Search results
1 – 10 of 27Min Bai, Dong Zhang and Wenzhuo Zhao
Excessive borrowing significantly contributes to pushing businesses towards default and their transition into zombie enterprises. Despite government efforts to implement…
Abstract
Purpose
Excessive borrowing significantly contributes to pushing businesses towards default and their transition into zombie enterprises. Despite government efforts to implement deleveraging policies and guide bank credit flows, it’s essential to delve into the internal dynamics that steer the borrowing behavior of these zombie enterprises at a micro level. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the issue, this study focuses on examining the incentives that drive corporate executives of zombie enterprises to consistently engage in large-scale borrowing from banks.
Design/methodology/approach
In this study, panel data analysis is utilized, incorporating firm-, industry- and year-fixed effects. Drawing from data pertaining to listed companies in China spanning from 2007 to 2020, we employ a one-by-one identification method to pinpoint zombie enterprises. Ultimately, a total of 2,533 samples of zombie enterprises were obtained.
Findings
The results indicate that as bank loans to zombie enterprises increase, executive monetary compensation decreases, while on-the-job consumption by executives increases, and they are less likely to be forced into rotation. Mechanism testing reveals that corporate performance partially mediates the relationship between bank loans and executive monetary compensation, but this mediation is ineffective for on-the-job consumption and job rotation. Further investigation suggests that the property rights nature of central enterprises and modified audit opinions can exacerbate the adverse impact of bank loans on the monetary compensation of zombie corporate executives, without significantly affecting on-the-job consumption or job rotation. Conversely, executive power does not enhance the positive effects of bank loans on monetary compensation or on-the-job consumption, but it diminishes the negative impact of bank loans on the forced rotation of zombie executives.
Research limitations/implications
These results indicate that while bank loans may have a negative impact on corporate value, they function as safeguards for the positions and interests of executives. As a result, bank loans serve as incentives for executives of zombie enterprises.
Originality/value
This study holds theoretical significance as it explores the motivations behind non-performing loans in high-borrowing enterprises, sheds light on corporate governance challenges encountered by zombie enterprises and provides policy insights aimed at addressing the underlying causes of persistent non-performing loans in high-borrowing enterprises, including zombie enterprises.
Details
Keywords
Takehide Ishiguro and Akihiro Yamada
This study investigates the relationship between foreign ownership, earnings quality and overinvestment in Japanese zombie firms.
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates the relationship between foreign ownership, earnings quality and overinvestment in Japanese zombie firms.
Design/methodology/approach
The study makes use of data from Japanese firms listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange from 2009 to 2019. The study employs logistic and multinomial logistic models to test whether the overinvestment behavior of zombie firms is mitigated by foreign shareholdings and earnings quality.
Findings
The results show that (1) zombie firms tend to overinvest; (2) an increase in foreign ownership mitigates the overinvestment of zombie firms and (3) the mitigation of zombie firms' overinvestment by foreign ownership is stronger with higher earnings quality.
Originality/value
This study extends the discussion of earnings quality and investment efficiency to the zombie firm setting. Previous studies in accounting suggest that high earnings quality enhances firms' investment efficiency. The findings suggest that both a change in ownership structure and high-quality accounting information are necessary to mitigate the inefficiency of zombie firms.
Details
Keywords
David Veganzones and Eric Severin
This study investigates the connection between corporate governance and zombie firm’s exit time.
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates the connection between corporate governance and zombie firm’s exit time.
Design/methodology/approach
With a sample of 2,794 French zombie firms, the analysis focuses on four aspects of corporate governance: board size (BS), managerial ownership (MO), director turnover (DT) and ownership concentration, using tobit regression.
Findings
Dimensions of corporate governance have an important role in determining zombie firms’ exit time. MO and ownership concentration increase zombie firm exit time, whereas larger BSs and DT reduce it.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to include corporate governance as a characteristic relevant to zombie firms’ exit time. It provides new insights on why some zombie firms remain in the market longer than expected.
Details
Keywords
Hang Thu Nguyen, Tra Thi Dan Vu, Hiep Manh Nguyen and Dung Bui Phuong Nguyen
There is a need for research examining how governments and firms responded to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. This study investigates the interdependence between…
Abstract
Purpose
There is a need for research examining how governments and firms responded to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. This study investigates the interdependence between governments and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) during the pandemic in relation to the dynamic capabilities and resource dependence theories.
Design/methodology/approach
We use World Bank survey data collected immediately before and after the COVID-19 outbreak and a generalized structural equation model to examine the mediating role of government support in the relationship between firm innovation, resilience and survival.
Findings
Innovative SMEs exhibited higher resilience and a better chance of survival during the pandemic, partly due to attracting more government support.
Originality/value
This study offers a novel understanding of the government’s role in supporting innovative SMEs during the pandemic. The findings have implications for how government support policies can limit the deadweight effect and the substitution effect.
Details
Keywords
This study presents a systematic review of the literature on monetary policy and corporate investment together with bibliometric analysis.
Abstract
Purpose
This study presents a systematic review of the literature on monetary policy and corporate investment together with bibliometric analysis.
Design/methodology/approach
This study selected 455 articles from databases, Scopus and Web of science and the papers are reviewed systematically to identify their theoretical and empirical contributions.
Findings
The results reveal that monetary policy can influence corporate investment. Post to the economic crisis (2008), there is an exponential growth in the number of publications. Berger, A., and Hubbard are the two prominent authors based on the highest citation score, whereas Marquez, R., and Vermuelen, P. are the two prolific authors, subject to their highest h-index. Journal of Banking & Finance was the top journal (total citations = 1482) and 5 publications.
Practical implications
This study positively contributes to the comprehensive understanding of corporate investment, monetary policy transmission and firm capital structure choices.
Originality/value
To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first study that conducts a systematic review of the influence of monetary policy on corporate investment.
Details
Keywords
Annette Markham and Riccardo Pronzato
This paper aims to explore how critical digital and data literacies are facilitated by testing different methods in the classroom, with the ambition to find a pedagogical…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore how critical digital and data literacies are facilitated by testing different methods in the classroom, with the ambition to find a pedagogical framework for prompting sustained critical literacies.
Design/methodology/approach
This contribution draws on a 10-year set of critical pedagogy experiments conducted in Denmark, USA and Italy, and engaging more than 1,500 young adults. Multi-method pedagogical design trains students to conduct self-oriented guided autoethnography, situational analysis, allegorical mapping, and critical infrastructure analysis.
Findings
The techniques of guided autoethnography for facilitating sustained data literacy rely on inviting multiple iterations of self-analysis through sequential prompts, whereby students move through stages of observation, critical thinking, critical theory-informed critique around the lived experience of hegemonic data and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructures.
Research limitations/implications
Critical digital/data literacy researchers should continue to test models for building sustained critique that not only facilitate changes in behavior over time but also facilitate citizen social science, whereby participants use these autoethnographic techniques with friends and families to build locally relevant critique of the hegemonic power of data/AI infrastructures.
Originality/value
The proposed literacy model adopts a critical theory stance and shows the value of using multiple modes of intervention at micro and macro levels to prompt self-analysis and meta-level reflexivity for learners. This framework places critical theory at the center of the pedagogy to spark more radical stances, which is contended to be an essential step in moving students from attitudinal change to behavioral change.
Details
Keywords
Edoardo Trincanato and Emidia Vagnoni
The lean startup approach (LSA) is extensively utilized by early-stage entrepreneurs, with “pivot” serving as a key pillar. However, there is a research gap concerning the…
Abstract
Purpose
The lean startup approach (LSA) is extensively utilized by early-stage entrepreneurs, with “pivot” serving as a key pillar. However, there is a research gap concerning the boundary conditions impacting LSA and pivot decisions, especially when addressing societal challenges, as in the context of transformational entrepreneurship. In this regard, the healthcare sector, further compounded by a lack of research on startups and scale-ups, presents an embraced opportunity to provide multiple contributions for both theory and practice.
Design/methodology/approach
The present investigation employs a grounded approach to explore the experiences of the co-founders of a fast-growing Italian e-health startup. A narrative strategy was employed to organize conditions and evolving strategic action/interactions into three different pivoting phases of the startup – before the pivot, its enactment and aftermath – with primary and secondary data collected over a period of one year.
Findings
Pivoting in digital healthcare unfolded as a liminal experience marked by factors such as high regulation, multiple stakeholders, technological and symbolic ambivalence, resource-intensive demands and institutional actors acting as pathway pioneers, leading to an information overload and unforeseeable uncertainty to manage. These factors challenge entrepreneurs' ability to attain optimal distinctiveness, presenting the paradoxical need for vertical flexibility for scaling up.
Social implications
By uniquely illuminating the sector’s constraints on entrepreneurial phenomena, this study provides a valuable guide for entrepreneurs and institutional actors in addressing societal challenges.
Originality/value
This study introduces a process model of transformational information crafting when pivoting, highlighting the role of entrepreneurs' transformational stance and platform-mediated solutions as engines behind strategies involving information breaking and transition, preceding knowledge-driven integration strategies.
Details
Keywords
Mona Harb, Sophie Bloemeke, Sami Atallah and Sami Zoughaib
Using critical disaster studies and state theory, we assess the disaster aid platform named Lebanon Reconstruction, Reform and Recovery Framework (3RF) that was put in place by…
Abstract
Purpose
Using critical disaster studies and state theory, we assess the disaster aid platform named Lebanon Reconstruction, Reform and Recovery Framework (3RF) that was put in place by international donors in the aftermath of the Beirut Port Blast in August 2020, in order to examine the effectiveness of its inclusive decision-making architecture, as well as its institutional building and legislative reform efforts.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper uses the case study approaach and relies on two original data sets compiled by authors, using desk reviews of academic literature and secondary data, in addition to 24 semi-structured expert interviews and participant observation for two years.
Findings
The aid platform appears innovative, participatory and effectively functioning toward recovery and reform. However, in practice, the government dismisses CSOs, undermines reforms and dodges state building, whereas the 3RF is structured in incoherent ways and operates according to conflicting logics, generating inertia and pitfalls that hinder effective participatory governance, prevent institutional building, and delay the making of projects.
Research limitations/implications
The research contributes to critical scholarship as it addresses an important research gap concerning disaster aid platforms’ institutional design and governance that are under-studied in critical disaster studies and political studies. It also highlights the need for critical disaster studies to engage with state theory and vice-versa.
Practical implications
The research contributes to evaluations of disaster recovery processes and outcomes. It highlights the limits of disaster aid platforms’ claims for participatory decision-making, institutional-building and reforms.
Originality/value
The paper amplifies critical disaster studies, through the reflexive analysis of a case-study of an aid platform.
Details
Keywords
In the tourism industry, immersive technologies become increasingly vital, amplifying traveler experiences and industry growth. By studying “e-booking” applications prevalent in…
Abstract
Purpose
In the tourism industry, immersive technologies become increasingly vital, amplifying traveler experiences and industry growth. By studying “e-booking” applications prevalent in hotels, this study aims to analyze the impact of integrating an anthropomorphic virtual agent (AVA) on user perceptions of humanness and service usage intent.
Design/methodology/approach
Two experiments were conducted to examine the effects of using an AVA and explain the psychological mechanism of how AVA’s attributes increase intention to use “e-booking” application.
Findings
The results highlight the positive influence of AVA on the intention to use. They illustrate the psychological mechanism of how AVA’s attributes (agency and emotionality) influence perceived humanness and intention to use. More specifically, the results indicate that perceived humanness mediated the effect of an AVA on intention to use.
Research limitations/implications
Further research should delve into additional capabilities related to humanness.
Practical implications
This study provides useful insights for hotels’ managers about incorporating AVAs in digital services to enhance the perceived humanness of AVAs. The findings suggest that such efforts could yield benefits, especially when they involve conveying that AVAs possess agency and emotionality.
Originality/value
To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to investigate how AVA impacts hotel human–computer interaction. It examines agency and emotionality features on humanness perception and behavioral intent. It also guides successful digitalized hotel service development and design, expanding existing research on human–virtual agent digital services, which mainly focuses on superficial traits like face and gender.
Details
Keywords
Cynthia R Phillips, Abraham Stefanidis and Victoria Shoaf
Drawing on legitimacy and upper-echelon theory, this paper aims to investigate the moderating role of corporate governance in the relationship between corporate social performance…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on legitimacy and upper-echelon theory, this paper aims to investigate the moderating role of corporate governance in the relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and board gender diversity (BGD).
Design/methodology/approach
Using Morgan Stanley Capital International measures of social and governance performance, the authors use 2,950 firm-year observations from US companies for the years 2016–2020 to show that good performance on social issues drives BGD.
Findings
The panel data model indicates that the relationship between CSP and BGD is strengthened when firms display robust corporate governance.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the extant literature through empirical consideration of CSP as a predictor of BGD, a relationship that has rarely been examined. It further highlights the significant role of corporate governance in ensuring that women have access to corporate boards. Discussion and findings highlight that social performance and governance may significantly contribute to the diversity of socially cognizant boards.
Details