegate when their firms have performed well. Our findings provide support for both perspectives.
Tom McLean, Tom McGovern, Richard Slack and Malcolm McLean
This paper aims to explore the development of the accountability ideals and practices of Quaker industrialists during the period 1840–1914.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore the development of the accountability ideals and practices of Quaker industrialists during the period 1840–1914.
Design/methodology/approach
The research employs a case study approach and draws on the extensive archives of Quaker industrialists in the Richardson family networks, British Parliamentary Papers and the Religious Society of Friends together with relevant contemporary and current literature.
Findings
Friends shed their position as Enemies of the State and obtained status and accountabilities undifferentiated from those of non-Quakers. The reciprocal influences of an increasingly complex business environment and radical changes in religious beliefs and practices combined to shift accountabilities from the Quaker Meeting House to newly established legal accountability mechanisms. Static Quaker organisation structures and accountability processes were ineffective in a rapidly changing world. Decision-making was susceptible to the domination of the large Richardson family networks in the Newcastle Meeting House. This research found no evidence of Quaker corporate social accountability through action in the Richardson family networks and it questions the validity of this concept. The motivations underlying Quakers’ personal philanthropy and social activism were multiple and complex, extending far beyond accountabilities driven by religious belief.
Originality/value
This research has originality and value as a study of continuity and change in Quaker accountability regimes during a period that encompassed fundamental changes in Quakerism and its orthopraxy, and their business, social and political environments.
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Sawsan Saadi Halbouni and Mostafa Kamal Hassan
The purpose of this paper is to examine Johnson and Kaplan's claim that “external reporting influences managerial accounting information” in an emerging capital market, the United…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine Johnson and Kaplan's claim that “external reporting influences managerial accounting information” in an emerging capital market, the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Design/methodology/approach
The paper relies on a survey instrument and institutional theory analysis in order to: first, explore accountants' perceptions of the extent to which financial accounting conventions‐based information is utilized, instead of managerial accounting information, in internal decision making; and second, articulate respondents' perception to the UAE's wider social and institutional context expressed in terms of accounting regulars, accountancy profession and partnership with multinational companies.
Findings
In line with Johnson and Kaplan's claim and contrary to the studies of Hopper et al., Joseph et al. and Scapens et al., the paper's findings show evidence of financial reporting domination on managerial accounting information in the UAE. Locating such results in a UAE companies social and institutional context, the paper reveals that the activities of regulators and accountancy professionals pay more attention to financial reporting, an issue which contributes towards reinforcing respondents' general perceptions that management accounting is subservient to the demands of financial reporting requirements.
Research limitations/implications
Although the paper's findings trigger the importance of the UAE's institutional context in reinforcing accountants' perceptions, the interaction between financial accounting requirements and managerial accounting information is an area that needs further in‐depth case‐study‐based investigation in emerging market economies.
Practical implications
The paper's findings highlight the type of information that UAE's managers utilize when making decisions. These findings are in the interest of business investors and the accountancy profession that aims at increasing practitioners' professional knowledge.
Originality/value
This is one of few papers that combine survey results and institutional theory analysis to explore whether financial accounting dominates managerial accounting information and, at the same time, provides an understanding of the underlying reasons behind that domination in an emerging market economy such as the UAE.
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Anne K.H. Neal, Merridee Lynne Bujaki, Sylvain Durocher and François Brouard
The authors examine and compare accounting associations' identities in distinct segments of the accounting profession surrounding the 2014 merger of three Canadian accounting…
Abstract
Purpose
The authors examine and compare accounting associations' identities in distinct segments of the accounting profession surrounding the 2014 merger of three Canadian accounting associations.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conceive of accounting associations' magazine front covers as a setting for “identity performance” (i.e. a scenery through which identity dimensions are intentionally communicated to target audiences). The authors examine pre-merger and post-merger associations' identity performances that took place between January 2011 and December 2020 and identify 21 broad themes that the authors interpret in terms of identity logics (i.e. professionalism/commercialism) and audience focus (society/association members), underscoring (dis)similarities in identity performances pre- and post-merger.
Findings
The authors' analysis reveals distinct identity performances for the different segments of the pre-merger accounting profession and for the post-merger unified accounting association. Identity logics manifest differently: a commercial logic dominated for two of the associations and a professional logic dominated for the third. Identity fluidity was evident in the merged association's shift from commercial toward professional logic when the association ceased publishing one magazine and introduced a new one. Society rather than associations' members dominated as a target audience for all associations, but this focus manifested differently. Post-merger, identity performances continued to focus on society as the audience.
Originality/value
The authors highlight the Goffmanian identity performances (Goffman, 1959) taking place via accounting associations' magazines. The authors adopt a segment perspective (Bucher and Strauss, 1961) that demonstrates that commercialism does not trump professionalism in all segments of the profession. For the first time, the authors juxtapose identity logics (professionalism/commercialism) and targeted audiences to better understand how these facets of accountants' identities compare between segments.
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