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Three Essays in Corporate Finance
Get PDFThis dissertation, consisting of three essays, contributes to corporate finance in relation to corporate value creation. I explore three major areas: (1) corporate cash holding, (2) merger and acquisition (M&A) and innovation, and (3) ESG.
The first essay empirically examines the impact of managers' belief in luck on firms’ cash holding and the implications that this has for corporate value in Chinese listed firms. By proposing an individual’s zodiac year as a proxy for shock to one's perception of luck, the research finds that corporate cash holding temporarily rises in the zodiac year of the chairperson due to a belief in bad luck related to their zodiac. The rise of cash reserves is inefficient and suboptimal for the firm's value. The results provide support for the behavioural explanation of corporate structure choice and corporate value.
The second essay explores the impact of state ownership on post-M&A innovation performance. The study demonstrates that state-owned acquirers (SOAs) invest more in research and development (R&D) and generate more patents following M&A than their private-owned counterparts, and that the increase in R&D investment following M&A is more likely to occur in SOAs that are oriented toward responsible innovation, whereas the increase in patent counts following M&A is frequently observed in other SOAs. These findings indicate that state ownership in China drives acquirers’ post-M&A innovation, and that responsible innovation orientation distinguishes R&D investment and patent publishing growth trends.
The third essay investigates the financial benefit of firm’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) efforts in the context of M&A in China. I discover a positive correlation between firms’ ESG rating prior to M&A and their subsequent stock and operational performance. I also demonstrate that for acquirers with high initial ESG standards, an increase in ESG rating has little effect on post-M&A performance, whereas a decrease in ESG rating can result in significant poor performance. Meanwhile, for acquirers with relatively low initial ESG standards, I observe a mirror image of this. These findings corroborate the instrumental stakeholder theory and the law of declining marginal value
Policy practice in incorporated spaces: Social work organisations influencing policymaking in China
Get PDFSocial work policy practice, which refers to social workers using their knowledge and skills to influence policymaking, has drawn increasing attention from social work practitioners and researchers in Western democratic countries. However, it is still an overlooked field of practice and research in China. The literature reveals that the development of social work in China is characterised by the strong intervention of the Party-state, which purposefully involves nongovernmental social work organisations (SWOs) in social governance through contracting out social services and exercises strict control over SWOs. This raises the question of whether or to what extent SWOs can participate in policy practice under an authoritarian regime. The academic discussion around participatory spaces indicates that social organisations’ participation in policymaking takes place in the intangible spaces that are filled with power relations, which define the opportunities, rules, and boundaries for participation. As policy practice in China has not been widely researched, the study adopts grounded theory methodology to explore in what spaces SWOs participate in policy practice and how they try to influence policymaking in China. Based on the research fieldwork in two Chinese cities, including intensive interviews with 26 senior social workers and researchers, the study develops a new concept of “incorporated space” to understand SWOs’ participation in policy practice in China. Incorporated spaces refer to those incorporated into the Party-led social governance system in which SWOs become a skilful and loyal arm of the Party-state assisting with policymaking. Incorporated spaces are created through the mechanisms of contractual incorporation and political incorporation, which provide opportunities for SWOs to use collaborative methods to influence policymaking on the one hand, but also reinforce the superior-subordinate relationship between SWOs and the Party-state on the other. The incorporated spaces for policy practice have great implications for the autonomy and political agency of China’s social work profession. Drawing on the research findings, the thesis provides recommendations on how to transform incorporated spaces and widen the participation of social workers and service users
The effects of climate change on the competitive ability of Impatiens glandulifera relative to a native plant community
Get PDFImpatiens glandulifera is one of the most widespread invasive plant species in the UK. This thesis explores how invasive plants such as I. glandulifera utilise ‘plant-soil feedbacks’ to alter the biotic and abiotic components of soil in order to facilitate invasions, and how this
phenomenon responds to climate change. Native plants commonly co-occurring with I. glandlifera, alongside the invader itself, were grown in two experiments simulating different effects of climate change. The first investigated the effects of water availability, with I. glandulifera and a native community grown in a range of watering treatments simulating different water availability scenarios under climate change. The second experiment explored the
temperature effects of climate change, and consisted of two phases. In the first, exclusive communities of I. glandulifera or native plants were grown in two growth chambers simulating present-day and warmer future temperatures. In the second, I. glandulifera and a native
community were grown in those same pots in the chambers, allowing the effects of invader plant-soil feedbacks to be observed. Plant physical parameters were recorded in both studies, with results confirming that 1) I. glandulifera consistently shows a greater competitive ability
than native species, even under watering treatments that negatively affect its growth, and 2) that I. glandulifera exhibits a positive plant-soil feedback effect, and that this effect can complement the warming effects of climate change to negatively affect a native community. Finally, soil extracts from the temperature experiment had their DNA extracted and sequenced for metabarcoding of the soil bacterial and fungal communities, further investigating the drivers of invasive species plant-soil feedbacks. This analysis exhibited potential effects of I. glandulifera
soil conditioning on microbial communities, as well as microbial responses to increased temperature under climate change. The findings of these three studies have important
implications for future efforts to manage invasive species
Identification and classification of H alpha-excess candidates in the northern Galactic Plane.
Get PDFThe key-role of studying H alpha emission from astronomical sources has been well established in the past decades. Its relevance is set by the impressively wide range of H alpha-emitting populations, the inspection of which can significantly contribute to understanding our Universe in terms of its evolution and composition.
Therefore, finding and classifying new emission-line sources has become a fundamental task in modern astronomy, fueled by the availability of a constantly increasing number of wide field surveys.
State-of-the-art techniques to identify H alpha emission line sources in narrow-band photometric surveys consist of searching for H alpha excess with reference to nearby objects in the sky (position-based selection). However, while this approach usually yields very few spurious detections, it may fail to select intrinsically faint and/or rare H alpha-excess sources.
In order to try and obtain a more complete representation of the heterogeneous emission line populations, I develop a technique to find outliers relative to nearby objects in the colour-magnitude diagram (CMD-based selection). By leveraging astrometric and photomeric information from Gaia, and by combining position-based and CMD-based selections, I build an updated catalogue of H alpha-excess candidates from data obtained in the INT Photometric H alpha Survey of the Northern Galactic Plane (IPHAS).
Out of 7,474,835 inspected targets, 28,496 H alpha-excess candidates are identified.
I further perform spectroscopic follow-up observations and classification of 114 objects from this catalogue, that enable to test the novel selection method. Out of the 69 spectroscopically confirmed H alpha emitters in the sample, 14 are identified only by the CMD-based selection, and would be thus missed by the classic position-based technique.
In addition, I explore one of the possible applications of the CMD-based selection. More specifically, I describe how accreting white dwarf candidates can be identified among the H alpha-excess sources, with the introduction of information regarding their X-ray emission and variability amplitude.
A specific application of these criteria is provided by the target HBHA 4204-09. Spectroscopically confirmed as a cataclysmic variable, this source is part of the H alpha-excess candidates that also show a significantly large variability amplitude. The analysis of its light curve supports its further classification as a nova-like variable.
Moreover, I show how the CMD-based selection can be augmented with the introduction of additional colours. Especially with this latter improvement, the CMD-based technique can be used to support the pre-selection and classification of emission line sources in large spectroscopic surveys
The Anatomy of Grotesque: Abject, Excess, and Transgression in Yugoslav and Post-Yugoslav Cinemas
Get PDFThroughout the history of Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav cinemas, the grotesque presented itself as one of the vehicles for exposing the undercurrent of a politically, economically and ethnically diverse socialist society. The multicultural background and the socio-political transformations that have characterised the complex nature of the (post)Yugoslav space have frequently been challenged by film auteurs; this doctoral project focuses on those films and filmmakers who conjoined film and variegated forms of grotesque to critically question the society they lived in by decentring the established system(s) of representation. Thus, the thematic emphasis of the project is on the manifestations of the cinematic grotesque in the (post-)Yugoslav cinema. Its main research question, however, will be to interpret this phenomenon of breaking with official cultural discourses, either socialist-Yugoslav or post- socialist/post-Yugoslav as a particular strategy of transcending the constraints of certain representational platforms and seizing upon the alternative ways of cinematic telling. By implementing what I would tentatively term a cross-disciplinary approach to the moving image, this thesis will inaugurate three dominant tendencies of the grotesque in (post-)Yugoslav cinema, which I will term socialist, transitional, and post-transitional grotesque. Utilised by the Yugoslav filmmakers from the early 1960s to the late 1980s, the socialist grotesque challenges and upsets the ideologically established system of representation by deploying a variety of visual devices. The transitional grotesque comes into being with the dissolution of the Yugoslav federal state in the 1990s and it is used by the filmmakers as an instrument of dehumanisation and self-indulgence. As the final tendency, the post-transitional grotesque challenges the socialist legacy and the fallout of the transitional process that has continued to plague the post-Yugoslav space during the 2000s. In methodological terms, the examination of the three tendencies of the grotesque in (post-)Yugoslav cinema will draw on the works of Georges Bataille, Julia Kristeva, and Mikhail Bakhtin and their investigations into the excess, abject and carnivalesque. In so doing, by channelling the grotesque and its forms into film studies broadly speaking, this study will have a twofold aim. Firstly, it will strive to extend our knowledge of the representational capacities of Yugoslav and post-Yugoslav cinemas; but ultimately, the thesis will seek to put forward an adequate, still novel enough approach to understanding the interaction between the on-screen reality and socio-political context
What can we learn from understanding the characteristics, circumstances, and patterns of women killed by men and the men who kill them?
Get PDFThis thesis explores what can be learned from a connected analysis of men’s fatal violence against women, that is, looking at all instances regardless of the relationship between victim and perpetrator, to understand the characteristics, circumstances and patterns of women killed by men and the men who kill them. Sex differences, both between victims and perpetrators, are hidden in official data and policy responses to fatal violence and historically were overlooked in criminology. This thesis seeks to make the case for keeping sex differences at the forefront, rejecting siloed approaches which overplay the distinctions and overlook the commonalities between sexual and domestic violence and abuse, including prostitution, and for reinstating the concept of patriarchy as central to feminist scholarship whilst bringing together the too often separated approaches of feminist activism, service provision and academia.
A mixed method approach was used wherein quantitative analysis of data regarding UK women killed by men in between 2012 and 2014 (446 women), with an additional purposive sample of women who had been killed by strangers between 2015 and 2017 (63 women) and women who had been involved in prostitution and killed between 2009 and 2011 and 2015 and 2017 (16 women, of whom ten were also in the purposive sample of women who had been killed by strangers, therefore an additional 6 women), was enhanced by case histories ensuring that women’s realities remained the focal point of the research and adding depth.
The research found that ignoring sex in analysis of homicide means ignoring the specificities of femicide. The thesis offers both a new definition of femicide and a new model of men’s violence against women, incorporating individual, situations/relational, institutional, structural, and cultural contributors recognising intersecting inequalities to contextualise men’s violence against women within patriarchal societies
ChimpanSee, ChimpanDo: A Review of the Significance of Social Contagion, and Exploration of Grooming and Play Contagion in Chimpanzees
Get PDFThe ability to catch behaviours from others, and share their emotional states, is fundamental to numerous aspects of human social functioning. This state-matching capacity is of great evolutionary importance and is widespread in the primate lineage. Studying which forms of contagion are present in different primate species, and when contagion is most pronounced, can help reveal the fundamental underpinnings and the context-specific facets of these processes, allowing us to understand the nature and significance of social contagion. In chapter 1, I critically review research on mimicry, behavioural contagion and emotional contagion in primates, highlighting which factors are important moderators, and the benefits that contagious processes afford individuals and the group. Research reveals notable difference in trends in positive and negative valenced contexts, although research is limited with regards to positive emotional and behavioural contagion. I emphasise the wide-reaching adaptive benefits of both positive and negative social contagion, and consider social contagion as a basis for social learning, allowing for a unified view of its significance.
In chapter 2, I seek to advance the literature by addressing the research gap of positive social contagion. I conducted an observational study of 47 sanctuary living chimpanzees, to test whether chimpanzees catch grooming and play behaviours from each other, and what predicts this effect. Results reveal the first evidence for the contagion of affiliative behaviours in chimpanzees. The presence of grooming contagion was predicted by social closeness, and was more pronounced in females, whilst play contagion was more pronounced in younger individuals. It is evident that behavioural contagion is not confined to negative contexts, but is widespread and influenced by a multitude of factors, specific to species and behaviour
Plato’s Later Moral Epistemology
Get PDFThis Ph.D. thesis aims to provide a comprehensive account of the relationship between ethics and epistemology in Plato’s late dialogues (specifically, Sophist, Statesman, Philebus, and Laws).
While scholars have been concerned with understanding the extent to which Plato’s middle dialogues resonate with his early theory of ethical intellectualism (according to which knowledge is a necessary and sufficient condition for virtue), Plato’s later moral epistemology has received much less attention. The few scholars who have worked on the subject have argued that Plato’s late dialogues present a radical transformation of the epistemological and ethical ideas displayed in Plato’s earlier works. The scholarly debate has almost unanimously concluded that Plato’s late dialogues heavily revise the theory of ethical intellectualism that, arguably, features in the earlier works.
Through an in-depth analysis of the late dialogues’ textual evidence, this thesis will show that the so-called Socratic theory of ethical intellectualism has not been abandoned by Plato in his late works. To this end, I will contend that the Sophist, the Statesman, the Philebus, and the Laws suggest that (philosophical) knowledge is the ultimate condition that a moral agent has to meet to be fully virtuous. In addition, taking for granted that philosophers alone can achieve a full and philosophical virtue, I will also show that Plato’s later moral epistemology extends beyond philosophers. For, while achieving philosophical knowledge is presented as a necessary and sufficient condition for being virtuous, I will argue that Plato’s late dialogues establish that opinion, if true, is sufficient for acting virtuously
CONTROLS ON FACIES DISTRIBUTION AND PROPERTIES IN THE NORTHWEST BORNEO DEEP WATER FOLD-AND-THRUST BELT
Get PDFThe deep-water fold-and-thrust belt of NW Borneo contains a structurally complex region of active folds. The opening of the South China Sea during Oligocene to Middle Miocene times led to a Southeastward rifting of the continental crust of the Dangerous Grounds. Subduction of oceanic crust to the Southeast took place under the NW Borneo continental margin, with oceanic subduction ending at ~16 Ma. Collision between the Dangerous Grounds and the NW Borneo margin resulted in uplift and erosion of the Crocker Ranges, and shed large volumes of sediment Northwest into the adjacent sedimentary basins. The resultant fold-and-thrust belt hosts up to 8 km thickness of Mid-Miocene to Recent turbidites and submarine fan sediments, closely associated with fold growth. This study provides new interpretations of regional, three-dimensional (3-D), multichannel seismic-reflection profiles, and utilises data from 25 exploration and appraisal wells. The target of the wells is the fan system, located at the crestal part of the thrusted hanging walls of growth anticlines. This research studies the geometry and structural vergence of the folds, sequence stratigraphy, and burial history. Collectively, these are the controlling factors affecting the facies distribution and properties in the study area. Approaches include seismic analysis, well log analysis, petrology, and basin modelling. Fold-and-thrust belt evolution and syn-tectonic deposition were influenced by subduction and gravitational tectonic events, the proximity and variety of sediment provenance, and seabed topography during deposition. There was an important effect of overpressure generated by disequilibrium compaction, which preserved the porosity in the deeper formations. This study identified the individual fold growth magnitude, sediment provenances, depositional settings of the deep-water slope water environment, and accommodation space for the facies compartmentalisation seen in the wells, and models the depositional settings and the submarine channel pathways, with possible high quality reservoir distributions
Lyricism and the Utopian Impulse: A Study of Bian Zhilin’s Pre-war Poetry
Get PDFThis thesis joins a vibrant conversation in literature and cultural studies on modern China about the challenging nature of the construction of modernity in the early twentieth century as well as the paradoxical relationship between China and the West. Tracing the implications of the two popular approaches to modernity in twentieth-century China, namely Marxist collective modernisation and Kantian individual refinement, I argue that neither has resulted in a comprehensive and profoundly critical view of modernity and its consequences amongst the majority of Chinese intellectuals. This partial understanding of Western literary modernity, combined with the eagerness to modernise the Chinese society through the functions of literature, has contributed to the utopian impulse in thought and expression regarding a modern and better future. The utopian impulse has also played a significant role in shaping China’s political and cultural modernity, driving Chinese intellectuals into a ‘love-hate’ relationship with Chinese tradition.
This thesis delineates the utopian impulse in the poetic pursuit of modernity by Bian Zhilin with a focus on his most productive years between 1930 and 1937, namely the period of his pre-war poetry. It sets out to explore the nature of inconsistency between the actual dynamic of Western influences and classical Chinese poetics and what is envisioned under the context of iconoclasm after the May Fourth Movement. It is through this exploration that a vision is generated regarding Bian’s negative feelings as consequence of his pursuit for modernity.
By examining the angst in Bian’s experiment with a modern (Western) poetic expression to articulate his social critique by emulating the Western modernist style of poetry, this thesis provides evidence of his nostalgic yearning for classical Chinese literature, aesthetics and philosophy. I argue that strategies of French Symbolism and Metaphysical Poetry serve as a paradoxical bridge between Bian’s desire to fashion himself as a modernist poet and his spiritual attachment to Chinese tradition. I argue that the utopian impulse is characterised by the backward-looking and nostalgic features. Furthermore, it is a psyche shared by generations of Chinese intellectuals when facing the existential crisis of the coherent cultural centre. In this research, I focus on the early twentieth-century utopian impulse as it is symptomatic of the complex feelings of anxiety, doubt and hope of Chinese cultural elites at the historical juncture between tradition and progress, China and the West. The denial of the Chinese reality and romantic imagining of a modern West and the belief in its efficacy for a bright Chinese future create fertile ground for the utopian modernity that eventually evaporated in wartime China after the 1940s
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