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In this study, we examine the relationship between political connections of private firms and the initial public offering process. Using registration statement information, we create a unique database of politically connected IPO firms. We find that political connections are substitutes to high-quality underwriters and big four auditors. Politically connected firms manage earnings more highly upward than non-connected firms prior to the public offering. Politically connected firms also exhibit less underpricing than non-connected firms. Finally, politically connected IPO firms have superior post-IPO returns relative to non-connected IPO firms.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the value of corporate political connections resulting from the revolving door of employment between political office and the for-profit corporation. The authors test whether there is value to firms from political connections provided by the appointment of former politicians to corporate boards or management teams. The authors also test to see if passage through the door in the other direction, from the corporate world to public office, generates value for firms. Do firms whose former employees gain public office earn excess returns following their appointment or election to these positions?

The methodology used in this study focusses on an empirical analysis of the political connections of US firms over the sample period 1996-2011. The analysis emphasizes the wealth effects associated with the announcement of hiring former politicians to corporate boards or the gaining of political office by former corporate employees.

The authors find that politicians becoming corporate directors is 2.5 times more common than corporate executives gaining public office. The authors determine that industries with extensive government regulation most often hire former politicians. The authors find that the office held by former politicians matters. The authors find that longevity in a cabinet position is important while formal Congressional or Senate leadership positions are not. Surprisingly, the authors determine the longer politicians are out of office, the more value they are able to provide to the firm. Finally, the authors discover that firms which hire former politicians have significantly positive long-term abnormal returns, but firms whose managers enter politics do not.

This study is highly original in its examination of political connections resulting from door swing in both directions. Further, the analysis of longevity, time out of office, and position held adds to the contributions made by this study.

This study aims to investigate patterns of social media posting occurring during the initial post-disaster recovery period. In addition, the study investigates the antecedents of user engagement with Twitter posts or “tweets.”

This study uses Hurricane Harvey as the research focus because of its $125bn in damage and the recovery effort associated with it. Analyzing nearly 38,000 tweets related to 2017’s Hurricane Harvey and specifically focuses on rescuers who became to be known as the “Cajun Navy.”

The popularity of the tweet significantly influences social media engagement; disaster relief organizations first should seek out alliances and partnerships with those who already are well-known or influential in social media. In addition, by regularly monitoring and participating in social media, such as encouraging retweets and mentions even when not responding to a disaster, agencies will gain social media followers and influence when these are most needed.

By analyzing patterns of social media posts during and after Hurricane Harvey, this study attempts to quantify social media’s effectiveness during this disaster, in particular with a focus on what characteristics of Harvey-related Twitter posts most influenced user engagement.

Findings underscore the need for agencies to strengthen their social media presence and use it in all three phases of disaster conceptualization. Beyond managing communication with other agencies and the community, which alone is critical for an agency’s impact, social media offers the world as a potential audience for agencies that can deftly leverage it.

Social media has revolutionized not only communication but also inter-connectivity as people have normalized its use. Its ubiquity and efficiency have seen its incorporation into the critical area of emergency management, both during and after disasters. The main objective of this paper is to investigate and evaluate the usefulness of social media in disaster recovery efforts, focusing on its advantages in relation to a recent disaster event.

The purpose of this paper is to address two questions: first, what contracts, instruments and accounting activities constitute Australia’s offshore asylum seeker processing policy in practice? Second, how are notions of legitimacy and accountability mediated through the network constituted by this policy?

The paper is located in the critical interpretivist approach to accounting research. It is based on an exhaustive documentary analysis. Policy documents, contract documents, records of parliamentary inquiries (Hansard) and legislation were analysed drawing on a network policy perspective.

The paper finds that the Australian Government has sought to escape its accountability obligations by employing a range of approaches. The first of these approaches is the construction of a network involving foreign states, private corporations and non-government organizations. The second is through a watered down accountability regime and refusal to be accountable for the day-to-day life of asylum seekers in offshore processing centres through a play with the meaning of “effective control”. Yet while the policy network seems designed to create accountability gaps, the requirement within the network to remain financially accountable undermines the governments claims not to be responsible for the conditions in the detention camps.

The paper focuses largely on the period starting from when Kevin Rudd became Prime Minister to the death in Papua New Guinea of asylum seeker Reza Barati on 17 February 2014. Earlier periods are beyond the scope of this paper.

The paper will result in the identification of deficiencies inhuman rights accountability for extra-territorialized and privatised immigration detention and may contribute towards the formulation of effective policy recommendations to overcome such deficiencies. The paper also provides empirical data on, and academic understanding of, immigration detention outsourcing and offshoring.

The paper will inform debate regarding treatment of unauthorized maritime arrivals and asylum seekers generally.

The paper provides the first detailed and full understanding of the way Australia’s offshore asylum seeker processing policy is practiced. The paper also provides an empirical analysis of the way national policy and its associated accountability mechanisms emerge in response to the competing legitimacy claims of the international community and national electorate.

An empirical study is reported which examines the relationships between industrial relations climate and variables reflecting the state of the firm's performance, industrial relations structure, and overall effectiveness in 28 manufacturing companies. In addition to reporting the patterns of association between each of these aspects, multivariate analyses are employed in order to (i) ascertain the direct and indirect influences of industrial relations climate and other variables under study on company effectiveness, and (ii) examine the assumptions about the direction of causality between industrial relations climate and effectiveness. The results highlight the relationships between the above variables and emphasise the importance of conceptualising industrial relations climate in such a way that can adequately reflect the attitudes and behaviour of industrial relations actors. Path analysis suggests that the pattern of causality is not a simple one but involves reciprocal and feedback relationships. However, the mprovement to the explanatory power of company effectiveness by including the notion of industrial relations limate in research, is clearly demonstrated.

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is an important means of boosting the agricultural sectors of developing economies. The first necessary step to formulate effective public policies to encourage agricultural FDI inflow to a host country is to develop a comprehensive understanding of the main determinants of FDI inflow to the agricultural sector, which is the main objective of the present study.

In view of this, we take a comprehensive approach to exploring the macroeconomic and institutional determinants of FDI inflow to the agricultural sector by examining a large panel data set on agricultural FDI inflows of 37 countries, investigating both groups of developed and developing countries, incorporating a large list of potentially relevant macroeconomic and institutional variables, and applying panel-data econometric models and estimation structures, including pooled, fixed-effects and random-effects regression models.

The general pattern of our findings implies that the degree of openness of an economy has a negative effect on FDI inflows to agricultural sectors, suggesting that the higher the degree of openness in an economy, the lower the level of agricultural protection against foreign trade and imports, and thus the less incentive for FDI to inflow to the agricultural sector of the economy. Additionally, our results show that economic growth (as an indicator of the rate of market-size growth in the host economy) and per-capita real GDP (as an indicator of the standard of living in the host country) are both positively related to FDI inflows to agricultural sectors. Our other results suggest that agricultural FDI tends to flow more to developing countries in general and more to those with higher standards of living and income levels in particular.

FDI inflow has not received much attention with respect to the identification of its main determinants in the context of agricultural sectors. Additionally, there are very few panel-data studies on the determinants of FDI, and even more surprisingly, there are no such studies on the main determinants of FDI inflow to the agricultural sector. We have taken a comprehensive approach by studying FDI inflow variations across countries as well as over time.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of social capital of non-resident family members on small business debt financing. Recent literature in entrepreneurship suggests that small businesses can borrow social capital to improve their access to debt financing.

Micro-entrepreneurs from India were interviewed regarding their ability to raise capital from family members as well as their relationship with banks and politicians.

The survey indicates that small business entrepreneurs are able to borrow social capital from non-resident Indians. Results also suggest that these small businesses are more likely to be connected to banks and politicians facilitated by their non-resident family members, which not only improves micro-entrepreneurs’ access to debt financing but also reduces their cost of borrowing.

This is a co-relational study that investigates the association between social capital of non-resident family members and small business debt financing. There is not necessarily a causal relationship between the two. The findings of this study may only be generalized to firms similar to those that were included in this research.

This study contributes to the literature on the factors that improve the access to small business debt financing. The findings may be useful for financial managers, investors, financial management consultants, entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders.

This paper aims to review the relevant literature on mergers and acquisitions in an attempt to provide a comprehensive account of what we know about mergers and which parts of the puzzle are still incomplete.

This literature review consists of three key sections. The first part of this paper summarises the literature on the cyclical nature of mergers referred to in the literature as merger waves. The second section reviews the causes and consequences of takeovers; it first reviews the causes, or drivers, of acquisitions, while focusing on the fact that acquisitions happen in waves and then reviews the consequences of takeovers, with a predominant focus on the impacts of mergers on the economic performance of acquirers. The third part of the review summarises the theories as well as previous empirical studies on determinants of announcement returns and post-acquisition performance of combined firms.

Merger activity demonstrates a wavy pattern, i.e. mergers are clustered in industries through time. The causes suggested for this fluctuating pattern include industry and economy-level shocks, mis-valuation and managerial herding. Market reaction to announcement of acquisitions is, on average, slightly negative for acquirer stocks and significantly positive for target stocks. The combined abnormal return is positive. These findings have been consistent over several decades of investigation. The prior research also identifies a number of factors that are related to performance of acquisitions. These factors are categorised and reviewed in five different groups: acquirer characteristics, target characteristics, bid characteristics, industry characteristics and macro-environment characteristics.

This review illustrates a number of issues. Prior research is heavily biased towards gains to acquirers and factors that affect these gains. It is also biased towards finding sources of value creation through mergers, despite the fact that several theories suggest that mergers can be value-destroying. In fact, value destruction is often attributed to managers’ self-interest (agency problem) and mistakes (hubris). However, the mechanisms through which mergers destroy value are rarely addressed. Aside from that, the possibility of simultaneous creation and destruction of value in acquisitions is not often considered. Finally, after several decades of investigation, a key question is not completely answered yet: “What are the sources of value in mergers and acquisitions?”