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While the existing studies largely suggest that valuation uncertainty benefits acquirers, who apply discounts to targets' value attributable to information asymmetry, the authors argue that the opposite may be the case.

Through multivariate econometric analysis of transaction data, the authors establish the link between the degree of valuation uncertainty measured by targets' track of public listing and acquisition premia. The authors use text-mining tools to measure acquirer–target similarity and control for its role in intermediating the posited empirical relationships.

Having analyzed 618 acquisitions involving listed targets from China, the authors find that acquirers pay higher valuation premia for the more recently listed and relatively younger companies than for those with a longer history since floatation. Similar patterns apply to valuation multiples. Higher valuations are partially attributable to premia for control, as acquirers are likelier to buy a majority stake in the recently listed firms, especially if the latter are similar to them. Such transactions take less time to complete and involve a transfer of larger share blocks despite the higher degree of information asymmetry and a frequent lack of targets' operational profitability. The authors also observe a significant premium for target–acquirer similarity: acquirers appear to rush deal completion due to possible overestimation of targets' potential and familiarity bias.

The authors show that acquisition premia may be driven by acquirers' proclivity to place risky investment bets on the growth potential of opaque targets. This pattern may partially explain frequent failures of mergers and acquisitions (M&A).

This study aims to examine how consumers’ propensity to purchase imported wines is influenced by their attitudes and perceptions toward the countries of origin (COO) of those wines.

The questionnaires were distributed online and 298 valid completed questionnaires were received. This study measured the perception of the wines’ countries of origin by adopting two independent dimensions of competence and warmth in the stereotype content model.

The results show a relationship between the purchase intention and the perception of the country of origin of the wine. Furthermore, the perceived image of the country of origin impacts the brand image of the wine and the quality of wine from its country of origin.

This study’s questionnaire was distributed online. Future research would benefit from in-depth qualitative investigation and a wider range of sample sizes across countries.

The results of this study guide imported wine companies in product marketing design and advertising. By promoting the countries of origin of premium wines to target consumers, trust in the quality of imported wine can be improved, thereby increasing consumers’ purchase intention.

This study contributes to the understanding of consumer perception of the country of origin in the context of wine marketing. It provides valuable implications for wine companies’ marketing positioning and strategy, benefiting wine marketers, distributors and importers.

Introduction: The Udaan Scheme was implemented in response to enduring conflict, economic downturn, and employment scarcity. Under the Rangarajan Committee, the scheme aimed to address unemployment in a selected region through skill development programmes. Based on practical experience, Udaan aimed to build a competitive workforce for India and the global economy.

Purpose: The purpose of the study is to evaluate the success ratio of the Udaan Scheme in addressing the employment challenges faced by the youth.

Need of the study: The chapter highlights the potential of the scheme to be a part of a resilient industry for job employability in politically disturbed areas.

Methodology: The compiled data were analysed using a spreadsheet collected from online sources, providing information on the number of registrations for the skill development programme between March 2012 and May 2018, that is, the programme’s implementation in the pre-UT era, mainly sourced from the Udaan Impact Assessment Report and the Review of the Udaan Scheme in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K).

Findings: The programme, which provided professional training and increased the job-securing capacity of youth, has had a dismal success rate despite the government’s investment of Rs 246 crore. The initiative has employed less than 10,000 individuals, or at most 10% of the target population, falling short of its claimed goals.

Significance of the study in the global market: The scheme addresses unemployment and career development for educated youth, enhancing India’s economic growth and global competitiveness. By providing skill development and exposure to the corporate sector, it empowers youth and attracts international business opportunities. It aligns with global efforts to bridge the skills gap and showcases India’s commitment to human capital development in a conflict-driven state.

Extending the springboard perspective with the resource dependence theory, the authors posit that cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) are a new channel for emerging economy firms (EEFs) to enhance their technology capabilities. This study aims to examine the impact of cross-border M&As initiated by EEFs on their technology augmentation vis-à-vis matched domestic M&A cases and investigate the factors influencing the difference in post-merger innovation capability.

This paper estimates the post-acquisition innovation capability of acquirers from emerging economies (EEs) that engage in cross-border M&As. To remove possible selection bias, the authors leverage a difference-in-difference-style approach in combination with a matched sample constructed by pairing each cross-border M&A case with a similar domestic deal. The data set contains 266 cross-border M&As and 266 matched domestic M&A deals between 2003 and 2011, whereby acquirers are based in 6 EEs and targets are in 36 countries consisting of both EEs and advanced economies (AEs).

The present empirical results show that cross-border M&As engaged by EEFs are an important engine for improving EEFs’ innovation capability through technology augmentation. The main empirical results are as follows. First, compared with matched domestic acquirers with similar characteristics, EE cross-border M&As have a positive effect on innovation capability. Second, the positive effect of the EEFs’ cross-border M&As relative to the matched domestic M&As on innovation capability is driven largely by cross-border M&As with targets in AEs. Third, the increase in post-M&A innovation capability of the EE cross-border acquirers comes mainly from deals where targets are based in countries with relatively superior human capital and innovation capability than those of the acquirers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first systematic study of whether cross-border M&As serve as an effective channel of technology augmentation for EE acquirers compared to matched domestic acquirers with similar characteristics.

This study aims to investigate the impact of pollution control bonds (PCBs) on overinvestment within utility firms.

This empirical study analyzes a data set comprising 215 US energy firms observed from 2011 to 2021, using the ordinary least square regression with standard errors adjusted for firm-level clustering.

The study reveals a negative relationship between PCBs and overinvestment, indicating that PCBs are an effective tool in curbing excessive investment. Additionally, it demonstrates that chief executive officer (CEO) overconfidence diminishes the influence of PCBs on overinvestment. These findings remain robust across various metrics for measuring overinvestment and CEO overconfidence, as well as when alternative estimation methods are used. These results align with insights derived from agency theory and upper echelon theories.

Regulators are encouraged to actively promote the use of PCBs as a financing tool for environmentally focused initiatives. To achieve this, regulatory bodies should enhance their presence within the utility sector, particularly in regions grappling with higher pollution levels. This requires the implementation of strategic policies and regulatory frameworks aimed at mitigating excessive investments. Simultaneously, policymakers should take proactive measures to introduce financial instruments designed to optimize investment efficiency, thus facilitating eco-friendly projects.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper holds the distinction of being the first to examine the impact of a specific type of green bond, namely, PCBs, on overinvestment. Furthermore, it contributes to the literature on personality traits, particularly within the context of the upper echelon theory, by investigating the moderating influence of CEO overconfidence.

This study aims to analyse how multinational corporations (MNCs) organise value chain activities to penetrate new market segments. It contributes by expanding traditional decisions regarding the vertical fine-slicing of value chain activities (whether performed internally or externally) and the consideration of resource-sharing decisions (integration or separation) for each value chain function.

The authors draw on primary data collected from two case study firms operating in the large emerging Chinese market: Volvo Construction Equipment AB and Epiroc AB. In-depth cases illustrate how foreign MNCs expand into new market segments and simultaneously target both the lower-priced mid-market and the premium segments in the Chinese mining and construction industry.

The results reveal that product diversification creates challenges for managers who must oversee new (vertical) value chains, often simultaneously. Beyond geography and modes of governance, managers must decide whether to integrate or separate value chain activities for the new product lines. The study identifies four main strategic choices for firms to address this complexity, focusing on the decision to internalise or externalise (i.e. within or across organisational boundaries) and integrate or separate value chain activities between different product lines.

This study builds upon the internalisation theory and recent international business contributions that focus on value chain configurations to explain MNCs’ product diversification as a growth strategy in a host emerging market. It also sheds light on the choice of conducting new activities in-house or externally and elucidates firms’ managerial decisions to operationally integrate or separate individual value chain activities. The study provides insights into the drivers explaining managerial decisions to configure value chain activities across product lines and contributes to the growing body of literature on MNC activities in emerging economies by highlighting that product diversification impacts entry mode diversity and resource sharing across units.

Prior research on meeting or beating earnings thresholds documents that firms with earnings momentum are awarded with valuation premiums. However, it is unclear from this strand of literature why this is the case. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the effects of time-varying earnings persistence on earnings momentum and their pricing effects.

This study exploits a firm that reports earnings momentum as research setting to examine whether earnings persistence is significantly higher for firms with consecutive earnings increases. In addition, it investigates a relation between earnings momentum and fundamentals-driven earnings persistence and estimates return associations of earnings momentum conditional on economic-based persistence of earnings.

The empirical evidence suggests that firms with earnings momentum reflect higher time-varying earnings persistence. It further reveals that longer duration of earnings momentum is associated with higher fundamentals-driven earnings persistence. More importantly, valuation premiums are exclusively assigned to earnings momentum determined by strong firm fundamentals, not momentum itself.

This study provides new empirical evidence that valuation premiums accrued to firms with earnings momentum are conditional on time-varying earnings persistence. The research implications are relevant to investors, regulators and auditors, as the results bring conclusions that earnings momentum reflects successful business models not poor accounting quality. This leads to a more complete view of earnings momentum and helps allocate resources when evaluating earnings-momentum firms.

As cross-cultural mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have learning effects on organisations, assessing their impacts on corporate performance is crucial. This study aims to explore the impact of inter-firm cultural differences on long-term post-M&A stock market performance.

The authors select domestic M&A transactions of Chinese listed companies during 2010–2021 as the sample. Then, the authors use the partial least squares structural equation model (PLS-SEM) to construct the latent variable of cultural differences in four dimensions to explore long-term stock market performance.

Cultural differences first positively and then negatively impact post-M&A performance. Three transmissions mechanisms are identified: investor sentiment, takeover premiums and information disclosure quality. Further analysis reveals that acquirer stock performance improves with higher analyst coverage and non-local shareholders but worsens if there are business affiliations between the acquirer and target firms.

This study can help optimise information disclosure systems in M&A transactions for regulatory authorities and aid investors’ understanding of post-M&A performance changes. Furthermore, it can improve acquirers’ understanding of the risks and opportunities in cross-cultural M&A, thereby facilitating the adaptation of management practices to the im-pacts of cultural differences.

By integrating the theories of resource dependence and transaction costs, this study examines the reversal effect of cultural differences between merging companies on post-M&A performance. The authors use a PLS-SEM to empirically analyse the main effects and reveal three transmission mechanisms.

The author develops a bilateral Nash bargaining model under value uncertainty and private/asymmetric information, combining ideas from axiomatic and strategic bargaining theory. The solution to the model leads organically to a two-tier stochastic frontier (2TSF) setup with intra-error dependence. The author presents two different statistical specifications to estimate the model, one that accounts for regressor endogeneity using copulas, the other able to identify separately the bargaining power from the private information effects at the individual level. An empirical application using a matched employer–employee data set (MEEDS) from Zambia and a second using another one from Ghana showcase the applied potential of the approach.

This paper introduces a novel quality measure, the percent-within-distribution, or PWD, for acceptance and payment in a quality control/quality assurance (QC/QA) performance specification (PS).

The new quality measure takes any sample size or distribution and uses a Bayesian updating process to re-estimate parameters of a design distribution as sample observations are fed through the algorithm. This methodology can be employed in a wide range of applications, but the authors demonstrate the use of the measure for a QC/QA PS with upper and lower bounds on 28-day compressive strength of in-place concrete for bridge decks.

The authors demonstrate the use of this new quality measure to illustrate how it addresses the shortcomings of the percent-within-limits (PWL), which is the current industry standard quality measure. The authors then use the PWD to develop initial pay factors through simulation regimes. The PWD is shown to function better than the PWL with realistic sample lots simulated to represent a variety of industry responses to a new QC/QA PS.

The analytical contribution of this work is the introduction of the new quality measure. However, the practical and managerial contributions of this work are of equal significance.