Pub Date : 2022-05-26DOI: 10.1108/ijmf-11-2021-0571
Sudip Datta, Trang Doan, Abhijit Guha, Mai Iskandar-Datta, Min-Jeong Kwon
PurposeThis paper examines how “strategic” chief financial officers (CFOs) with an elite MBA (i.e. elite CFOs) influence (1) stock market reaction to CFO hiring announcements (ex ante measure) and (2) post-hiring firm performance (ex-post measure).Design/methodology/approachThis paper utilizes a comprehensive, proprietary database with information about the educational qualifications and prior professional experience of 1,340 CFOs hired during the period 1994–2014. For each CFO, the authors hand-collected data on the CFO's prior experience as well as CFO's educational profile. The authors also identified the date of CFO hiring from financial press articles. To evaluate performance, the authors consider two different, yet complementary performance measures: (1) the stock market reaction, a priori measure and (2) a traditional measure of performance, which is a post-facto metric related to firm performance.FindingsThe results show that hiring CFOs with scarce and strategic human capital elicits a positive market response and leads to significant improvement in firm performance. Further, firms with greater managerial discretion benefit more from hiring elite CFOs. The results hold after controlling for chief executive officer (CEO), CFO, top managment team (TMT), and board characteristics.Originality/valueThis study shows converging and mutually consistent results about what specific types of CFO human capital create firm value and, more importantly, show that such value-creation is only in the case of small firms and high growth firms. The study also advances the stream of literature that contrasts the relative benefits of specialist versus generalist qualifications.
{"title":"CFO credentials, stock market signaling, and firm performance","authors":"Sudip Datta, Trang Doan, Abhijit Guha, Mai Iskandar-Datta, Min-Jeong Kwon","doi":"10.1108/ijmf-11-2021-0571","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/ijmf-11-2021-0571","url":null,"abstract":"PurposeThis paper examines how “strategic” chief financial officers (CFOs) with an elite MBA (i.e. elite CFOs) influence (1) stock market reaction to CFO hiring announcements (ex ante measure) and (2) post-hiring firm performance (ex-post measure).Design/methodology/approachThis paper utilizes a comprehensive, proprietary database with information about the educational qualifications and prior professional experience of 1,340 CFOs hired during the period 1994–2014. For each CFO, the authors hand-collected data on the CFO's prior experience as well as CFO's educational profile. The authors also identified the date of CFO hiring from financial press articles. To evaluate performance, the authors consider two different, yet complementary performance measures: (1) the stock market reaction, a priori measure and (2) a traditional measure of performance, which is a post-facto metric related to firm performance.FindingsThe results show that hiring CFOs with scarce and strategic human capital elicits a positive market response and leads to significant improvement in firm performance. Further, firms with greater managerial discretion benefit more from hiring elite CFOs. The results hold after controlling for chief executive officer (CEO), CFO, top managment team (TMT), and board characteristics.Originality/valueThis study shows converging and mutually consistent results about what specific types of CFO human capital create firm value and, more importantly, show that such value-creation is only in the case of small firms and high growth firms. The study also advances the stream of literature that contrasts the relative benefits of specialist versus generalist qualifications.","PeriodicalId":51698,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Managerial Finance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-05-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46537777","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-06DOI: 10.1108/ijmf-05-2021-0237
H. Anderson, Jing Liao, Jingjing Yang, M. Young
PurposeThe authors examine the influence of powerful political corporate appointments on the usage of firm bribery channels. Party Secretaries within Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) may simultaneously hold top management positions, thereby endowing powerful firm-level decision rights on those appointees, hereafter referred to as powerful dual role Party Secretaries.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs panel data analysis with industry and year fixed effects. The authors use a sample of 1,143 Chinese SOEs listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2004 to 2015.FindingsThe authors find that powerful dual role Party Secretaries are associated with greater bribery channel usage. Following the ongoing anticorruption campaign, SOEs with the powerful appointments significantly reduce their usage of both transparent (entertainment and travel costs) and opaque bribery (abnormal management expenses) channels. However, in general, Chinese SOEs respond to the anticorruption shock by switching from the more transparent to the opaquer bribery channel.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to the ongoing debate of politicians on corporate boards by examining the relatively unexplored area of government appointed top management and their influence on bribery at the firm level.
{"title":"Powerful political corporate appointments and firm bribery channels","authors":"H. Anderson, Jing Liao, Jingjing Yang, M. Young","doi":"10.1108/ijmf-05-2021-0237","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/ijmf-05-2021-0237","url":null,"abstract":"PurposeThe authors examine the influence of powerful political corporate appointments on the usage of firm bribery channels. Party Secretaries within Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) may simultaneously hold top management positions, thereby endowing powerful firm-level decision rights on those appointees, hereafter referred to as powerful dual role Party Secretaries.Design/methodology/approachThis study employs panel data analysis with industry and year fixed effects. The authors use a sample of 1,143 Chinese SOEs listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges from 2004 to 2015.FindingsThe authors find that powerful dual role Party Secretaries are associated with greater bribery channel usage. Following the ongoing anticorruption campaign, SOEs with the powerful appointments significantly reduce their usage of both transparent (entertainment and travel costs) and opaque bribery (abnormal management expenses) channels. However, in general, Chinese SOEs respond to the anticorruption shock by switching from the more transparent to the opaquer bribery channel.Originality/valueThe authors contribute to the ongoing debate of politicians on corporate boards by examining the relatively unexplored area of government appointed top management and their influence on bribery at the firm level.","PeriodicalId":51698,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Managerial Finance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-05-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45898695","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-05DOI: 10.1108/ijmf-11-2021-0554
H. A. Ahmed, M. Muttakin, Arifur Khan
PurposeThe study examines the association between firm-level political risk and corporate innovation and also this study explores how financial constraint and growth level of a firm influence this association.Design/methodology/approach A sample of 14,140 firm-year observations of the US firms from 2003 to 2020 is used. Unlike prior studies, this study uses a firm-level measure of political risk recently developed by Hassan et al. (2019) and measure innovation by patent and patent citation data and a text-based measure. A regression technique is used for empirical testing.FindingsThis study finds that firm-level political risk is negatively associated with innovation and also document that firm-level political risk has a negative impact on innovation for financially constrained and high growth firms. The overall results are robust after addressing the issue of potential endogeneity using entropy balancing and two-stage least squares regression techniques. This study also documents qualitatively consistent results after using alternative measures of innovation as well as firm-level political uncertainty.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this study could help the managers to make better investment decision and improve economic efficiency through understanding the effect of firm-level political risk on innovation activities.Originality/valueThe study concentrates on firm-level political risk and innovation and presents new insights that political risk at the microlevel is an important determinant for investment in innovative activities.
{"title":"Firm-level political risk and corporate innovation: evidence from US listed firms","authors":"H. A. Ahmed, M. Muttakin, Arifur Khan","doi":"10.1108/ijmf-11-2021-0554","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/ijmf-11-2021-0554","url":null,"abstract":"PurposeThe study examines the association between firm-level political risk and corporate innovation and also this study explores how financial constraint and growth level of a firm influence this association.Design/methodology/approach A sample of 14,140 firm-year observations of the US firms from 2003 to 2020 is used. Unlike prior studies, this study uses a firm-level measure of political risk recently developed by Hassan et al. (2019) and measure innovation by patent and patent citation data and a text-based measure. A regression technique is used for empirical testing.FindingsThis study finds that firm-level political risk is negatively associated with innovation and also document that firm-level political risk has a negative impact on innovation for financially constrained and high growth firms. The overall results are robust after addressing the issue of potential endogeneity using entropy balancing and two-stage least squares regression techniques. This study also documents qualitatively consistent results after using alternative measures of innovation as well as firm-level political uncertainty.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this study could help the managers to make better investment decision and improve economic efficiency through understanding the effect of firm-level political risk on innovation activities.Originality/valueThe study concentrates on firm-level political risk and innovation and presents new insights that political risk at the microlevel is an important determinant for investment in innovative activities.","PeriodicalId":51698,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Managerial Finance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45804153","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-05-02DOI: 10.1108/ijmf-10-2021-0501
Garima Sisodia, A. Joseph, J. Dominic
PurposeThe present study examines the rationale behind the increased global presence of corporate green bonds as a green financing tool to facilitate sustainable practices and eco-friendly investing. The authors investigate the intriguing question of whether the companies that issue green bonds are valued more by investors or not, and further extend our analysis by exploring whether the green image of companies helps to minimize the value erosion during a crisis and enhance the resilience of the stocks?Design/methodology/approachTo examine the association between environmental commitments and firm value, the authors use the COVID-19 crisis as an exogenous shock and create a perfect natural setting to eliminate the endogeneity bias from our estimations. Moreover, the authors use propensity score matching to choose a one-to-one match of green bond firms with a larger pool of brown bond firms and eliminate the “size effect” arising out of the disproportionate sample size of green and brown bond firms.FindingsThe results of the study indicate that green bond firms are valued more by investors compared to brown bonds firms. Hence, green bond issuance acts as a strong signal of a firm's environmental commitment and it is well recognized by the investors. One of the possible reasons for a higher value of green bond firms may be due to their ability to arrest value erosion during environmental shocks. The authors could not find any difference in the resilience of green and brown bond firms.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the growing literature in the area of impact investing, specifically on exponentially growing innovative instrument green bond. Our study integrates two areas of research, i.e. corporate finance and impact investing by examining the impact of green bond issuance on firm value and stock market returns. The results would help environmentally sensitive investors to devise their investment portfolios more efficiently.
{"title":"Whether corporate green bonds act as armour during crises? Evidence from a natural experiment","authors":"Garima Sisodia, A. Joseph, J. Dominic","doi":"10.1108/ijmf-10-2021-0501","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1108/ijmf-10-2021-0501","url":null,"abstract":"PurposeThe present study examines the rationale behind the increased global presence of corporate green bonds as a green financing tool to facilitate sustainable practices and eco-friendly investing. The authors investigate the intriguing question of whether the companies that issue green bonds are valued more by investors or not, and further extend our analysis by exploring whether the green image of companies helps to minimize the value erosion during a crisis and enhance the resilience of the stocks?Design/methodology/approachTo examine the association between environmental commitments and firm value, the authors use the COVID-19 crisis as an exogenous shock and create a perfect natural setting to eliminate the endogeneity bias from our estimations. Moreover, the authors use propensity score matching to choose a one-to-one match of green bond firms with a larger pool of brown bond firms and eliminate the “size effect” arising out of the disproportionate sample size of green and brown bond firms.FindingsThe results of the study indicate that green bond firms are valued more by investors compared to brown bonds firms. Hence, green bond issuance acts as a strong signal of a firm's environmental commitment and it is well recognized by the investors. One of the possible reasons for a higher value of green bond firms may be due to their ability to arrest value erosion during environmental shocks. The authors could not find any difference in the resilience of green and brown bond firms.Originality/valueThe study contributes to the growing literature in the area of impact investing, specifically on exponentially growing innovative instrument green bond. Our study integrates two areas of research, i.e. corporate finance and impact investing by examining the impact of green bond issuance on firm value and stock market returns. The results would help environmentally sensitive investors to devise their investment portfolios more efficiently.","PeriodicalId":51698,"journal":{"name":"International Journal of Managerial Finance","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.7,"publicationDate":"2022-05-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42064254","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}