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The purpose of this paper is to identify and examine two contrasting mechanisms of information asymmetry for cross-listed firms with respect to the information environment and its impact on earnings response.

The study empirically assesses two mechanisms of information asymmetry (“seeing” and/or “believing”) by looking at abnormal returns and volume reactions to international firms’ earnings announcements pre- and post-listing in the USA from 1990 to 2012.

The authors’ findings indicate that investors “seeing” more (media and analyst coverage) decrease the earnings response; however, “believing” more or gaining more credibility has the opposite effects. Based on the results, both mechanisms of information asymmetry can take effect simultaneously.

The study sheds light on the multi-dimensional impact of the improved information environment that non-US firms face when they list their securities on US exchanges.

This study identifies and reconciles these two mechanisms of information asymmetry (visibility and credibility) under one setting and estimates the magnitude of each effect empirically.

In 2001, the US moved to regulate internal control reporting by management and auditors. While some jurisdictions have followed the lead of the US, many others have not. An important question, therefore, is the relevance of internal control to stakeholders. The more specific issue of the benefits of US-style regulation of internal control reporting is also topical. We review studies on the determinants of internal control quality and its economic consequences for stakeholders including investors, creditors, managers, auditors and financial analysts. We extend previous reviews by focusing on US studies published since 2013 as well as all non-US studies investigating IC quality including countries regulating IC disclosure as well as unregulated settings and both developed and developing economies. In doing so, we identify research questions where evidence remains mixed and new directions in which there are research opportunities.

Three main insights arise from our analysis. First, evidence on the economic consequences of internal control quality suggests that the quality of internal control can have a significant effect on decision making by users of financial information. Second, the results of research on the empirical association between ownership structure, certain board characteristics and internal control quality is generally mixed. Empirical evidence concerning the association between audit committee characteristics and internal control quality generally supports a positive and significant association. Finally, while studies in non-US jurisdictions are increasing, opportunities remain to explore the determinants and consequences of internal control in other jurisdictions. Our review provides evidence for policy makers of whether there are benefits from requiring management and auditors to report on internal control over financial reporting.

The purpose of this study is to identify determinants of involuntary cross-listing (CL) of US restaurant companies on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE).

The study utilizes a mixed method design with an interview and a pooled logistic regression analysis with panel dataset using the company-clustered standard error to develop and test the hypotheses.

The empirical investigation identified determinants of involuntary CL by examining ten factors, including size, firm growth opportunities, leverage, financial flexibility, international operation, profitability, overall German economic condition, industry growth opportunities, restaurant type, and local operation. The study found three determinants – large size, favorable economic condition in Germany and positive industry growth opportunities – utilizing the sample that covers the entire periods of involuntary CL of US restaurant companies on the FSE.

This paper uncovers the phenomenon of involuntary CL, which many stock exchanges have strategically adopted by simplifying listing requirements for companies already listed in other stock markets, focusing on US restaurant companies. The number of involuntarily cross-listed US restaurant companies greatly increased to 50 percent of domestically listed US restaurant companies while those companies are largely unaware of the phenomenon. The research advances understanding of involuntary CLs, which previously received little attention.

For a long time, researchers across the world have called for more generalizable frameworks in management research, which can be used to better understand local contexts and to extend established theories in Western countries. However, research from non-Western countries is barely visible in high-impact management journals. Although most researchers have tried to understand this lacking visibility from a more technological perspective, this study aims to analyze the extent to which group psychological processes influence the selection of international publication strategies by non-Western researchers in this study.

Hypotheses were based on social identity theory. In total, 169 management researchers from India were surveyed and their social identities and the international publication strategy were assessed.

It could be confirmed that higher identification with non-Western researchers is negatively related to the intention to publish internationally.

The findings suggest that current approaches to increasing the low visibility of non-Western research require a general revision.

This study adds a new angle to the center–periphery debate by incorporating the influence of social identities on the selection of an international publication strategy. Research socialization in the periphery seems to increase the likelihood of choosing local publication outlets rather than aiming for international publications. Therefore, it is necessary to implement strategies that aim at the psychological inclusion of peripheral researchers to increase their visibility in international journals and on international platforms.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of board structure on non-US acquirer returns in 11,499 acquisition transactions from 60 countries during the period from 2001 to 2011.

In this paper the authors employ event study methodology and regression analyses including instrumental variables two-stage least squares regressions.

The authors find that board independence in non-US firms is associated with significantly higher acquirer returns, but this effect is only present in countries with lower levels of investor protection. The authors contribute to the literature by documenting that due to the substitution effect between internal and external governance, when external governance mechanisms are not adequately developed, better internal governance (as measured by higher degree of board independence) reduces agency problems and leads to better firm decisions and outcomes (as measured by the quality of corporate acquisitions).

The paper is the first to empirically examine the relation between board independence and acquirer returns in non-US firms. The findings have important implications for both company managers and national policy makers who are debating the costs and benefits associated with increasing the degree of board independence in publicly traded companies around the world.

Financial markets’ integration and technological advances in equity trading may have reduced the potential benefits from listing a firm's shares on a foreign exchange. Nevertheless, a significant number of firms continue to cross‐list every year. This paper examines the recent cross‐listing trends and reviews the literature on motives to cross‐list.

The literature review includes a summary of theoretical studies grouped into cross‐listing theories including market segmentation, liquidity, investor recognition, information disclosure, legal bonding, proximity preference and business strategy theories, and also includes a discussion of testable implications and empirical evidence for each of the above mentioned cross‐listing theories.

An extensive cross‐listing literature offers a number of theories on the motives to cross‐list that in most cases complement each other by encompassing different aspects of the complex cross‐listing behavior. Nevertheless, continuous market developments, such as significant regulatory and technological changes in the ways capital markets operate, raise new questions on why firms cross‐list and call for further research to continue.

Draws upon Hofstede's cultural values and Rogers' diffusion of innovations to investigate relationships between search engine popularity and a company's preference for global versus local online branding.

Investigates the global versus local domain name selection strategies and web site popularity of multinational corporations based on their organizational characteristics and Hofstede's cultural values of their host countries.

Organizational size, industry and two cultural values – individualism and masculinity – relate to how companies adopt innovations, in this case selecting and promoting a global or local online identity. For their web presence, most Fortune Global 500 companies use the global.com domain rather than a local country domain. The results also suggest a virtual divide in online visibility, favoring.com companies over companies using country domains.

Limitations of this study include the lack of a longitudinal perspective and a possible Google bias – towards English content – in its proprietary PageRank metric. Future research could validate the results with other third‐party data and enrich the independent variables through automated web content analysis.

In countries with strong cultural values of masculinity and collectivism, international business managers should consider paying homage to local domain names for web site and employee email addresses.

Extending diffusion of innovations and cultural research to domain name selection and search engine popularity, this study underscores the importance of culture in international branding research.

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of cross‐listing and cross‐listing location on the terms of the private debt of firms not located in the USA. Specifically, the paper examines the empirical relationship between three syndicated loan terms (pricing, maturity and amount) at loan initiation and the cross‐listed status of the borrower (cross‐listed in the USA, UK, through depository receipts or not at all), while (not) differentiating between the stage of economic development of the borrower's home country.

The three loan terms are modeled as a simultaneous system of equations and are estimated on a very extensive sample of 3,883 observations. The impact of endogeneity biases due to the sequential choices to and where to cross‐list are examined using the inverse Mill's ratios from a bivariate probit model.

All else held equal, foreign borrowers that are cross‐listed directly in the UK obtain loans with higher spreads, longer maturities and larger loan amounts if they are from economically developed countries. Borrowers from emerging economies pay lower spreads but receive shorter maturities on syndicated loans if cross‐listed in the UK. Cross‐listings in the USA are not associated with any significant differential impacts on the three loan terms.

This paper makes an important contribution to the cross‐listing and capital structure literatures by providing evidence that the net benefit from being cross‐listed for one debt component of the cost of capital (i.e. syndicated loans) depends on the listing destination and upon whether or not the borrower is from an emerging economy. The paper provides practical guidance to corporate financial officers on the benefits of international cross‐listing and the choice of cross‐listing venues on the terms of private debt issues.

While several extant studies have discussed the strategic importance of investor relations (IR) for listed corporations, few have tried to apply findings from strategic communication research to IR. Therefore, little is known about the planning and evaluation of IR programs, with even less data available on IR's involvement in top management decision-making. The purpose of this paper is to examine research on planning and evaluation practices in German Prime Standard corporations' IR departments.

The method entailed a survey of 51 heads of IR departments from the largest corporations listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange concerning the topic of measurement and evaluation.

The findings highlight an intermediate stage in the professionalization of the still-emergent IR function. While IR has been established as an independent function with some consideration in strategic leadership, strategic management of the function is still evolving. This study shows that while some form of planning is the norm, IR departments at smaller companies tend to focus more on departmental objectives than on deriving objectives from the corporate strategy. Also, systematic evaluation remains lacking in many smaller companies' IR departments. As a result, IR managers from smaller companies are consulted less frequently during top management meetings on corporate strategy.

This study is based on data collected only from German Prime Standard corporations. While satisfactory in the context of quantitative IR studies, the response rate from the reported survey was only 32%. Furthermore, the average level of strategic IR management among German listed companies actually may be somewhat lower than reported in this paper, as large listed companies are somewhat overrepresented in the sample.

This study addresses an apparent research gap, i.e. to date, little is known about the strategic management of the IR function, especially in a non-US context. This analysis shows that theories and frameworks from strategic communication management can be applied to the IR function.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the market for audit services for publicly traded companies operating in the US for-profit (FP) healthcare sector. Complex national and local healthcare laws and regulations suggest the importance of assessing fee effects of joint nationallevel and city-specific expertise among auditors. Using cross-sectional OLS regression analysis, we find that joint expertise significantly affects audit pricing in the healthcare sector. We find a fee premium of 33.6 percent on engagements where auditors are both national and city-specific specialists. We also find that Big-4 auditor reputation is significantly priced over and above the effects of joint auditor expertise, and a significant positive association exists between audit and non-audit service fees-indicating the presence of knowledge spillover effects among healthcare company auditors.