Advantage Of Growth Opportunities Research Articles

Digital Marketing Strategies to Improve Customer Experience and Engagement

For businesses to stay ahead and grow in this digital age, they need to use smart digital marketing tactics to make the customer experience better and get them more involved. To show how important it is to improve relationships with and happiness from customers, this study looks at how digital marketing has changed over time. A lot of research and review went into this study. It looks at new trends like personalized marketing, interactive content, and the use of new technologies like Augmented Reality (AR) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The main point of the study is to find out how digital marketing affects customer happiness and loyalty to find out how engagement metrics and marketing success are linked. By comparing their results to industry standards, businesses can make their plans better and take advantage of growth opportunities. Secondary data comes from business reports, academic literature, and online databases. It guides the study and helps find useful insights. Because it looks at different results and shows the best ways to do things, this study helps businesses that want to improve their digital marketing and connect with their audience in a real way in the digital world we live in now.

Do ICT firms manage R&D differently? Firm-level and macroeconomic effects on corporate R&D investment: Empirical evidence from a multi-countries context

Technological firms invest in R&D looking for innovative solutions but assuming high costs and great (technological) uncertainty regarding final results and returns. Additionally, they face other problems related to R&D management. This empirical study tries to determine which of the factors favour or constrain the decision of these firms to engage in R&D. The analysis uses financial data of 14,619 ICT listed companies of 22 countries from 2003 to 2018. Additionally, macroeconomic data specific for the countries and the sector were used. For the analysis of dynamic panel data, a System-GMM method is used. Among the findings, we highlight that cash flow, contrary to the known theoretical models and empirical evidences, negatively impacts on R&D investment. Debt is neither the right source for R&D funding, as the effect is also negative. This suggests that ICT companies are forced to manage their R&D activities differently, relying more on other funding sources, taking advantage of growth opportunities and benefiting from a favourable macroeconomic environment in terms of growth and increased business sector spending on R&D. These results are similar in both sub-sectors and in all countries, both bank- and market based. The exception is firms with few growth opportunities and little debt.

Better Safe Than Sorry: CEO Regulatory Focus and Workplace Safety

Research shows that CEOs who are sensitive to maximizing gains (promotion focus) engage in more socially oriented initiatives, while CEOs who are sensitive to avoiding losses or harm (prevention focus) attend more to shareholder concerns. Our point of departure, however, is that many social initiatives are of the “do no harm” type that involve efforts to avoid burdening stakeholders with social and economic costs. Integrating research on strategic leadership and regulatory focus, we develop a framework for understanding the relevance of CEO regulatory focus for workplace safety. We argue that firms with prevention-focused CEOs have fewer employee injuries than firms with promotion-focused CEOs as these latter CEOs impose aggressive workloads on employees. Drawing on regulatory fit theory, we further identify two contextual factors that attenuate or accentuate CEO motivation to pursue harm-reducing or growth-maximizing goals. Whereas analyst downgrades mitigate the influence of prevention focus by motivating CEOs to avoid missing their obligations to shareholders, environmental munificence strengthens the influence of promotion focus on injuries by motivating CEOs to take advantage of growth opportunities in the environment. Based on a sample of S&P 500 firms and injury data from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) from 2002 to 2011, we find support for our predictions. The results illustrate the unforeseen consequences of CEO regulatory focus on employee interests.

Cost shielding in executive bonus plans

Executive bonus plans often incorporate performance measures that exclude particular costs—a practice we refer to as “cost shielding.” We predict that boards use cost shielding to mitigate underinvestment and insulate new managers from the costs of prior executives’ decisions. We find evidence that boards use cost shielding to deter underinvestment in intangibles and encourage managers to take advantage of growth opportunities. We also find that cost shielding tends to be elevated for newly-hired executives, and decreases over tenure. Collectively, our results suggest that boards deliberately choose performance metrics that alleviate agency conflicts.

Cost Shielding in Executive Bonus Plans

Executive bonus plans often incorporate performance measures that exclude particular costs—a practice we refer to as “cost shielding.” We predict that boards use cost shielding to mitigate underinvestment and insulate new managers from the costs of prior executives’ decisions. We find evidence that boards use cost shielding to deter underinvestment in intangibles and encourage managers to take advantage of growth opportunities. We also find that cost shielding tends to be elevated for newly-hired executives, and decreases over tenure. Collectively, our results suggest that boards deliberately choose performance metrics that alleviate agency conflicts.

THE EFFECT OF FIRM SPECIFIC CHARACTERISTICS ON FINANCIAL LEVERAGE OF QUOTED DIVERSIFIED COMPANIES IN NIGERIA

Financial leverage decision by firm continues to attract interest from managers, analysts, researchers, scholars as well as policymakers because of its implications for the firm and its stakeholders. This paper investigates how the complexity of business, firms’ dependence on external finance and growth opportunity affects the financial leverage decision among quoted diversified companies in Nigeria. The study took a census of six diversified firms quoted on the Nigerian capital market over the period of 10 years (2008-2017). Descriptive statistics and correlation matrix were employed with panel data analysis using Ordinary Least Square (OLS) robust model to analyse the data. The results from the study revealed that the complexity of business and growth opportunity is positive and significantly influencing the financial leverage of quoted diversified companies in Nigeria, while dependence on the external finance revealed a significantly negative effect on the financial leverage. It is recommended that the management of quoted diversified companies in Nigeria should target an optimal capital structure in line of businesses that their streams of revenue are not positively correlated. This can be achieved by taking advantage of growth opportunities in the industries where they can further diversify their businesses and enhance profit generation.

Tangent Host: An Uneasy Partnership

Tangent Host, a Canadian-based website services provider, was established in 2014 as a general partnership by two personal and professional friends. Each had a 50% ownership stake in profits and workload. In 2016, it had total revenue of US$121,440, divided evenly between web design (100 clients) and web hosting (375 clients). As a start-up, Tangent had taken advantage of growth opportunities and had overcome a number of operational challenges. By 2017, there were mounting unresolved issues: tension between partners, concerns with uncollected receivables, technical performance, and future direction. One of the partners seemed to be less committed to the partnership, shifting interest and time to other activities that generated personal not partnership income. The case provides thought-provoking issues confronted by a new venture and partnership: friction between partners, customer relations, service performance, increasing revenue, scaling a business, making strategic choices, and conflict resolution.

Inter-sectoral Differences in the SME Financing Gap: Evidence from Selected Sectors in Ghana

ABSTRACTAccess to credit is critical for SMEs’ growth. However, these businesses that need credit to take advantage of growth opportunities are noted to be credit constrained. The paper examined the SME financing gap on a sectoral basis using the survey approach. The study adopted descriptive and non-parametric statistics in the analyses of data involving 1200 SMEs with 200 each from the agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, construction, retail and hospitality sectors. It was revealed that there are sectoral differences in the SME financing gap with the agriculture sector being the most credit constrained. Sector-specific policies are therefore recommended to tackle the problem.

Democracy, rule of law, and corporate governance—a liquidity perspective

This study examines whether and how democracy and rule of law—two overarching country-level governance variables—influence corporate governance. Given that corporate liquidity (cash holdings) is a good channel for examining the quality of corporate governance, the effects of democracy and rule of law on corporate governance can be identified using the liquidity approach. A review of 67 countries from 1996 to 2010 demonstrates that democracy and rule of law indeed have bearings on corporate governance. More specifically, results indicate that firms are more inclined to hoard cash to take advantage of growth opportunities when the level of democracy is higher or rule of law is stronger, suggesting that agency costs are lower and interests of managers and shareholders are more aligned under such circumstances. In addition, the negative effect of debt issuance and dividend payment on cash is more pronounced when the level of democracy is higher or rule of law is stronger, suggesting that these two approaches become more effective in reducing agency costs and transitively cash holdings under such circumstances. Moreover, the positive effect of democracy and rule of law on corporate governance appears to be reinforced when rule of law is stronger and the level of democracy is higher, respectively. Furthermore, higher level of economic development helps reap the benefit of democracy and rule of law in terms of improving corporate governance and reducing agency costs.

Measuring Port Effectiveness

Port managers need to be able to identify and prioritize port investments to take advantage of opportunities for growth. Those who serve the needs of beneficial cargo owners and shipping lines must know how to evaluate their customer service delivery efforts. Although this area has received research attention, this paper adds to the understanding by focusing on performance evaluations of ports by supply chain partners, key actors in the effectiveness of a port's service delivery. The current literature relevant to the assessment of port performance and the perspectives of this user group is reviewed. The range of port-related roles performed by supply chain partners is then examined to create context for the results. Four measures that provide general (as opposed to port-specific) indications of the relative need for attention to each criterion are identified and discussed. Finally, the statements are used to create a formative supply chain partner port assessment construct used to measure relevant criteria. Port managers can use these criteria when formulating high-quality service to their supply chain partners, which in turn will support port efforts to improve performance for cargo owners and shipping lines.

Capital Allocation by Public and Private Firms

AbstractWe compare investment policies across public and private firms in different institutional settings. Using a large cross-country data set, we find that public listed firms are better positioned to take advantage of growth opportunities than private firms. Specifically, public listed firms exhibit higher investment sensitivity to growth opportunities than private firms. This differential, however, only exists in countries with well-developed stock markets. Furthermore, the relative advantage public firms have at allocating capital depends on the degree of agency costs and reliance on external equity.

Financial market imperfections, control aversion and venture capital in Spanish SMEs

Information asymmetries and control aversion limit the capacity of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) to take advantage of growth opportunities. In this work we analyse to what extent Venture Capital (VC) can play a positive role by allowing a temporary shareholder to reduce the investment dependency on internally generated funds. We study a sample of 322 Spanish VC-backed SMEs at the expansion stage, and a one-by-one matched sample of non-VC-backed firms. We find that both groups of firms exhibit a significant sensitivity of investments to cash flows before the initial VC investment. VC, however, is effective in reducing investment cash flow sensitivity in the post-investment period in the group of VC-backed companies.

PFIZER MEETS ANALYSTS

AT A MEETING with analysts in New York City on March 5, Pfizer CEO Jeffrey B. Kindler defended his moves to “change the DNA” of the world’s largest drug company in order for it to take advantage of growth opportunities. Having downsized the company through a series of plant and research site closures and refocused R&D on “high value” disease areas, Kindler claimed Pfizer is moving forward with a more entrepreneurial management structure and leveraging outside expertise through R&D partnerships and small acquisitions. Pfizer, however, will not get larger through a major acquisition any time soon, Kindler said. “I do not see anything that would meet the definition of a megadeal with a strategic value that would outweigh the potential concentration of risk,” he told analysts. Stock analysts have expressed dissatisfaction with Kindler in his first year at the helm, given that the company stands to lose more than $12 billion in sales when the ...

How do interdependencies among human-capital deployment, development, and diversification strategies affect firms' financial performance?

Using key insights from the resource-based view of the firm, we develop and test a theory of how firms can successfully deploy and develop their strategic human assets while managing the trade-offs in their service and geographical diversification strategies. In a sample of large law firms we find that, even though firms profit from expert human-capital leveraging strategy and service and geographical diversification strategies individually, pursuing these strategies simultaneously at high levels produces negative interaction effects on firm profitability. In addition, the internally developed, firm-specific associate human capital strategically fits better with high levels of expert human-capital leveraging. While lateral hiring helps firms build new knowledge bases and take advantage of growth opportunities, pursuing high levels of both expert human-capital leveraging and lateral hiring of associates results in lower profitability. To fully capture the economic benefits from strategies of diversification, human-capital leveraging and lateral hiring, firms should understand and manage the complex interdependencies among multiple levels of strategy. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Why are foreign firms listed in the U.S. worth more?

At the end of 1997, foreign companies with shares cross-listed in the U.S. had Tobin's q ratios that were 16.5% higher than the q ratios of non-cross-listed firms from the same country. The valuation difference is statistically significant and reaches 37% for those companies that list on major U.S. exchanges, even after controlling for a number of firm and country characteristics. We suggest that a U.S. listing reduces the extent to which controlling shareholders can engage in expropriation and thereby increases the firm's ability to take advantage of growth opportunities. We show that growth opportunities are more highly valued for firms that choose to cross-list in the U.S., particularly those from countries with poorer investor rights.

Why are Foreign Firms Listed in the U.S. Worth More?

At the end of 1997, the foreign companies listed in the U.S. have a Tobin's q ratio that exceeds by 16.5% the q ratio of firms from the same country that are not listed in the U.S. The valuation difference is statistically significant and largest for exchange-listed firms, where it reaches 37%. The difference persists even after controlling for a number of firm and country characteristics. We propose a theory that explains this valuation difference. We hypothesize that controlling shareholders of firms listed in the U.S. cannot extract as many private benefits from control compared to controlling shareholders of firms not listed in the U.S., but that their firms are better able to take advantage of growth opportunities. Consequently, the cross-listed firms should be those firms where the interests of the controlling shareholder are better aligned with the interests of other shareholders. The growth opportunities of cross-listed firms will be more highly valued than those of firms not listed in the U.S. both because cross-listed firms are better able to take advantage of these opportunities and because a smaller fraction of the cash flow of these firms is expropriated by controlling shareholders. We find that our theory explains the greater valuation of cross-listed firms. In particular, we find expected sales growth is valued more highly for firms listed in the U.S. and that this effect is greater for firms from countries with poorer investor rights.

INTEGRATED NETWORK MANAGEMENT

A trouble-free corporate network allows businesses to serve their customers better and to take advantage of growth opportunities. Putting together such a network is no small undertaking, however. The sheer diversity of today's networks makes the task of management a formidable endeavor that requires business acumen as well as technical expertise. This article explains the concepts of integrated network management on which the efficient and economical operation of a corporate network depend.