Corporate Deals Research Articles

Optimizing an FPR-based supplier-retailer integrated problem with an outsourcer, rework, expedited rate, and probabilistic breakdown

Internal supply chains exist in many global enterprises, where manufacturing tasks and sales jobs operate separately, but the management needs to integrate their financial performance reports. In addition, the fabrication planning must meet specific operational goals, such as meeting external clients’ requirements on quality and short order due dates, avoiding internal fabricating interruptions due to inevitable equipment breakdowns, and minimizing overall manufacturing and stock holding costs. Motivated by helping multinational corporations deal with the issues mentioned earlier, this study aims to optimize a finite production rate (FPR)-based supplier-retailer cooperative problem with multi-shipment, rework, subcontracting, probabilistic failure, and expedited rate. Wherein using an outsourcer and expedited-rate help shorten the needed batch producing time significantly; the rework of defects and corrective action on unanticipated breakdown assist in up-keeping the quality and avoiding fabricating delay. We develop an FPR-based model to cautiously represent the considered manufacturing features and activities involved in transporting end products and retailers’ stock holding. Model’s formulating and investigating assists us in gaining the function of operating costs. In addition, optimization procedures with a proposed algorithm help us verify its convexity and decide the model’s best fabricating runtime solution. Finally, we validate how this study works and what important information our model can disclose using a numerical example to facilitate management’s decision-making to end our work.

How Does a Responsible Leader Win in a Competitive World?

Competitiveness demonstrates a firm’s effectiveness in achieving an advantage over others. A leader’s competitiveness can facilitate higher profits and growth. It can also lead to unethical and irresponsible corporate dealings. This paper suggests competitiveness can be responsible. Responsible Leadership defines two main responsible leaders (RL), integrative and instrumental. Integrators are linked to social responsibility and multiple stakeholders, while Instrumentalists are associated with competitive advantage and shareholders. Missing from extant research frameworks is how the two RLs experience competitiveness. We examined the lived experience of a group of Top 100 Leaders in Canada, finding that both RLs practiced responsible competitiveness. A more nuanced group, they shared characteristics and personal values that seemed to curb the overreach or hyper-competitiveness associated with irresponsibility.

Nation‐dyadic history and cross‐border corporate deals: Role of conflict, trade, generational distance, and professional education

Abstract Research SummaryThis paper explores why and how nation‐dyadic history impacts aggregated firm decisions involving cross‐border activities (acquisitions, joint ventures, and alliances). We contextualize history and illustrate the negative effect of historical conflict on cross‐border deals. Nation‐dyads with historical conflict incorporate negative sentiments into their social and collective memories and national identities. Members of society assume the socially constructed national identity via primary and secondary socialization. National identities incorporate sentiments towards other nations and condition individuals' preferences, culminating in a preference‐biased search for or preference‐supporting evaluation of information concerning cross‐border deals. An increased generational distance from prior conflict and a higher percentage of graduates with common professional identities constructed by higher education in the social sciences, law, and business dampen the negative influence of historical conflict. Managerial SummaryThere is a reciprocal relationship between international trade and conflict across two nations: as the potential for conflict increases, trade levels fall, and as trade levels increase, the potential for conflict rises. We disentangle this relationship and determine the implications of historical conflict between two nations for cross‐border corporate deals (i.e., acquisitions/joint ventures/alliances). We show that, controlling for other factors, more frequent historical conflict discourages cross‐border corporate deals. We see this finding as a result of biased decision making based on preferences which reflect sentiments formed by national identities. Two mechanisms dampen the negative relationship between binational conflict and cross‐border deals: a higher percentage of business/law/social sciences graduates and a higher number of generations passed since the last conflict.

An assessment whether shareholder activism can be a corporate governance driver in the case of Mauritius

Purpose“Shareholder activism works when shareholders understand something about the characteristics of the business that the board doesn’t”. As complex the term shareholder activism may seem, it demonstrates a very simple phenomenon of how shareholder take control of a situation to turn it in their favor. The whole world has taken an activism “twist” where every person has a word to say. The same characteristic of the society is showcased in this paper where engagement of shareholder is questioned whether it helps to promote effective corporate governance. Given the fact that Mauritius has a rather low shareholder activism framework, this research aims to depict the international picture of the issue at different levels to reach a consensus with the local market. It was a major challenge as very little research has been conducted to accurately contrast shareholder activism with corporate governance. However, the international standards aim at giving a clear picture of how the shareholder activism actually functions.Design/methodology/approachThe research has adopted a black letter approach by analyzing relevant laws and legislations governing corporate governance matters in Mauritius and the USA, Malaysia, France and South Africa. Thereafter, a comparative analysis was made between Mauritius laws and the aforementioned countries. Recommendations were then put forward on the subject matter which is shareholder activism.FindingsResearch has shown development in corporate governance alongside the increase in shareholder activism. However, these research studies fail to prove that the development is because of shareholder activism itself. In fact, it could be because of increase in corporate intellects, removal of trade barriers, sustainable corporate practices and many such changes that have affected the corporate market somehow. Hence, it is difficult to conclude, with certainty, that the driver of good corporate governance is, in particular, the phenomenon of shareholder activism. Nevertheless, many result of shareholder activism has demonstrated a rather positive impact on the ongoing of the corporate dealings and on a personal note, it can be said that shareholder activism is a domain where much research and development should be effected as it represents a promising improvement in the way corporations are governed.Originality/valueThe concept of shareholder activism is quite new to the Mauritius legislation. There has not been research done on whether shareholder activism, particularly, is the reason for corporate success or failure. In this light, this paper aims to analyze shareholder activism practices in other countries and puts forward recommendation in the Mauritius context which may be of use to stakeholders concerned.

Business and Human Rights in Occupied Territory: The UN Database of Business Active in Israel’s Settlements

AbstractThe law and practice concerning the responsibilities of businesses and the obligations of their home states in relation to private dealings in occupied territory are under-developed. The establishment of a database by the United Nations (UN) Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to monitor the activities of corporate actors in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) is an opportunity to provide much-needed guidance on the scope of application of existing international law in this paradigmatic case of a high-risk business environment. This article engages with the contribution of this initiative to the regulation of transnational corporate dealings through two normative issues: the structural characteristics and effects of the violations taking place in certain business environments maintained in the OPT on the responsibilities of business and home states; and the various modes through which businesses become directly linked with and contribute to the illicit property rights regime underpinning the existence of settlements and the serious human rights abuses perpetuated by their maintenance.

Lawyers in Africa: Brokers of the State, Intermediaries of Globalization: A Case Study of the “Africa” Bar in Paris

Africa is the “Global Economy's Last Frontier”! Images of the African continent as a boon of mineral riches, and a new legal Far West pervade media and scholarly accounts. Yet, these images tend to reflect the protracted political and development dependency of African states, with lawyers involved in corporate dealings on the continent either denounced as mercenaries at the service of neo-colonial “looting” or idealized as missionaries of the rule of law. This article suggests a research strategy that moves away from these ideological and political accounts. It uses lawyers' trajectories and professional strategies as an entry-point to reglobalize the longue duree of the unequal and uneven connections between Africa and the world. The “Africa” Bar in Paris— the empirical focus of this article—emerges as a microcosm of such interconnected and enduring histories of globalization. Offshore, yet connected, this Bar is a “cross-roads” space across politics and economics, shaped by the legacies of the ties between Paris, the metropole, and its former African colonies, and ongoing waves of corporate legal globalization from the U.S. toward Europe and most recently the African continent.

Political connections, institutional investors monitoring and stock price synchronicity

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the association between politically connected (POLCON) firms and stock price synchronicity, and whether this association can be attenuated by institutional investors.Design/methodology/approachThis paper uses an ordinary least square regression model to examine the association between POLCON firms and stock price synchronicity; institutional ownership and stock price synchronicity; the moderating role of institutional ownership on the association between POLCON firms and stock price synchronicity; institutional domiciles and stock price synchronicity; and the moderating role of institutional domiciles on the association between POLCON firms and stock price synchronicity.FindingsThe result shows that POLCON firms are positively associated with stock price synchronicity. Further, the author also finds that institutional monitoring, through higher ownership by local institutional investors is associated with lower stock price synchronicity. In addition, this study documents evidence that institutional investors, particularly local institutional investors can improve stock price informativeness in POLCON firms.Research limitations/implicationsThe results suggest that POLCON firms are plagued by severe agency problems, resulting in limited flow of firm-specific information to the capital markets. However, the author shows that POLCON firm’s agency problems can be attenuated through effective monitoring by institutional investors. Further, institutional domiciles are shown to be significantly associated with stock price synchronocity. However, effective monitoring is largely driven by local institutional investors, in line with the geographical proximity theory.Practical implicationsThe results suggest that regulators should increase their surveillance and monitoring effort, particularly on firms with close ties to the government. In particular, POLCON firms should be required to be more transparent in their corporate dealings. Additionally, auditors should intensify their audit efforts on POLCON firm to provide more reliable financial information to minority shareholders, investors and analysts. Finally, institutional investors should be incentivized by the Malaysian Securities Commission, via, the code of governance to play an effective monitoring role in Malaysian firms.Originality/valueThis study reveals that POLCON firms’ severe agency problems can be alleviated by effective institutional monitoring. Further result identifies institutional domiciles as a significant factor in influencing monitoring effectiveness in POLCON firms. This paper provides insights into the dynamic interaction between political connections, institutional monitoring, firm governance and capital markets behavior of an emerging market.

African Extractive Economies and Connected Histories of Globalization - A Case Study of the Africaa Bar in Paris

With the 2008 global financial crisis and Chinese economic growth, the African continent has re-emerged as a source of mineral riches, a boon for the expansion of global markets, and a new site of legal globalization. Yet - discussions on these developments tend to reflect the protracted political and development ‘dependency’ of African states, with lawyers involved in corporate dealings on the continent either denounced as mercenaries at the service of neo-colonial ‘looting’ or idealized as missionaries of the rule of law. The ‘Africa’ Bar in Paris - the empirical focus of this presentation - emerges as a microcosm of connected and enduring histories that position lawyers operating on the African continent in a ‘cross-roads’ space between politics and economics, shaped by the legacies of the ties between Paris the metropole and its former African colonies. A key intermediary site for corporations seeking to extract natural resources on the continent and invest in its emerging markets, Paris was also a beachhead for the expansion of US-led globalization of corporate law in Europe from the 1980s. On the basis of biographical interviews, this presentation traces the social and professional structure of this ‘Africa’ Bar in Paris. Dominated by predominantly French, male, lawyers operating in the Paris branches of major US and UK law firms, this Bar operates under the contradictory shadow of the clout of the Francafrique and the restructuring of commodities markets under the impetus of financialization and global regulatory frameworks. These on-going developments highlight the continuous connections between corporate and state power in the trajectory of the state and legal markets on the African continent and help trace the stakes of an open research agenda on extractive economies, knowledge, law and politics on the African continent.

State capitalism's global reach: Evidence from foreign acquisitions by state-owned companies

We examine the motives for and consequences of 4759 cross-border acquisitions constituting $593 billion of total activity that were led by government-controlled acquirers over the period from 1990 to 2008. Government acquirers are more likely than corporate acquirers to come from autocratic countries with higher levels of foreign currency reserves and more active domestic acquisitions programs, and they are more likely to pursue targets in countries with larger natural resource sectors and more potential to diversify their own industrial structures. When we account for the potential endogeneity of bidder-target matching that arises from a government deal being correlated with such observable or other unobserved characteristics, we find government deals are associated with higher announcement returns for the target firms, a higher probability of engaging in a complete control (100%) transaction, and no higher likelihood of deal failure or withdrawal compared to corporate deals. Policy implications are discussed, especially in light of recent regulatory changes in the U.S. and other countries that seek to restrict foreign acquisitions by government-controlled entities.

Perceptions on the Causes of Individual and Fraudulent Co-offending: Views of Forensic Accountants

Individual and/or co-offenders fraudulent activities can have a devastating effect on a company’s reputation and credibility. Enron, Xerox, WorldCom, HIH Insurance and One.Tel are examples where stakeholders incurred substantial financial losses as a result of fraud and led to a loss of confidence in corporate dealings by the public in general. There are numerous theoretical approaches that attempt to explain how and why fraudulent acts occur, drawing on the fields of sociology, organisational, management and economic literature, but there is limited empirical evidence published in accounting literature. This qualitative inductive study analyses perceptions and experiences of forensic accountants to gain insights into individual fraud and co-offending in order to determine whether the conceptual framework developed from literature accurately depicts the causes of fraud committed by individuals and groups in the twenty-first century. Findings from the study both support and extend the conceptual framework, demonstrating that strain and anomie can result in fraud, that deviant sub-groups recruit and coerce members by providing relief from strain, and that inadequate corporate governance mechanisms both contribute to fraud occurring, and provide the opportunity for fraudulent activities to be executed and often remain undetected. Additional factors emerging from this study (the ‘technoconomy’, addiction and IT measures) were also identified as contributors to fraud, particularly relevant to the twenty-first century, and consequently, a refined conceptual framework is presented in the discussion and conclusion to the paper.

Bangalore YP Workshop Discusses Mergers and Acquisitions

YP Newsflash SPE young professionals (YPs) workshop “The Future Is Now,” held in June in Bangalore, India, covered topics from geopolitics to fundamentals of management and included a session on mergers and acquisitions (M&A) titled “Mutually Beneficial Alliances.” The goal of the M&A session was to help YPs understand how M&A deals can be used to create value, improve the economical or technological standing, or survive the competitive environment. Along with insight into key aspects of the M&A activity in the energy industry, the session also covered the importance of joint ventures, which help companies overcome challenges and grow mutually. Various statistical analyses were presented, which covered the dynamics of the market. Yashodeep Deodhar, founder and managing partner of Derrick Petroleum_Services, a publisher of databases and research for the oil and gas industry, was the first speaker. He started by citing the fact that around 3 to 10 M&A deals happen per day and explained the two types of deals: corporate and assets. He said that every buying or selling organization tries to balance its portfolio and be at a better place in the industry. Using several graphs, Deodhar summarized the status of M&A activity in the various segments of the industry and explained how they are affected by the price volatility: In the first quarter of 2015, only 16 deals of value greater than USD 100 million have happened. The majors are only interested in corporate deals, national oil companies (NOCs) have significantly stopped buying, and not much is happening in the midstream segment. The oilfield services have been badly hurt by the price drop. Downstream industry is stable as low crude prices help to increase refining margin. With increasing development costs, sustainability becomes critical for companies. FMC Technologies’ business manager for India, Venky Gopalan, spoke next. Having seen the alliance between FMC Technologies and Technip to form Forsys Subsea, Gopalan was able to share his insight on the strategies involved in M&A activities. The alliance is based on the concept of changing the design to reduce complexity and time in order to increase field performance. He said that early involvement with operations in the concept selection phase and promoting integrated design adds value to the venture.

How Corporations Deal with Reporting Sustainability: Assessment Using the Multicriteria Logistic Biplot Approach

This paper suggests a new methodology capable of accessing in detail the contribution of companies to countries’ sustainability related to economic performance. The concept of sustainability has been brought up in several debates, leading to a clearer understanding of its progress in recent decades. The most adequate indicators to achieve a unique value to define sustainability have been identified. However, specific behaviors of economic agents such as exist in particularly large organizations, have rarely been exposed and evaluated regarding their positive or negative contribution to the increase of sustainability throughout the world. This paper proposes an integrated approach incorporating an evaluation of the positive and negative contributions to sustainability by means of a logistic biplot application. This allows the creation of a summarized index that combines all single sustainability indicators. These synthetic indices allow the positioning of each of the companies in a geometric representation for an original exploration of the sustainability paradigm. The supplied method permits accessing and evaluating information concerning specific behaviors of economic agents such as big companies. In our paper, we have followed the engagements towards sustainability of big corporations, individually or as groups, across the different activity sectors in Portugal and Spain.

Architectures for Scalable Databases in Cloud – And Application Specifications

Abstract Despite cloud abstractions, data is critical to applications hosted on cloud. Thus, overwhelming data flow also requires database tier to be scaled efficiently and dynamically besides other tiers in cloud platform. However, this is not easy since databases maintain tightly coupled state while promising transactional support. Objective of this paper is to survey scalable DBMS architectures deployed for hosting data-centric applications that are gaining momentum in analytical processing, scientific researches, personalized searches and corporate dealings. This paper reviews scalable architectures and their suitability to host specific classes of applications. Finally it addresses issues in current architectures and presents some future suggestions.

Dialogue and Relationship Building in Online Financial Communications

The use of social media in investor communications is a fairly new phenomenon. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States announced that corporations may use social media to disclose mandatory key information required by law. With that ruling, social media communications leaves the sometimes fancy world of creativity and image creation and enters the core of strategic communication linked to corporate viability and success. Investor relations in general are essentially about engaging in dialogues with shareholders. Whereas disseminating information online is quite established, online dialogues offer a greater challenge. Dialogue-oriented and dialogic communication processes are not the same according to speech philosophy; and dialogic communication serves only as one possibility for corporations to build relationships with stakeholders. The research presented here analyzes how listed corporations deal with the highly participatory and fragmented communication environment on the web. The prevalence and intensity of social media dialogues was analyzed in an empirical study that focused on the 150 largest global corporations listed on DJIA (United States), FTSE (United Kingdom), CAC (France), DAX (Germany), and NIKKEI (Japan). A framework has been constructed to analyze dialogue-oriented and dialogic financial communications on the Internet and social web.

Aligning Law and Forum

When courts and legislatures choose where to resolve a dispute, they often must consider whether questions of law should be decided in the “home” court. When should, for instance, Delaware state courts decide questions of Delaware state law? The choice between the home forum and others is particularly stark in corporate law, where out-of-state courts must often apply the law of the state of incorporation. Litigation over corporate deals increasingly takes place in multiple, competing jurisdictions, presenting a clear choice between resolution in the home court or out of state. Beyond corporate law, the question arises any time legislatures must decide whether jurisdiction is exclusive, or courts must determine whether to stay a case or refer a question by way of certification, abstention, primary jurisdiction, or other sorting mechanisms. All of these instances raise the same normative question: When should law be decided in the home forum? In response, scholars and courts have pointed to vague notions of comity or focused on a single legal context. In contrast, this Article develops a robust theoretical account that crosses legal areas. It analyzes the tension in the U.S. legal landscape between doctrines that link law and forum (for instance, exclusive jurisdiction) and those that affirmatively separate them (for instance, diversity jurisdiction). It identifies two main functions of home court decisions: the lawmaking function derived from their unique power to bind, and the distinct repeat-player relationship that the home forum has with the body of law, which supports a claim to expertise. Finally, the Article uses these functions as the basis for an interest-balancing approach to determining when law should be decided at home.

Book Review: Show Me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication 2nd Ed by Chris Roush

Show Me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication. 2nd Ed. Chris Roush. New York and London: Routledge, 2011. 392 pp. $69.95 pbk.Chris Roush's Show Me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication is designed as a textbook for schools of journalism and business schools, offering conceptual guidance and practical examples to students and even to professional journalists on how to write on business and economics for modern mass media. It is a timely contribution in the current environment of academic criticism of the role of investigative and analytical journalism in missing the warning signs of the global financial crisis and serious misconduct by Western financial institutions.This criticism has amplified as the public in the United States and the United Kingdom continue to learn about the unhealthy and sometimes outright dirty business practices of some major Wall Street players. The book is written in classic journalist style with a number of real-life and short case studies to keep the readers intrigued and illustrate the work of business journalists in various professional situations.Roush is a Walter E. Hussmann Sr. Distinguished Scholar in business journalism at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and a founding director of the Carolina Business News initiative. He is a veteran journalist with experience working with influential media outlets from St. Petersburg Times and Business Week to Bloomberg News, and with a goodly number of other assignments under his professional belt. The main goal of his book is to fill the gap in professional business reporting and business journalism as, he writes, ...higher education and mass communication have failed miserably in effectively training journalists for careers in business reporting.The issues of business writing and examples of high-profile case studies of large corporate deals, spectacular failures and particularly the global financial crisis have been well covered since the beginning of the global economic downturn in 2008 (Natalie Canavor and Claire Meirowitz, 2009; Ken Davis, 2010; Harvard Business School Press, 2011; Mark W. Tatge, 2010; Terri Thompson, 2000). Yet the author believes that his book can offer some additional insights and valuable suggestions to help to prepare the next generation of students to be better equipped for dealing with economic issues and nailing those Wall Street sharks who disregard business ethics and the interests of society.The sixteen chapters of this book can be subdivided into three sections. Chapters 1-4 cover some general issues and ethics of business journalism. The author highlights how at certain points in journalism history, U.S. reporters ignored major developments in the business world or became too cozy with it. Therefore, they were unprepared to fulfill the role of public watchdogs in difficult economic times by conducting deep economic research and producing comprehensive high-quality analytical materials. In fact, according to his data, 92 percent of executives and 72 percent of journalists and journalism academics were concerned about a reporter's knowledge of the businesses they were covering. Besides raising concerns about the need for better business writing education, the author introduces some ideas about mining for stories in different business sectors from banking and manufacturing to technology, new media, and investments. …

Private Water Corporations Dealing with Public Interest

Multinational corporations (MNCs) in the water sector have taken up the task of supply and sanitation of water, a responsibility that used to belong to the government and in many countries still does. Also, the MNCs are taking part in governmental policy making related to water supply and sanitation. Especially in developing nations water is often regarded as a free commodity, but when corporations enter the arena this may ultimately change. Water becomes an economic good, co-governed by a profit-seeking company. A development which may lead to conflicting interests. This thesis analyses the water sector and provides a study into the changing roles and responsibilities of the key players in this sector. The main focus is on the challenges faced by MNCs performing activities that were and are considered to be part of the governmental responsibilities. The research question is: How do corporations deal with the public interest in the WSS sector?In the thesis, firstly a theoretic background on the MNC and international politics is offered by introducing corporate citizenship and regime theory. Secondly, the structure and key developments in the water sector are analysed. Thirdly, the thesis focuses on the activities of Veolia Environment in Morocco.

Coping with rapid information technology change in different national cultures

Coping with rapid information technology change challenges IT organizations throughout the world. National culture theory based on the GLOBE study suggests that culture affects the coping with such change in China and the United States, but does not cogently suggest that coping mechanisms differ in effectiveness across the two cultures. Analysis of data from 71 IT executives and managers in China and 246 in the United States suggests that Chinese IT organizations employ coping mechanisms of vendor support, education and training, and internal procedures more extensively than do U.S. IT organizations. IT organizations in both countries apply education and training as well as internal procedures to successfully deal with the problems of rapid IT change. Vendor support additionally predicted success in Chinese but not U.S. organizations, whereas in both U.S. and Chinese organizations endurance predicted lack of success. The research thus extends national culture theory by proposing that culture affects successful coping. Implications for research suggest the identification of actions to overcome the impact of cultural differences. Implications for practice suggest that multinational corporations deal with rapid IT change differently in divisions in different cultures, regardless of whether in China, the United States, Europe, or elsewhere.

Context‐bound configurations of corporate HR functions in multinational corporations

AbstractConsiderable attention has focused on how multinational corporations (MNCs) deal with the simultaneous pressures of globalization and localization when it comes to human resource management (HRM). HR function activities in this process, however, have received less focus. The study presented here identifies configurations of the corporate HR function based on international HRM (IHRM) structures, exploring how issues of interdependency shape corporate HR roles. The study is based on 248 interviews in 16 MNCs based in 19 countries. The findings are applied to develop a contextually based framework outlining the main corporate HR function configurations in MNCs, including new insights into methods of IHRM practice design. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Perspectives on Australian foreign policy, 2005

The year 2005 was notable for the Howard government's embrace of China. Spectacular resource deals were accompanied by the government's optimistic public declarations that China's rise could be accommodated in the current Asia–Pacific power structure. Alliance relations, which were the cornerstone of the Howard government's foreign policy, were boosted further by the decision to strengthen the Australian Defence Force's capacity to contribute to future US operations. The central challenge for this government arising from its decision-making in 2005 was to manage both major power relations in tandem. This was a year where the connection between international policy and domestic issues stood in stark relief. Terrorism concerns provided the context for the government's foreign policy but it also drove stringent domestic legislation. Australia's relationship with Indonesia improved but the commitment to Iraq remained problematic. Not the least of these difficulties stemmed from the exposure of the Australian Wheat Board's corporate dealings in Iraq which had operated counter to the government's international policy.