Dataset Of Companies Research Articles

AN EXPLORATION OF FUNCTIONAL SIZE BASED EFFORT ESTIMATION MODELS

A number of methods have been proposed to build a relationship between effort and size. These models are generally based on regression analysis and a widely accepted model is not yet available. Although in some sizing methods, such as MKII and IFPUG, different multipliers for the base functional components (BFC) exist, their origin and the purpose of their usage are undefined. The COSMIC method does not treat components separately and assigns the same measurement unit to each of them. In this study we used the Artificial Neural Network and regression based methods to create effort estimation models that take the four components of the COSMIC method into consideration. In the research we compared several functional size based effort models in terms of accuracy using a reliable company dataset. These models comprised not only the generic models proposed in the literature or currently in use, but also specific models that we generated using our dataset with a single and multi-variate regression analysis and the ANN method. We also explored the effect of functional similarity (FS) using our specific models. We found that using BFC instead of total size improved effort estimation models and the ANN method is a useful approach to calibrate these components according to the company characteristics.

Econophysics and companies: statistical life and death in complex business networks

Econophysics is an emerging interdisciplinary field that takes advantage of the concepts and methods of statistical physics to analyse economic phenomena. This book expands the explanatory scope of econophysics to the real economy by using methods from statistical physics to analyse the success and failure of companies. Using large data sets of companies and income-earners in Japan and Europe, a distinguished team of researchers show how these methods allow us to analyse companies, from huge corporations to small firms, as heterogeneous agents interacting at multiple layers of complex networks. They then show how successful this approach is in explaining a wide range of recent findings relating to the dynamics of companies. With mathematics kept to a minimum, the book is not only a lively introduction to the field of econophysics but also provides fresh insights into company behaviour.

Discriminatory Practices at South Korean Firms Quantitative Analysis Based on Job Application Forms

Most Korean employers use discriminatory practices in hiring workers. They enquire about facts not directly related to applicants' skills and qualifications but correlated with their protected statuses, in order to discriminate among them based on these factors. This study uses a unique dataset of companies' application forms, and probability models to investigate the prevalence and economic determinants of such profiling. A sequential process of question profiling is identified, in which some personal questions are asked first and others later, depending on the outcome of the first stage. Profiling is systematically linked to features of job openings and business conditions in which companies operate. At the local market level, composition of labour, labour costs, structure of mandatory and discretionary compensation, and hours worked determine hiring practices. Firm size, industry and location contribute significantly.

Lemons or Cherries? Growth Opportunities and Market Temptations in Going Public and Private

Is the decision to go public or private a stock-market-driven “sideshow” or does it have significant effects on investment and profitability? We address this issue using a comprehensive data set of private and public companies in the U.K. during 1996–2006. Firms with high investment-financing needs, lower information-production costs, and high industry market-to-book ratios are more likely to go public. In contrast to the literature, we find that capital investment and profitability increase substantially after the initial public offering (IPO). Consistent with the agency-cost-based theories of going private, firms decrease investment but increase profits after going private, especially firms bought out by private equity investors. Our analysis also highlights the effects of market conditions on the ownership structure decision.

The gender pay gap in top corporate jobs in Denmark

PurposeThis study aims to analyse the gender pay gap among CEOs, VPs and potential top executives. The authors seek to analyse how much of the gap is explained by differences in individual characteristics and how much is explained by firm characteristics and discriminatory processes.Design/methodology/approachThe paper estimates compensation functions based on a panel of employer‐employee data set covering all Danish companies in the private sector with more than 50 employees during the period 1996‐2005.FindingsThe authors document that when controlling for a large number of observable characteristics and time‐invariant characteristics, there still exists a large gender compensation gap among top executives in Denmark. For VP and potential top executives, the estimated gap increased during the period 1996‐2005 while for the small and selected group of CEOs, the corrected gender gap decreased slightly.Research limitations/implicationsThe study does not claim to identify causal links between top executive compensation and individual or firm specific background characteristics.Practical implicationsThe extension of the family‐friendly schemes may have had negative boomerang effects on the compensation and careers of all women, irrespective of whether they become mothers or not. Especially for those women aiming to reach the top of the organisation, these effects may be important because potential career interruptions are expected to be more severe for this group.Originality/valueThis study adds to the limited empirical literature on the gender pay gap among the narrow group of top executives using a large panel employer‐employee data set of all Danish companies.

Investor Protection and the Value of Shares: Evidence from Statutory Rules Governing Variations of Shareholders' Class Rights in Russia

This paper uses a quasi-experimental framework provided by recent changes in Russian corporate law to study the effect of investor protection on the value of shares. The legal change analyzed involves the empowerment of preferred (non-voting) shareholders to veto unfavorable changes in their class rights. Based on a novel hand-collected dataset of dual class stock companies in Russia and using the difference-in-difference estimator, the study finds a statistically and economically significant effect of improved protection of preferred shareholders on the value of their shares. The result is robust to several changes in the empirical specification.

Does Within-Tenure Experience Make You ‘Tougher’? Evidence from Competition Law

This paper investigates experience effects for public officials. Using a unique data set of companies investigated under UK competition law, we find very strong experience effects for chairman of investigation panels, estimated from the increase in experience of individual chairman. Probit and IV probit regressions indicate that replacing an inexperienced chairman with one of average experience increases the probability of a ‘guilty’ outcome by approximately 30% and after chairing around 30 cases a chairmen is predicted to find almost every case guilty.

Avoiding Labor Shortages by Employer Signaling: On the Importance of Good Work Climate and Labor Relations

Reversing the original signaling model, this study explains how employers signal the non-observable quality of their workplace and thereby reduce labor shortages. Based on a company data set of 204 German firms, the authors find, as predicted by their theory, that the existence of a works council, an apprenticeship training program, and a high-quality incumbent workforce significantly improves recruitment success because they all reliably signal appealing workplaces. At the same time, frequent hiring of workers with non-matching qualifications reduces recruitment success because it signals low-quality workplaces. The authors' research reveals that certain aspects of labor relations and workplace characteristics exert a significant impact on recruitment success, which cannot be explained by conventional theoretical arguments.

When does community participation enhance the performance of open source software companies?

This study examined how participation in open innovation communities influences the innovative and financial performance of firms commercializing open source software. Using an original dataset of open source companies in the Netherlands, I found that the community participation–performance relationship is curvilinear. In addition, results indicate that extensive technical participation in open source projects is more strongly related to performance for firms that also engage in social (“offline”) community activities, for companies of larger size, and for firms with high R&D intensities. Overall, this research refines our understanding of the boundary conditions under which engagement in community-based innovation yields private returns to commercial actors.

Does yardstick regulation really work? Empirical evidence from Japan’s rail industry

This paper investigates the effectiveness of yardstick regulation by using a data set of rail companies in Japan and estimating the variable frontier cost function. In the variable cost function, both the coefficient of the yardstick regulation dummy and the coefficient of the competitive pressure outside the industry show the negative sign with statistical significance, indicating that the introduction of yardstick regulation and competition tend to decrease a rail company’s variable cost. Between 1995 and 2000, railways to which yardstick regulation was applied improved cost efficiency by about 11.5%.

Investor Protection and Share Prices: Evidence from Statutory Rules Governing Variations of Shareholders' Class Rights in Russia

This paper uses a quasi-experimental framework provided by recent changes in Russian corporate law to study the effect of investor protection on the value of shares. The legal change analyzed involves the empowerment of preferred (non-voting) shareholders to veto unfavorable changes in their class rights. Based on a novel hand-collected dataset of dual class stock companies in Russia and using the difference-in-difference estimator, the study finds a statistically and economically significant effect of improved protection of preferred shareholders on the value of their shares. The result is robust to several changes in the empirical specification.

The determinants of board composition in a transforming economy: Evidence from Russia

Using a unique dataset of 730 joint-stock companies, we studied the determinants of corporate board composition in Russia. Despite the widespread image of insider control in the 1990s, a large number of Russian companies now actively appoint outsider directors to monitor top management. The findings reported in this paper strongly suggest that the theories and empirical methods of financial and organizational economics help to pinpoint the factors affecting the extent of outsider directorship. We also found that, among potential determinants, bargaining variables have considerable explanatory power. Furthermore, our empirical evidence demonstrated that Russia's legal system and its peculiarities as a transition economy also exert a certain degree of influence on board composition.

Founders versus non-founders in large companies: financial incentives and the call for regulation

This paper is intended to question some of the premises in the ever increasing calls to regulate executive pay. We focus on founders, and extend Shleifer and Vishny’s (1989, Journal of Political Economy, 94, 461–488) manager-specific investments model by explicitly modeling managerial effort and pay performance sensitivity. Tests of this model on a data set of large companies, controlling for the endogeneity of managerial compensation, indicate that founders tend to be less responsive to performance incentives and generally more entrenched. At the same time, founders’ led firms are more valuable, supporting our predictions. This suggests that for founders, regulation of compensation may not be very effective.

The impact of offshored and outsourced call service centers on customer appraisals

Firms are increasingly relying upon offshored and/or outsourced call centers to provide post-sales assistance to their customers. Although the motivation to engage in these practices is efficiency gains, the possibility exists that offshored and outsourced call centers may have a detrimental impact on customer appraisals. The aim of this research is to posit the conceptual reasons as to why differences may arise in customer evaluations from these practices. To this end, we rely on the homophily principle and hybrid organization theory to provide conceptual grounding, and utilize a company dataset of customer post-call evaluations to offer an initial test of the hypotheses.

Cross versus Within-Company Cost Estimation Studies: A Systematic Review

The objective of this paper is to determine under what circumstances individual organizations would be able to rely on cross-company-based estimation models. We performed a systematic review of studies that compared predictions from cross-company models with predictions from within-company models based on analysis of project data. Ten papers compared cross-company and within-company estimation models; however, only seven presented independent results. Of those seven, three found that cross-company models were not significantly different from within-company models, and four found that cross-company models were significantly worse than within-company models. Experimental procedures used by the studies differed making it impossible to undertake formal meta-analysis of the results. The main trend distinguishing study results was that studies with small within-company data sets (i.e., $20 projects) that used leave-one-out cross validation all found that the within-company model was significantly different (better) from the cross-company model. The results of this review are inconclusive. It is clear that some organizations would be ill-served by cross-company models whereas others would benefit. Further studies are needed, but they must be independent (i.e., based on different data bases or at least different single company data sets) and should address specific hypotheses concerning the conditions that would favor cross-company or within-company models. In addition, experimenters need to standardize their experimental procedures to enable formal meta-analysis, and recommendations are made in Section 3.

Determinants of technology licensing: the case of licensors

This paper empirically analyzes the behavior of technology licensors using a large dataset of US-traded companies. The stock of technological knowledge of the licensor, this company's prior exposure to licensing, the rate of growth of its primary sector, the strength of IPR protection, and the nature of the technology are found to be important determinants of the propensity to sell technology through nonexclusive licenses. Smaller firms in industries with ‘simpler’ technologies tend to sell technology through exclusive licenses more than others. In contrast, larger firms in industries dealing with more ‘complex’ technologies engage relatively more in cross licensing. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Biased Lending and Non-performing Loans in China's Banking Sector

This article uses a panel data set of public listing companies in China empirically to explore the relationship between banks' lending behaviour and non-performing loans. Our results show that state-owned enterprises (SOEs) got more loans than other firms, other things being equal, and SOEs with high default risks were able to borrow more than the low-risk SOEs and non-SOEs. This suggests that Chinese banks had a systemic lending bias in favour of SOEs, particularly those with high default risks, during the period under investigation. The causes and implications of this behaviour are discussed.

Capital Structure and Financial Risk: Evidence from Foreign Debt Use in East Asia

AbstractUsing a data set of East Asian nonfinancial companies, we examine a firm's choice between local, foreign, and synthetic local currency (hedged foreign currency) debt. We find evidence of unique as well as common factors that determine each debt type's use, indicating the importance of examining debt at a disaggregated level. We exploit the Asian financial crisis as a natural experiment to investigate the role of debt type in firm performance. Surprisingly, we find that the use of synthetic local currency debt is associated with the biggest drop in market value, possibly due to currency derivative market illiquidity during the crisis.

The Announcement and Long-Term Effects of Hiring a Management Consulting Firm

Despite the prominence of management consulting firms, there is little systematic evidence in the finance and economic literature of their impact on corporate performance. This paper assembles a unique dataset of companies that announce their relationships with a management consulting firm between 1991 and 2001. Stock returns fall by an average of 4.3 percentage points relative to the market when an announcement is made. The median price drop is 1.6 percentage points. In a longer-term analysis, the intercepts from a Fama-French four-factor model show that announcing companies earn negative risk adjusted returns prior to their announcements. Risk adjusted returns are significantly higher after the announcement, with the total risk adjusted return peaking at 1.3 percentage points per month approximately three years after the announcement. In addition, we show that the companies that announce a relationship with a management consultant tend to under perform their competitors before hiring and then begin to outperform them after two years. Average employment growth turns sharply negative in the years following the announcement; however, the positive risk-adjusted returns are only weakly correlated with employment contractions in the cross-section of announcement companies.

Financial Factors and Investment in Belgium, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom: A Comparison Using Company Panel Data

We construct company panel data sets for manufacturing firms in Belgium, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, covering the period 1978–1989. These data sets are used to estimate empirical investment equations, and to investigate the role played by financial factors in each country. A robust finding is that cash flow and profits terms appear to be both statistically and quantitatively more significant in the United Kingdom than in the three continental European countries. This is consistent with the suggestion that financial constraints on investment may be relatively severe in the more market-oriented U.K. financial system.