1,721,661 research outputs found
Internal governance, external governance, and corporate strategic decisions
No full textThis thesis comprises three self-contained essays analysing topics in the field of internal governance, external governance, and corporate strategic decisions. The first essay explores the impact of managerial ability of the entire top management team, as an internal corporate governance entity, on firms’ risky-taking in investing financial assets. Utilising hand-collected data on detailed financial asset portfolios from S&P 500 index firms spanning the period from 2009 to 2019, we find that, generally, management with higher ability scores allocates a greater proportion of financial assets to risky positions, while management with relatively lower scores holds fewer risky financial assets. This positive effect is more pronounced when firms encounter fewer financial constraints, exhibit lower financial asymmetry, have higher bank debt ratios, and have more industry peers. In addition, the market perceives a higher firm value when high-ability management runs more risky financial assets. Further, the positive effect is stronger when current CEOs are younger and in the early stages of their careers. The second essay delves into the impact of an exogenous shock in corporate governance, specifically focusing on an immutable part of the duty of loyalty and corporate law, on firms’ financial reporting in terms of earnings management. By exploiting the staggered introduction of Corporate Opportunity Waivers (COW) since 2000, our findings indicate that firms incorporated in states that eventually adopted the waivers experienced a reduction in accrual-based earnings management. The effect is more pronounced for firms led by managers with greater ex-ante career concerns and pressures for short-term profits. Further, we are unable to find evidence suggesting that firms resort to real earnings management, nor does it support the argument that earnings management decreases due to an improvement in corporate governance. Overall, we provide insights suggesting that adopting COW might not be detrimental; instead, it could yield plausible benefits such as fostering more precise and transparent financial reporting. The third essay examines the relationship between auditors, as an external corporate governance mechanism, and firms’ strategic decisions. Specifically, we utilise state-level exogenous shocks in third-party auditor liability for ordinary negligence to explore the dynamics between governance and dividend payouts. Our findings indicate that the client firms’ dividend payments decrease when the state shifts to a higher auditor liability regime. In addition, we conduct separate analyses for positive and negative shocks and find that this impact is symmetrical. We subject the main findings to several robustness tests to reinforce the key inferences. Further, we find that main results are more pronounced among firms with weaker governance and more severe free cash flow problems, providing support for the substitute view in the competing agency theory of dividend puzzles
Different societies, same solutions? A critical reflection on ‘ageing as a burden’ in China and the European Union
No full text■Policy makers in China and the EU have stated that their ageing societies area burden for their pension systems and that the retirement age should beincreased and costs strictly controlled. But is pension retrenchment the onlyviable response to societal ageing?■ Despite the large differences between China and the EU, societal ageing inboth regions has led to the development of public pension systems, whichplay an important stabilising role for these societies. Given the high costs ofthese systems, the near-constant debate about pension-system reform andtheir financial sustainability is understandable.■ However, the strong focus of policy makers on the extension of workinglife to contain these costs is misguided: In Europe, many citizens areeconomically inactive long before retirement age and would benefit morefrom improved education and employment opportunities. Similarly, in China(where grandmotherly care is important for many parents) simply raising thevery low female retirement age without a simultaneous extension of publicchild care would probably reduce activity rates of younger women, resultingin lower contribution to pension systems.■ Pension systems exist because ageing populations are an integral part ofdeveloped economies and policy-makers should embrace the trend. Instead ofsimply expecting people to work longer, they should address the inequalitiesand obstacles preventing citizens from rewarding involvement in the economyand thus contributing to pension systems. This study outlines the currentchallenges of these systems in Europe and China and proposed some newapproaches to address the
sj-pdf-1-imr-10.1177_03000605221105358 - Supplemental material for <i>Pneumocystis jirovecii</i> pneumonia in a patient receiving chemotherapy for advanced prostatic cancer: a case report
No full textSupplemental material, sj-pdf-1-imr-10.1177_03000605221105358 for Pneumocystis jirovecii pneumonia in a patient receiving chemotherapy for
advanced prostatic cancer: a case report by
Chen Tiantian Yan Jin, Zhang Jing, Feng Jing and Jin Xiaoyan in Journal of International Medical Research</p
Mathematical model for manufacturing microfiber coil resonators
No full textWe present a mathematical model exemplifying the manufacture of microfiber coil resonators (MCRs) with rotational and translational stages controlled by a computer. The MCR profiles are related to the stage positions; the result is important for practical manufacturing and application of MCR
A microfiber Bragg grating based on a microstructured rod: a proposal
No full textWe propose a system suitable for the manufacture of microfiber gratings by wrapping a microfiber on a microstructured rod, which has large refractive index differences (deep teeth) and a large coupling coefficient. Different grating profiles can be realized by using different rod designs. This type of device has great potential for applications in future all-fiber microcircuits
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
A microfiber bragg grating based on a microstructured rod
No full textMicrofiber-based devices (MDs) have recently attracted much attention because of the enormous progress in the fabrication of low-loss sub-micrometric optical wires which allow for low-loss evanescent waveguiding. 3D microcoil resonators in Teflon and in low index liquid, a refractometric sensor based on a coated optical nanowire microcoil resonator has been investigated and demonstrated [1-3]. Although microcoil resonators have a wealth o af applications for future all-fiber micro-photonic circuits, more MDs (in particular gratings) are required. Similarly to gratings written in conventional fibers and waveguides, microfiber grating can have several different applications, including filters, sensors, and distributed feedback (DFB) lasers. The standard use of photosensitivity fiber core and UV writing is inconvenient for a microfiber because of the disappearance of the germanium core during the tapering process [4]. Here we propose to obtain a microfiber Bragg grating (MBG) by wrapping a microfiber on a microstructured rod. Combining current enabling technologies on microstructured optical fibers and microfibers[5], it is possible to induce periodical corrugations leading to the coupling between forward and backward propagating waves. This device is robust, compact and flexible.</p
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