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1 – 10 of 10Fidèle Shukuru Balume, Jean-François Gajewski and Marco Heimann
This study aims to analyze the effect of cognitive load and social value orientation on managers’ preferences when they face with two types of restructuring choices in financially…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyze the effect of cognitive load and social value orientation on managers’ preferences when they face with two types of restructuring choices in financially distressed firms: the first belonging to the family of organizational restructuring (massive layoffs) and the second to the family of financial restructuring (debt increases).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors investigate experimentally the impact of managers’ cognitive load and social value orientation on the decision to restructure leveraged buyout (LBO) firms in financial distress by using either massive layoffs or debt increases.
Findings
By investigating the impact of managers’ cognitive load and social value orientation on the restructuring decision of an LBO firm in financial distress, the research reveals that, on average, cognitively loaded managers prefer massive layoffs over increased debt levels. The massive layoffs seemingly provide a relatively easier way to avoid conflict with influential, residual claimants. In contrast, social value–oriented managers actively avoid massive layoffs and prefer to increase debt.
Research limitations/implications
These results imply that the performance mechanisms emphasized to improve agency relations, for example, in LBOs, have their own limitations during periods of financial distress. This study shows that one of these limits is related to cognitive distortions and personality traits.
Originality/value
In this research, the originality lies in understanding how managers’ internal factors affect their restructuring decision-making, in the case of LBO firms in financial distress.
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Katia Lobre-Lebraty and Marco Heimann
We explore how sustainable management education (SME) can help prepare future leaders to manage crises effectively. Precisely, the intricacies of articulating moral and economic…
Abstract
Purpose
We explore how sustainable management education (SME) can help prepare future leaders to manage crises effectively. Precisely, the intricacies of articulating moral and economic imperatives for businesses in a manner that engages students in sustainable behavior are a serious challenge for SME. We study how to integrate reminders of moral and economic imperatives in a socially responsible investment (SRI) stock-picking simulation created for SME.
Design/methodology/approach
Adopting an experimental design, we analyzed how the reminders affected the average environment social governance (ESG) integration in the portfolios of 127 graduate students in finance over a twelve-week period.
Findings
Our results show how essential it is to balance the two imperatives. The highest level of sustainable investment is attained when utilizing both reminders.
Practical implications
Our findings have practical implications for implementing and organizing SME in business schools to educate responsible leaders who are able to effectively manage crises. Learning responsible management is most effective when students are exposed to the inherent tension between moral and economic imperatives. Hence, our findings corroborate the win-win conception of SME.
Originality/value
No management decision study has experimentally measured the effects of SME practices on students' actual behavior. Our research fills this gap by complementing previous studies on the effectiveness of teaching practices, first by drawing on behavioral sciences and measuring changes in students' actual sustainability behavior and second by introducing moral and economic imperatives into an innovative teaching resource (TR) dedicated to SME.
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Jean-François Bonnefon, Marco Heimann and Katia Lobre-Lebraty
The purpose of this paper is to show how overall performance can help foster trust in financial institutions. While a climate of mistrust amongst investors and the general public…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to show how overall performance can help foster trust in financial institutions. While a climate of mistrust amongst investors and the general public toward financial institutions has developed since the recent turmoil in the financial markets, it is believed that mutual funds adopting the overall performance approach can help recover a climate of trust owing to the implied balance between economic, social and environmental performance. More specifically, overall performance promotes values that are similar to investors’ values and could be used by responsible investment funds if they want to contribute to the restoration of trust in investment funds.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses an innovative, experimental design to test the effect of value similarity on the trust that investors have in the investment fund. This effect cannot be studied in isolation, which is why it is compared with the effects of financial performance and ethical labeling on trust.
Findings
The authors find that funds with similar values are perceived as more trustworthy by investors. Consequently, overall performance should be added to fund managers' toolbox if they want to foster trust in their fund. The effect of financial performance on trust applies only when the investor has no other information regarding the fund. As for the ethical labeling of funds, it has no effect on trust.
Research limitations/implications
The findings encourage research that aims to develop a comprehensive approach of integrated overall performance focusing on financial and extra-financial values. Bonnet et al.’s (2016) fieldwork on socio-economic management and Naro and Travaillé©’s (2016) work on management controllers provide promising examples in this regard.
Practical implications
Investment funds can acquire an edge by communicating on overall performance and specific values of their target investors. Merely labeling funds as ethical is not sufficient to increase trust.
Social implications
Increasing similarity in values to investors and adopting the overall performance approach in investment funds will increase investors' trust. Trust contributes to social capital and allows societies to create flexible large-scale businesses needed to be competitive in a global environment.
Originality/value
Using an innovative experimental methodology, this paper shows that the underlying factor of overall performance on trust in investment funds is value similarity. It provides researchers and practitioners with insight about the underlying mechanisms of the effect of overall performance on trust.
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Marco Heimann, Sébastien Pouget, Étienne Mullet and Jean-François Bonnefon
Financial scholars have paid great attention to the performance of SRI funds relative to conventional investments (Bauer, Derwall, & Otten, 2007; Cortez, Silva, & Areal, 2009a…
Abstract
Financial scholars have paid great attention to the performance of SRI funds relative to conventional investments (Bauer, Derwall, & Otten, 2007; Cortez, Silva, & Areal, 2009a, 2009b; Derwall, 2007; Goldreyer & Diltz, 1999; Gregory & Whittaker, 2007; Hamilton, Jo, & Statman, 1993; Hoepner & Zeume, 2009; Luther & Matatko, 1994; Luther, Matatko, & Corner, 1992; Mallin, Saadouni, & Briston, 1995; Renneboog, Ter Horst, & Zhang, 2008b; Schroeder, 2007; Statman & Fisher, 2002). In parallel, empirical and experimental studies have been conducted that investigate the importance of financial performance to SRI investors, as compared to conventional investors.
William Sun, Céline Louche and Roland Pérez
Since Thomas Kuhn (1962), a historian of science who gave ‘paradigm’ its contemporary meaning, the term ‘paradigm’ has been widely used in science and social sciences to refer to…
Abstract
Since Thomas Kuhn (1962), a historian of science who gave ‘paradigm’ its contemporary meaning, the term ‘paradigm’ has been widely used in science and social sciences to refer to a theoretical framework or thought pattern in any given discipline, or broadly, a set of experiences, beliefs and values that affect individual perceptions of a reality and their subsequent reactions. A dominant paradigm is the widely held system of thought in a society at a particular period of time. For Kuhn, a dominant paradigm can be changed and replaced by a new one, which often occurs in a revolutionary manner in science. In social sciences, ‘paradigm shift’ implies the changing ways of understanding and organising a social reality.
Julio César Acosta-Prado, Arnold Alejandro Tafur-Mendoza, Rodrigo Arturo Zárate-Torres and Geli Mercedes Pautt-Torres
Job satisfaction and leadership behavior are recognized by the organizational world as fundamental elements that influence the overall effectiveness of a company. However, as the…
Abstract
Purpose
Job satisfaction and leadership behavior are recognized by the organizational world as fundamental elements that influence the overall effectiveness of a company. However, as the first step for an adequate intervention on any of these variables, it is the evaluation. The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate two brief measures on job satisfaction and leadership behavior.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample was made up of 246 workers located in Bogota, Colombia. The study was an instrumental research. To collect validity evidence, the internal structure and the relationship with other variables were used. For the evaluation of equity, the differential item functioning was analyzed according to the sex of the participants. Reliability was estimated through the ordinal omega coefficient.
Findings
Both brief measures presented a unifactorial structure, where job satisfaction was measured by five items and leadership behavior by four items. On the other hand, only one item of leadership behavior showed differential item functioning; however, its magnitude was trivial. Also, convergent and discriminant evidence was provided for both measures, and the reliability levels were adequate.
Originality/value
The measures developed represents an effort to briefly measure job satisfaction and leadership behavior. Likewise, it constitutes two of the few instruments to measure job satisfaction and leadership behavior in Latin American, representing a good alternative for the measurement of the referred constructs in an organizational context.
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The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977 and its amendment – the Trade and Competitive Act of 1988 – are unique not only in the history of the accounting and auditing…
Abstract
The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977 and its amendment – the Trade and Competitive Act of 1988 – are unique not only in the history of the accounting and auditing profession, but also in international law. The Acts raised awareness of the need for efficient and adequate internal control systems to prevent illegal acts such as the bribery of foreign officials, political parties and governments to secure or maintain contracts overseas. Its uniqueness is also due to the fact that the USA is the first country to pioneer such a legislation that impacted foreign trade, international law and codes of ethics. The research traces the history of the FCPA before and after its enactment, the role played by the various branches of the United States Government – Congress, Department of Justice, Securities Exchange commission (SEC), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS); the contributions made by professional associations such as the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICFA), the Institute of Internal Auditors (IIA), the American Bar Association (ABA); and, finally, the role played by various international organizations such as the United Nations (UN), the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC). A cultural, ethical and legalistic background will give a better understanding of the FCPA as wll as the rationale for its controversy.
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Aaron van Klyton, Juan-Fernando Tavera-Mesias and Wilson Castaño-Muñoz
The research examines the simultaneous processes of value co-creation and value co-destruction in the implementation of a mobile banking application in rural Colombia. Rural…
Abstract
Purpose
The research examines the simultaneous processes of value co-creation and value co-destruction in the implementation of a mobile banking application in rural Colombia. Rural communities experience digital and financial deficits and often become the object of technology-based initiatives. In the town, vulnerable female heads of household received a government subsidy through a mobile app, becoming an experimental group for this government–private bank collaboration. In an effort to create the first cashless society in Colombia, the bank engaged the entire town and local government to create a service ecosystem, constituted by operant resources.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a qualitative, ethnographic approach to investigate the experiences of stakeholders in engaging with a mobile banking app. The empirical data is drawn from 34 interviews, representing different layers of this service ecosystem. The study identified and analysed actor engagement behaviours that occurred in the micro-, meso-, macro- and meta-layers of this ecosystem that shaped the perception and usage of mobile payments and digital money for rural consumers.
Findings
The study found that simultaneous manifestations of the co-creation and co-destruction of value present in different layers ultimately diminished the value proposition for this digital money system. We shed light on how actor engagement transitions across different layers of the ecosystem and that negative interactions in the meta-layer of the ecosystem can affect perceptions of value in the micro-layer.
Originality/value
This study has contributed to the service literature by integrating epistemological cultural theory into value co-creation and co-destruction construct. In doing so, we provide a broader context for understanding how actor engagement can negatively impact on the value creation process and offer a meaningful contribution to the development of midrange theory of the value creation process.
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Guojun Liu, Zhiyong Qu, Xiaochu Liu and Junwei Han
Sinusoidal signals are often used as the inputs of the six degree of freedom (DOF) motion simulator platforms. The purpose of this paper is to propose a fuzzy incremental…
Abstract
Purpose
Sinusoidal signals are often used as the inputs of the six degree of freedom (DOF) motion simulator platforms. The purpose of this paper is to propose a fuzzy incremental controller (FIC) to improve sinusoidal signal tracking performances of an electrohydraulic Gough-Stewart platform (GSP).
Design/methodology/approach
An FIC is proposed to control an electrohydraulic GSP without any model parameters. The FIC output can be self-organized by only using the hydraulic actuator position information. The control rules are determined by a systematic deterministic method.
Findings
Experimental results show that the proposed FIC is valid and can achieve better tracking performances compared with classical PID controller and a decoupling controller (a model-based controller).
Originality/value
An FIC using a systematic deterministic rule-base determination method is proposed to improve sinusoidal signal tracking performances of electrohydraulic GSP.
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