British Journal of Management最新文献

Using management, finance and social psychology theories, we challenge the common perception that demographic diversity on boards of directors is unequivocally beneficial for firms. Employing a sample of 3826 UK firm-years, we analyse the dual nature of nationality diversity, recognizing its potential to contribute expertise and reduce groupthink, while also posing risks of conflict and reduced cohesion. We construct measures of the positive and negative aspects of diversity to provide robust evidence that nationality diversity-as-variety within a board of directors is positively associated with firm value, whereas diversity-as-separation has a negative moderating effect on this relationship. Additionally, board longevity weakens the negative effects of diversity-as-separation. This comprehensive approach improves our understanding of the complex relationship between board diversity and firm performance. Our results are informative for researchers because they demonstrate the importance of adopting less simplistic diversity measures in empirical studies. They are also instructive for policymakers, who can benefit from a more nuanced understanding of the issues raised when firms are mandated to increase demographic diversity on their boards. Finally, our study provides information to boards to help them maximize the benefits of diversity while minimizing potential costs.

The neoliberal, precarious, anatomized and audit-centric academy produces an unfair burden on women academics. Academia, like many other organizational forms, demands unwellness. This paper argues that as well as intensifying the struggles of mothering academics like us, the pandemic also rendered us visible, forcing the body subject into view and, in doing so, offering some (albeit small) resistance to the ‘anatomizing urge’ in academia. Following discussions on agentic visibility, we propose the idea of agentic invisibility and a corresponding discussion of its loss during the pandemic. We argue that we could no longer choose to showcase what was excellent or to deliberately conceal what was not. Engaging in agentic visibility and invisibility tactics became very difficult, and this had many downsides, including the loss of liminal spaces and the difficulties in our private lives that were suddenly on display. What we choose to focus on, though, is a more caring future. Through the work of Donald Winnicott, we suggest that the difficult and sometimes painful spaces created by the pandemic forced us to reject excellence and to accept the ‘good enough’ as a way of being that should be respected. In this paper, we contribute to discussions concerning the reformative mode of ordering used by home-working mothers during the pandemic. Though we cannot and will not speak for others, we use our dual roles as mothering academics to illustrate broader problems for others who continue to be marginalized by academia and for those who simply seek a more balanced engagement with academia. We seek an acceptance of the ‘good enough’ for all people, from those in power and from each other.

This paper examines the effect of abnormal-temperature-related climate risk on bank loan pricing. Using a sample of syndicated loans from 35 countries and jurisdictions, we find that banks charge higher interest rates for borrowers with higher climate risk. We also find that climate risk affects loan spreads of both long-term and short-term loans, and this effect is more pronounced for short-term loans. Our cross-sectional analyses reveal that voluntary climate risk disclosures in conference calls by borrowers mitigate the impact of climate risk on loan spreads, especially when lead banks have less climate-risk-related lending experience. In addition, the borrowing cost of high-climate-risk borrowers in the United States decreases after the SEC issued climate risk disclosure guidance. However, the ESG disclosure requirements in 19 other countries, which are not climate-risk-specific, do not alter the effect of climate risk on bank loan pricing.

Building on agency theory, this study examines the impact of climate change risks on corporate investment in human capital as a key factor of production. Using a sample of US listed firms for the period 1989–2017, we find that firms respond to the growing climate risks by enhancing efficiency in human capital investment, primarily through a reduction in over-hiring, consistent with our conjecture that firms adopt more prudent and efficient recruitment strategies in reaction to higher climate risks. Cross-sectional analyses suggest that such an improvement in human capital investment decisions is more salient for firms with poor corporate governance, less intellectual capital and facing greater industry competition and less pronounced for firms with more resilient assets against climate change. By exploiting two exogenous events that cause significant increases in climate risk as quasi-natural experiments, we conduct difference-in-differences analyses and find consistent evidence that the firms engage in more efficient human capital investment in response to both the physical and regulatory risks of climate change. Collectively, despite the overwhelming negative impact of climate change, our study reveals that such risks can play a disciplinary role in promoting more efficient managerial decisions on human capital investment.

This study examines which factors facilitate (obstruct) the discretion exercised by ground-level governance actors, such as internal auditors, in justifying their governance work. To achieve this objective, we rely on two complementary theoretical perspectives. One perspective proposes that the organizational embeddedness of ground-level governance actors, ordained by high-level governance actors (such as the board of directors), obstructs their discretion. In contrast, the other perspective, building on institutional complexity, propounds that multiple institutional demands facilitate the situated agency and discretion of ground-level governance actors. Consistent with the emerging multilevel research on institutional complexity, we combine these two perspectives by including both the structural and static meso-level factors (i.e. organizational embeddedness) as well as actors' situated agency. Utilizing three comparative cases, we demonstrate that internal auditors' ability to exercise discretion is facilitated (obstructed) when organizational embeddedness enables (constrains) the cohabitation of multiple institutional logics at the organizational level. In doing so, we identify organizationally situated agency as an underlying factor driving internal auditors’ justification approaches in their governance work.

Using the United Kingdom's unique institutional setting of Queen's [now King's] honours, we examine the influence of director prestige on both short-term and long-term firm performance. We find that the market reacts positively to the appointments of Prestigious Award-Winning Directors (PAWDs). Firms appointing PAWDs also show significantly improved long-term performance, and this performance change is higher when firms appoint PAWDs according to their needs. The evidence suggests that PAWDs make important contributions to the firm by providing effective monitoring, facilitating preferential access to resources and offering legitimacy. We conclude that director prestige not only signals higher human and social capital but also incentivizes effective monitoring of managerial decisions.

This study aims to understand how business angels (BAs) who intentionally prioritize investments in start-ups with a significant social impact (i.e. social impact business angels, SBAs) differ in their characteristics from non-social BAs. We also examine which features of the investment process of SBAs differ from those of non-social BAs, and whether social impact considerations are included in investors’ decision-making. The study also proposes a conceptual model that integrates the relationships between individual characteristics, the likelihood of acting as an SBA, and management of the investment process with the inclusion of both economic and impact concerns. Our analyses are based on a sample of 212 surveyed BAs and on follow-up interviews with 10 SBAs. We find that certain investor characteristics can explain how SBAs differ from non-social angels. SBAs follow a similar investment process to other BAs, but they conduct additional evaluations focused on the impact potential of the opportunities.

Much research has taken a structural perspective to examine how the R&D alliance network affects innovation. However, little is known about how the quality of the relationship affects firms’ innovation. In this study, I examine the interaction of network structure and the quality of the relationship and explore the impact on innovation. Using a combination of propensity score weighting and difference-in-difference estimation strategies to address endogeneity, I find that the quality of the relationship moderates the inverted U-shaped relationship between network structure and innovation performance. In addition, I present evidence consistent with possible underlying mechanisms: both network structure and the quality of the relationship affect firms’ access to novel information and firms’ recombination capacity to influence innovation performance.

This paper outlines the phenomenon of negative first-day IPO returns. Using a comprehensive sample of IPOs in the United States between 2000 and 2020, we find that 21.61% exhibit negative first-day returns, making this a common feature of the US IPO market. The key findings show that the IPO mechanism is important. A larger deal size and proportion of over-allotment shares reduces the probability of IPO overpricing, while downward offer price adjustments increase the likelihood of negative first-day returns. Despite distinct differences, the analysis reveals shared characteristics between IPO underpricing and overpricing, providing nuanced insights into IPO pricing. Neither market timing nor agency issues significantly affect IPO overpricing.

We examine the impact of social ties between directors (directors or senior managers) of acquiring firms and their corresponding advisors on several mergers and acquisitions outcomes. The social ties between acquirers’ directors and their advisors are positively related to acquirers’ gains in the short and long run. This is due to lower takeover premia, lower advisory fees and shorter period to deal completion. This relation is more pronounced in deals involving inexperienced acquirers, targets in more opaque industries and targets recommended by advisors. We also find that acquirers are more likely to withdraw from deals with high premia if they hire a socially connected advisor. Identification is addressed by using instrumental variables, excluding deals that are prone to endogeneity and using the propensity score matching and the entropy balancing methods.