New issue of the Corporate Ownership and Control has been published

The recent issue of the journal Corporate Ownership and Control is devoted to the issues of capital structure, insufficient funds, audit quality, goodwill impairment, intellectual capital, sustainability, stakeholders’ engagement, dividend policy, corporate diversification etc.

More detailed issues are given below:

Adeoye Amuda Afolabi examines the performance of the agency as well as assesses the trend in the unemployment rate at pre and post establishment of NDE in Nigeria. Data were collected through survey questionnaire and from National Bureau of Statistics. The author finds that many unemployed graduate does not have the opportunity to participate in the NDE programme, insufficient funds, political interference, corruption and lack of access to loan are among the key factor militating against the success of the programme.

Ahmad Al-Hiyari, Rohaida Abdul Latif and Noor Afza Amran analyze the predictive ability of goodwill improved in the presence of Big 4 auditors. Reserchers provide evidence that goodwill has a significant predictive ability for second and third-year ahead cash flows which exists only in the firms audited by the large international reputable accounting firms. This suggests that Big 4 auditors play an important role in ensuring appropriate implementation of the present accounting for goodwill.

Felipe Valle and Andre Carvalhal seek to understand the determinants for the issuance of private debt securities (bonds) in the international market by Brazilian companies. Authors analyzed 472 non-financial listed companies from 2001 to 2009.The results indicate that firm size and its exporting capacity are positively related to international bonds. There is a negative relation between the existence of foreign shareholders and the issuance of international bonds. Adopting good corporate governance practices, such as listing ADRs in the US or on Brazilian’s New Market, is positively related to international bonds in a few models.

Jihene Ferchichi and Robert Paturel aim to enable a better understanding of the intellectual capital of the Tunisian financial market and by adopting the Delphi method, to determine the information needs and expectations consensus in terms of intellectual capital. The results of this research show that the concept of intellectual capital appears well known by the financial actors Tunisians. Besides this research, revealed new aspects of intellectual capital .The Tunisian investors consider these dimensions as important criteria that support making their investment decision.

Mara Del Baldo describes the theoretical framework paying specific attention to ethical leadership theories, responsible leadership and governance. Subsequently she presents the first results of an empirical analysis centered on exemplary case-studies relative to Italian companies, which are included among the best performing ones and have for years built a responsible orientation in their mission and governance models. Findings underline how coherent leadership models based on a positive moral perspective, authenticity, and integrity act in promoting a cultural reorientation inside and outside the company, valorizing relationships with stakeholders, favoring trust and fairness in the interactions with employees and collaborators, and allowing to establish effective models of governance based on the sharing of information, openness and democratic participation.

John H. Hall and T. Sibanda analyze the capital budgeting practices of small and medium South African listed companies and compare their capital budgeting practices to the capital budgeting practices of large listed companies. The results of the study indicate that the primary capital budgeting techniques employed by small listed companies are based on the IRR and the NPV, resembling the practices used by larger companies. Furthermore, the use of discounted cash flow techniques amongst small listed companies had increased over the last decade.

Claire A. Horner and Trevor D. Wilmshurst explore how voluntary reporting practices may facilitate risk management through the process of stakeholder engagement. Results indicate that the use of the GRI in conjunction with external verification encourages more inclusive stakeholder engagement practices as identified in the AS/NZS Risk Management Standard.

UGVDD Gunarathne, WAN Priyadarshanie and SMRK Samarakoon argue that the focus of an entity should be aligned on the maximization of stock holders’ wealth and this necessitates the selection of an optimum dividend policy. Data was collected from a sample of companies listed under the manufacturing sector of the Colombo Stock Exchange from year 2006 to 2014. The outcome revealed that the dividend yield of the current year has a negative impact on the share price volatility, while the dividend payout ratio of both the current and previous years has a positive impact. In addition, the impact of dividend yield is negative on the market value of the firm, where the dividend payout ratio of the current year is also depicts the same impact.

Duc Nam Phung, Thi Bich Nguyet Phan, Thi Lien Hoa Nguyen and Thi Phuong Vy Le examine the impact of the ownership structure on corporate diversification decision of listed firms in Vietnam over the period of 2007 and 2012. The empirical results from logit model show that while state ownership has positive impact on corporate diversification decisions of the firms, foreign ownership has negative impact on corporate diversification decision of the firms. This implies that government ownership tends to encourage corporate diversification strategy, while foreign ownership may plays monitoring role and discourage corporate diversification strategy in emerging market context.
Wachyudhi.N. and Budi Haryanto analyze the behavior of consumer continuing intention to use e-banking. In the model, the consumer’s continuance intention was designed as target variable which affected by perceived relationship marketing and electronic service quality (e-serqual) as well as mediated by the attitude of consumer satisfaction and trust, and moderated by the magnitude of perceived switching costs. Data were gathered from 200 e-banking users, by using the convenience sampling method, and the participants as the subject for this study were Business Administration Students of Krisnadwipayana University, Jakarta – Indonesia. The result indicated that the correlation between relationship marketing and electronic service quality was to be reciprocal, and mutually positive and significant.

WJ (Wessel) Pienaar outlines how the size, location and scope of activities of freight rail terminals influence urban form and land use. The nature of freight rail stations is outlined, and the classes of trains that make use of these facilities are described. According to size, railway freight stations can be divided into four groups: (1) railway halts; (2) small-sized goods stations; (3) medium-sized goods stations; and (4) large-sized goods stations. The factors that determine the location of stations are discussed. Rail freight stations can be divided functionally into four broad classes: (1) break-bulk rail terminals; (2) bulk rail terminals; (3) roll-on/roll-off rail terminals; and (4) intermodal terminals. The functions of the four rail terminal classes are described. Author discusses how rail freight terminals can influence urban form and land use. Finally the conclusions of the study are presented.

Maurizio Rija and Paolo Tenuta aims to provide an overview of how internal auditing has been adopted by companies listed in the STAR segment of the Italian Stock Exchange, and of the choice on its organizational position. The research has shown, as the first element in the survey, that nearly all of the companies have created a dedicated function or outsourced the internal audit activity. The second major finding from the analysis is that in most companies the function depends hierarchically on the board. The third point analysed concerns the figure of responsible for Internal Auditing, as established by the Code of Conduct, it replaces the person responsible for internal control and risk management.

Ullas Rao critically evaluates the most extensively used technique – Event Study methodology – employed to capture the returns generated from M&A events on the wealth status of shareholders. Notwithstanding the popularity of the technique, authors in this paper argue that conceptual bases on which the methodology is founded is flawed. In the light of the extensive limitations attributable to Event Study methodology, there exists an urgent need to suggest improvement in the conceptual framework of the traditional method capable of lending application to capture the wealth effects of M&A events. The authors believe that application of such a modified approach will be much more salvageable as the results derived therefrom will command greater credibility as well as reliability. In order to highlight the inherent limitation of the Event Study approach, the authors have used the sample of Indian Banking M&A events retrieved from the M&A data available at etintelligence.com.

To access the papers please follow this link.