1,720,961 research outputs found
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND PERFORMANCE IN TURNAROUND: A SYNTHETIC INDEX
No full textIn this work we carried out an empirical research on a panel of companies in turnaround SMEs, venture capital backed, with the objective of deepening the analysis: Firstly, if warning signs were submitted from firms in turnaround. Secondly, we tried to verify the role played by the Corporate Governance in restructuring, with the definition of an index of good Governance for SMEs (scG) and Performance ad hoc index (scP). Thirdly, the definition of a Synthetic Index (SI) aggregates the two kinds of information: Corporate Governance Quality and Performance. We conducted an analysis of the balance sheets of the companies in turnaround participated by a turnaround fund, in the years 2004 and 2009. In relation to the total number of firms involved in turnaround in the period in question, which were 26 in total; it was possible to reconstruct the historic trend only for 12 of them, for the others the balance sheets could not be found.In conclusion, it can be noted that the analysis of important aspects of management through the development of Z-score, and scG, scP, and SI can summarize complex concepts into a number and allows for comparisons between situations that are not readily comparable in terms of accounting. This study can suggest the definition of Corporate Governance Index for SME in critical situations. This study offers some ideas about the opportunity of stimulating the SME to introduce the Corporate Governance System spread to listed companies
Management discussion and analysis: a tone analysis on US financial listed companies
No full textPurpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether financial companies of the USA are inclined to
manipulate the management discussion and analysis (MD&A) tone and thus to follow impression
management behaviours. Also, the paper proposes a tone analysis of MD&As conducted by comparing the
tone of MD&As of one year with financial conditions of the same year and the next.
Design/methodology/approach – The tone analysis is conducted on two sub-samples of US-listed
financial companies, unhealthy firms and healthy firms, which experienced different financial conditions
between 2002 and 2011.
Findings – With regard to healthy firms, MD&A tone is useful to explain the current year’s performance and
helps to predict next year performance, whereas, with reference to unhealthy companies, managers use the
tone to pursue impression management strategies, by using more positive words and more future-oriented
words than healthy companies.
Research limitations/implications – This study analyses the correlation between MD&A tone at time
t and financial performance at time t and t+1, it does not investigate other time spans. The empirical results of
this study cannot be generalized to other countries.
Practical implications – Main implications are addressed to regulators and policy makers, which may
contrast impression management through a more effective regulation. Another implication regards investors,
who cannot fully rely on MD&As of unhealthy companies.
Originality/value – This study analyses financial companies, rather neglected by the literature on MD&A
tone. Results suggest that financial firms are also inclined to engage in impression management. This
research would be useful for investors who base their decisions on qualitative analysis, interested in
understanding to what extent the MD&A narratives are reliable
Board gender diversity, network and firms' performance in the Italian listed companies
Full text linkTHE CORPORATE GOVERNANCE DRIVERS: WHAT RELATIONS WITH PERFORMANCE AND RISK? EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE FROM ITALIAN CONTEXT
Full text linkConsidering a sample of Italian firms and defining a good Governance index (gGI), we investigated if there is a relation between the gGI, the performance and the default risk and which governance determinants are most responsible of these effects. To deepen the analysis, the aforementioned relations are also observed by comparing family and non-family firms and the companies more or less active in M&A. We found that the Corporate Governance quality presents some correlations with performance and risk. The non-family companies are better structured, showing a positive correlation between some Corporate Governance drivers and performance and Z-score. Furthermore, the “well-advised” firms in external strategies are able to obtain a better correlation with performance and also a good relation with Z-scor
Management Discussion & Analysis in the US financial companies: a data mining analysis
No full textThis research aims to analyse how managers react to firm's financial conditions in the Management Discussion and Analysis (MD&A). To do so we appeal to text mining techniques such as natural language processing and sentiment analysis. The main assumption is that the MD&A content may vary depending on financial and economic conditions companies are experiencing.
The study is conducted on a sample of US listed financial companies which experienced, between 1998 and 2011, different financial conditions, namely: 1) companies which filed for Chapter 11, thus having a high risk of bankruptcy; 2) companies not filing for Chapter 11, but with a medium risk of bankruptcy according to their economic and financial performance ratios; 3) companies not filing for Chapter 11, with a healthy financial situation.
The expected results might let emerge an association between the bankruptcy risk levels and the content of the MD&A. In fact, MD&As issued by companies with higher bankruptcy risk are expected to be more optimistic, proactive and appealing, composed of more verbose and complex periods than the MD&As released by healthy companies.
This research provides support for stakeholders, as it suggests to read MD&As with a critical interpretation, considering that a very optimistic and positive tone may actually hide an alarm signal. Taking advantage from the text mining analysis, it makes some elements explicit that would otherwise remain implicit or even hidden behind complex periods and sentences.
Future insights provided by this research are related to the possible association between the MD&A and the audit opinion. Recent studies demonstrated that auditing firms often fail in predicting the bankruptcy risk of distressed companies. Perhaps, such an error could be due to the role of MD&A, as auditors may consider its content and its tone as signals of future improvements. Through a matching analysis between MD&A and the related audit opinion, further results may be found out
A statistical analysis of reliability of audit opinions as bankruptcy predictors
No full textResearch measures the reliability of audit firms in predicting bankruptcy for
US-listed financial institutions. Object of the analysis is the Going Concern
Opinion (GCO), widely considered a bankruptcy warning signal to
stakeholders. The sample is composed of 42 US-listed financial companies that
filed Chapter 11 between 1998 and 2011. To highlight differences between
bankrupting and healthy firms, a matching sample composed by 42 randomly
picked healthy US-listed financial companies is collected. We concentrate on
financial institutions, whereas the existing literature pays considerably heavier
attention to the industrial sector. This research imbalance is remarkable and
particularly unexpected in the wake of recent financial scandals. Literature
points out two main approaches on bankruptcy prediction: 1) purely
mathematical; 2) approaches based on a combination of auditor knowledge,
expertise and experience. The use of data mining techniques, allow us to
benefit from the best features of both approaches. Statistical tools used in the
analysis are: Logit regression, Support Vector Machines and an Adaboost
Meta-algorithm. Findings show a quite low reliability of GCOs in predicting
bankruptcy. It is likely that auditors consider further information in supporting
their audit opinions, aside from financial-economic ratios. The scant predictive
ability of auditors might be due to critical relationships with distressed clients,
as suggested by recent literature
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Full text link“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
Full text linkWe 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
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