Search results

I seek to identify whether cash flow management can affect the performance and risk of the Greek listed companies.

This study examines the relationship of cash flow management with performance and risk, using a sample of 80 non-financial companies listed in the Athens Exchange. The study covers the period 2018–2022, and panel data analysis is applied. Both financial performance and stock return are taken into consideration, while risk concerns the volatility of the companies’ share prices. The various explanatory variables used include the net cash flow, free cash flow, cash conversion cycle days, cash flow from operating activities, cash flow from investing activities, cash flow from financing activities, inventory days, customer days and supplier days.

The empirical results provide evidence of a positive relationship between financial performance and net cash flow and free cash flow. In addition, operating cash flow is positively related to financial performance. The opposite is the case for investing and financing cash flow. Finally, some evidence of a negative relationship between financial performance and inventory and customer days is provided too. On the other hand, stock return and risk are not related to the cash flow management variables at all.

To the best of my knowledge, this is one of the few studies to examine the relationship of cash flow management with performance and risk, using data from the Greek stock market. The results can form an effective selection tool for investors seeking Greek companies with the highest financial performance potential, which may reward them with higher dividends.

The study examines the influence of a firm's life cycle on the cash flow classification of Indian firms.

The study employs Dickinson's (2011) cash flow patterns to classify firm years under various life-cycle stages. Cash flow classification is employed to measure a firm's classification shifting (CS) practices. The study includes Indian firms listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange during 2012–2020, an ordinary least squares regression model, a fixed-effect model and a panel corrected with standard error regression method.

Firms face different opportunities and challenges at different stages of the firm's life cycle and therefore adopt cash flow CS. The results show that firms adopt cash flow CS during introduction, growth and decline stage of life cycle either to boost or to reduce operating cash flows.

This study is one of its kind to study the influence of a firm's life cycle on the cash flow classification of Indian firms.

This study aims to provide insights into US and Australian analysts' views regarding the relative importance of disclosing the direct method (DM) or indirect method (IM) statement of cash flows and forecasting firm performance.

Evidence is collected from responses to 104 surveys and 52 interviews completed by US and Australian analysts from 2017 to 2022. The survey and interview questions are developed with reference to the literature.

US and Australian analysts believe that the DM format provides incremental benefits compared to the IM for (1) confirming the reliability of earnings; (2) improving earnings confidence; (3) more accurate ex ante forecasts of operating cash flow and earnings; and (4) identifying opportunistic accruals manipulation. Analysts view that DM disclosure can lower firm-level cost of equity, although US interviewees more uniformly expect lower costs of equity under DM disclosure when firms yield low earnings quality. DM disclosure is also more important during unstable economic periods, as proxied by COVID-19.

Limited research currently exists regarding disclosure of the DM or IM and its impact on analysts' forecasting accuracy, earnings quality, economic uncertainty and cost of equity. Previous research has relied on archival research to examine differences between the DM and IM methods and are limited by data availability. Our findings are particularly relevant to the US market with few US firms reporting the DM format.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between uncertainty and corporate cash holdings with the moderating role of political connections.

We employ fixed effects estimation on a panel dataset of 669 Vietnamese listed firms over the 2010–2020 period, with one- and two-way standard error clustering. We conduct various robustness tests, including two-stage least squares/instrumental variable and generalized method of moments regressions, alternative cash holding measure, and additional controls for macroeconomic conditions and ownership types.

The effect of uncertainty on cash holdings is weakened for firms with political connections relative to those without the connections. Although general firms depend on cash flows to adjust their cash holding behavior when uncertainty increases, our findings suggest that politically connected firms do not rely on internal cash flows to accumulate cash when confronted high uncertainty.

Our findings on the role of political connections in moderating the relationship between cash holding and economic policy uncertainty have practical implications for policymaking. Since political connections serve as a buffer for a firm’s liquidity, firms may want to seek those connections, which can, in turn, lead to increasing informal costs and unfair business environment.

This is the first study investigating the role of political connections to the nexus of cash, cash flow and uncertainty, providing novel evidence regarding the less dependence on internal cash flows to save cash by politically connected firms. Second, the paper enriches the literature on the motives of cash holdings by proposing a modified agency view in the context of weak investor protection. Therefore, our findings strengthen the explanation for the positive effect of uncertainty on firms’ cash holdings in emerging markets.

This study examines investigating the relationship between cash flows, working capital ratios and firm performance during the global financial crisis.

To examine the relationship between cash flow, working capital ratios and firm performance for EU-28 or Western European Countries (Norway, Turkey and Switzerland) listed firms, both panel and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model are used to analyze the data obtained from sample.

The study empirical findings suggest that global financial crisis has negative effect on firm performance for all sample. In addition, our interaction term result shows that cash flows variables such as cash holding level (CHL) × Crisis, cash interactive effect (CIE) × Crisis and gross working capital ratio (GWC) × Crisis not contributed to firm performance for EU-28 listed firms. However, the authors find that net working capital ratio (NWC) × Crisis have statistically significant and positive effects on firm performance with return on assets (ROA).

The findings of the study provide evidence for managers that listed firms have reduced working capital expenditures to increase cash holdings level during the financial crisis. The authors find that cash flow variables with CHL have positive effect on firm performance with return on equity (ROE) in Western European Countries and these results are consistent with Opler et al. (1999)'s empirical results, while CIE have a negative impact on firm performance such as ROE and earnings before interest tax margin (EBITM).

Global financial crisis emphasizes the importance of working capital and liquidity that suggests an efficient cash holdings policy in response to the uncertainty following the crisis.

This study proposes a novel measure for management’s horizon (short-termism or myopia vs long-termism or hyperopia) derived from easily obtainable firm-level accounting and stock market performance data. The authors use the measure to explore the impact of managements’ horizon on firms’ investment efficiency.

The authors rely on two commonly used but uncorrelated measures of management performance: accounting performance (return on capital employed, ROCE) and stock market performance (average abnormal return, AAR). The authors combine these measures to develop a multidimensional framework for performance, which classifies firms into four groups: efficient (high accounting and high market performance), poor (low accounting and low market performance), myopic (high accounting and low market performance) and hyperopic (low accounting and high market performance). The authors validate this framework and deploy it to explore the relationship between horizon and firms’ investment efficiency.

In validation tests, the authors show that management myopia (hyperopia) explains firms’ decision to cut (grow) research and development investments. Further, as expected, myopic (hyperopic) firms are associated with significantly more (less) accrual and real earnings management. The empirical tests on the link between horizon and investment efficiency suggest that myopic managers cut new investments while their hyperopic counterparts grow the same. Ultimately, the authors find that myopia (hyperopia) exacerbates(mitigates) the over-investment of free cash flow problem.

The authors introduce a framework for assessing management’s horizon using easily obtainable measures of performance. The framework explains inconsistencies in prior empirical research using different measures of performance (accounting versus market). The authors demonstrate its utility by showing that the measure explains decisions around research and development investment, earnings management and firm investments.

This study examines the effect of business group affiliations on corporate cash holdings and how political connectedness modifies the relationship between business group affiliations and corporate cash holdings.

The multiple ordinary least square regression with year dummies is used to estimate the effect of business groups on cash holdings. For moderating, the multiplicative term is used. The data from 252 non-financial firms listed on Pakistan Stock Exchange were collected for the analysis from 2010 to 2018.

The findings show that business group affiliations negatively affect corporate cash holdings, and political connection positively moderates this relationship. Business group firms that are politically connected hold less cash. The firm-specific factors such as leverage, size, cash flow, and dividend dummy also significantly affect corporate cash holdings.

The results imply that affiliated companies have lessened financing frictions and improved stability in their expected future cash flows. Moreover, the results indicate that political connection minimizes the opportunity and agency costs linked to cash holdings.

This study contributes to the existing literature by examining the moderating role of political affiliations on the relationship between business groups and cash holdings in the emerging market.

The purpose of the article is to examine the effect of life cycle stages on capital expenditures, using Borsa Istanbul-listed companies.

The panel data estimation procedure was used as the primary method to test the hypothesis. The authors used four additional analyses to check the robustness of the results. The model was tested for endogeneity using the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation. Quantile regression was utilized for the non-parametric test of the model. In the third robustness test, the sample was divided into two using financial constraints with the Size-Age (SA) Index proposed by Hadlock and Pierce (2010). The last analysis removed the global financial crisis (GFC) years from the sample.

Borsa Istanbul-listed companies tend to invest less as they move forward in their life cycle stages. The results show that market capitalization, operating cash flow levels and leverage positively affect capital expenditure investments. The empirical evidence also revealed that cash holding levels have a negative effect on capital expenditure decisions. Robustness tests support the results.

The findings are potentially useful for investors and managers. Having the information that decreasing capital expenditures signals that the company is in the last stages of its life would be a sign for managers to improve their investment strategies to avoid getting out of business and survive. They need to find options and solutions to propel their companies back on a path of growth. Additionally, the same information could be vital for investors' investment decisions.

This paper contributes to the literature by providing evidence about the effect of life cycle stages on capital expenditures from an emerging market. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is the first paper to investigate empirically how moving forward in the life cycle stages affects capital expenditures in an emerging market.

Poor cash flow management and lack of profitability have plagued the construction industry for decades. In response, the UK Government published the project bank account (PBA) payment strategy in 2012 to mitigate main contractors unfairly withholding liabilities. However, PBAs suffer from adoption challenges, such as systems fragmentation and a lack of incentives for main contractors to adopt them effectively. This study aims to investigate how to reduce systems fragmentation in construction by integrating PBA procedures with existing management workflows to increase payment automation, resulting in improved cash liquidity and better incentives for using PBAs.

A PBA blockchain decentralised application is developed, presented and critically evaluated. Blockchain is the technology used because of its permissionless, license-free, open-source and immutability properties. It is a suitable general-purpose technology layer for building and testing applications without the limitations associated with centralised technologies, such as high proprietary fees, vendor lock and intellectual property restrictions.

The research demonstrates how a blockchain application can integrate siloed construction workflows such as cash flow scheduling, supply chain management and payment executions, reducing the management workload for implementing PBAs in construction projects. Furthermore, the proposed application is open-source and replicable, and its user interface is available for external testing here: https://console.atra.io/app/bf26f846-7f16-4f80-90a0-c5488ab6edd3.

PBA is a suitable test case because it enforces an auditable, transparent and neutral account, which are inbuilt properties of blockchains; thus, both systems are harmonious to integrate. PBA is mandated in UK public sector construction projects; therefore, the research has a solid practical foundation.

This study examines the impact of firm-specific and macroeconomic factors on the working capital behavior of firms listed in the Middle East and North African (MENA) region.

This study is based on a panel data analysis of 687 firms listed on 11 MENA markets, carried out using the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) approach.

The results of this study reveal that profitable firms with high levels of operating cash flows adopt a conservative working capital management. Young firms with rapid growth rates, highly leveraged firms and firms with large investments in fixed assets have higher liquidity needs, which explains their tendency to pursue aggressive working capital strategies. Similarly, large firms exercise their bargaining power over their clients and suppliers to implement an aggressive approach of working capital management. Finally, firms do not have the luxury to decide how working capital should be managed when they are subject to outside macroeconomic forces that affect their stakeholders as well.

The findings of this study can help managers adopt efficient practices and identify optimal working capital levels. Firms in the MENA region maintain excess reserves of cash, which causes under-investment and inefficient allocation of resources in the economy. Improving working capital management practices can allow firms to regain operational efficiency, enhance financial performance and support economic growth.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study investigates this topic in MENA emerging markets and contributes to enriching the existing corporate finance literature in emerging markets.