Energy Firms Research Articles

The Impact of Climate Policy on U.S. Clean Energy Firms: A Firm-Level Examination of Stock Return, Volume, Volatility, and Connectedness

The Impact of Climate Policy on U.S. Clean Energy Firms: A Firm-Level Examination of Stock Return, Volume, Volatility, and Connectedness

Digitalization and corporate transformation: The case of European oil & gas firms

• Digital transformation initiatives suffer from poor governance and are understudied in the energy sector. • Eisenhardt's framework is used to build theories from case study research. • Internal, external and mixed strategic tools used in the energy sector are analyzed. • Two matrices are developed to guide digital transformation in the energy sector. Digital technologies have had a tremendous impact on the world and have forced companies to adapt their business models, strategies and management practices. There is a scarcity of research about digital transformation in the energy sector, so this paper aims to analyze this phenomenon in the Oil & Gas sector through a comparative case analysis of eight market leading European Oil & Gas companies. To ensure an adequate methodological approach, the authors have applied Eisenhardt's framework to build theories from case study research. This article relies on multiple data collection methods. 26 interviews with 18 senior executives from the sample energy firms and two global consulting firms were completed in two separate phases. To complement these interviews, information and data were collected from a range of public sources, such as newspapers, video interviews, business magazines and analyst reports, as well as public information from the eight companies under analysis, such as annual and financial reports, company presentations, regulatory filings and announcements and company news. Our research highlights several transformational moves in the firms under study that bring substantial new capabilities and allow them to achieve market-leading positions in new and digitally native business areas -although modest in size. The sample firms mainly opt for combinations of small transformational strategies to achieve their large transformation goals. However, in many organizations, digital and business transformation initiatives suffer from poor governance and are typically just a collection of unconnected activities, piecemeal strategies and pilot projects. Developing a coherent transformation strategy, with the right structure and governance, remains a challenge for most organizations. This paper, leveraging the collective learnings from the eight companies studied, aims to help decision-makers with a conceptual guideline to select the most appropriate strategic tools when undergoing a transformation, based on four dimensions that are of high relevance across multiple strategic environments.

Complex Risk Contagions Among Large International Energy Firms: A Multi-Layer Network Analysis

Complex Risk Contagions Among Large International Energy Firms: A Multi-Layer Network Analysis

Impact of corporate social responsibility on financial performance of energy firms in India

Impact of corporate social responsibility on financial performance of energy firms in India

Comparing the Effect of Intangible Assets and Macroeconomic Parameters on the Stock Prices in Firms Listed on the Stock Exchange of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq

Comparing the Effect of Intangible Assets and Macroeconomic Parameters on the Stock Prices in Firms Listed on the Stock Exchange of Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq

Achieving Sustainability in Solar Energy Firms in Turkey through Adopting Lean Principles

Lean principles and sustainability are considered important terms in business. Solar firms are witnessing great competition to fulfill energy requirements, suffering from a huge amount of waste, negatively affecting the sustainability dimensions. Thus, the aim of the study is to build a framework for solar energy firms to achieve sustainability through adopting lean principles, which will help to fix many problems as waste and costs. The method included reviewing the literature to explore the founding of the relation between the two terms, and using a questionnaire that was directed to the responsible people in Turkish solar energy firms. The results of the survey were analyzed to: (1) Find out what the responsible people think about the two terms lean and sustainability; (2) Measure the probable relationship between lean principles and sustainability dimensions by applying a linear regression test; (3) Use the results of point number two to build the framework. The result showed there was a high level of relative importance about the two terms from the point of view of managers and experts in solar firms. In addition, the study found a relationship between adopting pull and flow principles of lean, and achieving economic and social dimensions of sustainability, this finding is represented in a framework.

Tools for solving management tasks in economic systems of the «organization» type

The digital economy requires the digital transformation of firms. There is no single solution to the digital transformation process. For each company, the process is carried out according to an individual plan. You can use world experience, but in certain segments of the digital economy, the Russian Federation has gone further than other countries. The authors proposed to consider the problems of digital transformation of energy companies separately. Then combine it into a single approach.
 Digital transformation is much broader than the digitization of the workflow. Often, digitizing documents does not provide the synergistic effect of digital transformation. Digital transformation requires a change in the entire management system. All strategic documents should be reengineered. Digital transformation requires new models and methods that can use the information technologies and artificial intelligence systems that appear in the future. The introduction of blockchain technologies as part of digital transformation will allow changing the centralized management system. This will lead to significant cost savings. Digital transformation has highlighted a problem related to the lack of basic competencies of the digital economy among the leaders of energy firms. It is necessary to solve the identified problem in the shortest possible lines. The article reveals the problems associated with the use of information technologies by energy companies supplied from other countries with the possibility of remote change.

Econometric analysis of factors influencing commercial helicopter operators’ stock returns in the gulf of Mexico

Commercial helicopter services in the oil and gas industry play a vital role in transporting crews and supplies to offshore installations. There has been ample research analyzing the impacts of fluctuating crude oil and natural gas prices on regional economies, energy service firms and upstream, downstream and integrated energy firms. However, the extent to which commercial helicopter operators' stock returns are related to commodity prices and other relevant industry variables is absent. Often, firms attribute favorable financial results to internal factors whereas unfavorable financial results are attributed to external factors. Commodity prices have exhibited a negative relationship with airlines and other transportation firms due to the input price of fuel whereas demand for helicopter services is hypothesized to be positively related to crude oil and natural gas prices. In order to determine the contributing factors related to firms' stock returns, empirical analyses are required, and conducted in this paper. Using a unique data set from 2013 to 2018, this paper presents research which identifies structural relationships between crude oil prices, natural gas prices, the rotary rig count, a subset of the overall market and stock returns of commercial helicopter operators, which is a unique addition to the extant literature and provides researchers and practitioners foundational knowledge for future research inquiries and operational and investment decision making, respectively. Empirical analyses show that 10% increases in the crude oil price and the S&P 500 index yield a 2.7% and 8.0% increase in stock returns, ceteris paribus. Crude oil price risk may be increasingly prevalent as societies promote renewable energy sources. Furthermore, we present foundational knowledge that promotes further research and knowledge representing a caveat to traditional relationships between commodity prices and transportation firms’ financial performance.

Panel Dataset to Assess Proactive Eco-Innovation in the Paradigm of Firm Financial Progression

Recently, eco-innovation has received a lot of attention in the academic and corporate world due to its potential to accelerate firm financial progression. To measure eco-innovation, mostly primary data and a reactive approach were employed. By emphasising the proactive approach and utilising a secondary panel dataset, this study fills the existing research gap. Data presented in this paper comprise 31 energy firms from Bursa Malaysia for the years between 2015 and 2019. Panel data associated with eco-innovation proactiveness and firm financial progression were collected from three different sources such as company websites, annual reports, and sustainability reports using content analysis. For data collection, an index was adapted comprising five dimensions of eco-innovation, named as product, process, technology, organizational, and marketing. In addition to that, Tobin’s Q was considered as a proxy dimension for firm financial progression because it considers both market value as well as book value. Following a unit root test, six specific data diagnostic tests were performed to ensure data reliability and validity for future potential usage. The results reveal that the panel dataset was organised and is eligible for further statistical model analysis.

Do government subsidies improve innovation investment for new energy firms: A quasi-natural experiment of China's listed companies

This paper applies the fixed effects and the difference-in-differences models to explore the impact of government subsidies on the innovation investment of new energy firms by the financial information of China's listed companies from 2007 to 2017. The empirical results demonstrate that the subsidy scale of new energy enterprises has an inverted U-shaped relationship with enterprise innovation investment. The higher subsidy level has a crowding out effect on the research and development (R&D) investment of enterprises, which is largely attributable to the managerial myopia of enterprises. We further confirm the existence of the crowding out effect by exploring the quasi-natural experiment of China's new energy vehicle subsidy adjustment policy in 2016. We find that reducing subsidies is associated with a significant increase in R&D investment. This study reveals the optimal choice of government intervention.

The quantile dependence of the stock returns of “clean” and “dirty” firms on oil demand and supply shocks

The paper examines the degree to which firms' stock returns in the energy and technology sectors depend on oil demand and supply shocks by accounting for quantile dependence in shock transmission and causal linkages. Using monthly time-series data from January 2004 to December 2017, our evidence shows that the substitution between oil and clean commodities occurs only in the long-run when the oil market is subject to demand-driven shocks. Unlike oil demand shocks, we demonstrate that oil supply shocks display a relatively lower predictive power for the clean energy stock returns. We also report that firms in the dirty energy sectors display lower returns mainly due to their exposure to exogenous oil shocks, while firms in clean energy and technology sectors are more resilient to demand shocks as their exhibit positive returns in the long-run. Our findings provide evidence and guidance about investments opportunities in clean assets.

The impact of exchange rate policy uncertainty shock on Chinese energy firms' risk-taking

This study investigates the causal effect of exchange rate policy uncertainty shock on energy firms' risk-taking, employing the panel data of Chinese listed energy firms during 2003–2019. The results show that a shock of exchange rate policy uncertainty will lead to a significant increase in Chinese energy firms' risk-taking through encouraging these firms to seek for more government subsidies and invest more in financial assets. Moreover, the government subsidy channel is the main channel through which the exchange rate policy uncertainty shock influences the risk-taking of state-owned energy firms, while the financial asset investment channel is the main channel of the shock driving up the risk-taking of non-state-owned energy firms. We also find that the impact of the exchange rate policy uncertainty shock is weaker in energy firms with better growth opportunity and governance structure. These findings suggest that reducing the uncertainty regarding exchange rate policies helps alleviate the adverse shocks to energy firms and is conducive to preventing the potential financial risks.

Do energy policies bring about corporate overinvestment? Empirical evidence from Chinese listed companies

In an era of profound changes in the global economic and industrial landscape, the ability of renewable energy policies to create new growth drivers is critical to achieving China's economic recovery in the post-COVID-19 period. Consequently, this paper empirically examines whether renewable energy policies bring about corporate overinvestment. Using corporate investment data and hand-curated information on energy firms from Chinese listed companies from 2007 to 2018, the results show that implementing renewable energy policies causes firms to overinvest. Renewable energy investment is more of a government-led industrial policy, reflecting how local governments increase their degree of intervention in firm investment, leading to overinvestment and better short-term firm performance. However, in the long run, the overinvestment encouraged by renewable energy policies will more negatively impact the economic performance of state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Moreover, when economic policy uncertainty is high, renewable energy policies can lead to a more pronounced tendency for firms to overinvest. Despite this trend, renewable energy policies do not significantly increase the likelihood of overinvestment among firms with high state-owned or equity concentration but instead allow firm operators to make more rational investment decisions. Thus, the government should formulate policies to regulate the investment process of enterprises and avoid distorting their investment behavior when providing financial support and preferential policies.

Did the administrative approval reform in China affect the productivity of energy firms? – A quasi-natural experimental approach

This paper examines the impacts of China's administrative approval reform on the pro- ductivity of firms in the energy industry, using the establishment of the Administrative Approval Bureau (AAB) as a quasi-natural experiment. We apply event study strategy to exploit the dynamic treatment effects as the setting time of the AAB varies across cities. The findings show that the administrative approval reform has significantly induced an increase in the productivity of energy firms in China, by around 1% across various model specifications based on the data of listed energy firms from 2006 to 2019. This finding remains robust to alternative measurements of productivity and variations related to time trend, self-selection, outlier values and endogeneity. The effect of the reform is heteroge- neous across different industries, regions, and firms' ownership. Further mechanism anal- ysis suggests that the reform impacted firms' productivity through impeding technological innovation and promoting resource allocation, with the latter effect exceeding the former one. These results provide important policy implications for increasing the productivity of firms in both the energy sector and other energy dependent sectors.

Testing green fiscal policies for green investment, innovation and green productivity amid the COVID-19 era

This article measures renewable energy firm-level pure innovation efficiency, green productivity, technical efficiency, scale efficiency and total investment efficiency from micro input–output factors using Banker, Charnes and Cooper’s (BCC) data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach. Its main novelty is that it clearly explores the effective impacts of government subsidies and tax rebate policies on renewable energy firms’ investment efficiency using China’s renewable energy firm-level panel data. Our observational findings indicate that between 2001 and 2018, the aggregate degree of total investment performance from renewable energy firms rose steadily before declining. Renewable energy firms had larger ranges of total investment efficiency and size efficiency, and their levels of pure technological efficiency were both greater than 0.457%. At the 16% trust mark, current government subsidies and taxation rebates had dramatically positive effects on pure technological efficiency and total investment efficiency; additionally, government subsidies have a stronger positive impact on total investment efficiency and pure technical efficiency than taxation rebates. Furthermore, the ownership concentrations of renewable energy companies greatly encourage pure technological efficiency, size efficiency and total investment efficiency, and asset returns will significantly increase their average degree of total investment efficiency and pure technical efficiency.

HR practices and turnover intention; the mediating role of organizational commitment in Tehran: a cross-sectional study.

Background: Employees are increasingly being recognised as a valuable source of information, especially in knowledge-based businesses. Businesses, however, suffer financial and organisational memory losses related to re-hiring and training new staff, and lost productivity and intellectual property because of employee turnover. Hence, employee turnover should be considered an essential part of human resource management. Furthermore, employees' trust in management and human resource (HR) practices substantially impact organisational commitment (OC). Thus, anticipating employee commitment and turnover intentions is crucial, as people are the sole source for knowledge-based firms to maintain their competitive advantage. In the context of selected Tehran Renewable Energy (RE) firms, this study investigated the mediating impact of OC on the relationship between HR practices (recruitment and selection; training and development opportunities; performance appraisal and evaluation; teamwork; compensation and pay; and job security) and employee turnover intention. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study in Tehran that involved 90 experts and knowledgeable employees from four of Tehran's top RE businesses. A questionnaire was distributed to collect data which was later analysed with correlation, regression and bootstrapping analyses. Results: All six dimensions of HR practices were discovered to have an indirect impact on turnover intention and a direct impact on OC. OC among employees has an indirect effect on turnover intention. It was also revealed that the training and development opportunity has the most considerable effect on OC and turnover intention. OC was not found as a mediator between HR practices and turnover intention. Conclusions: The outcomes of this study showed that both training and development opportunities; and pay and compensation structure were found to be two significant components of HR practices in the relationship with OC. RE managers should employ appropriate HR strategies, particularly in these two dimensions, to improve an individual's degree of OC and reduce turnover intention.

Does Shariah compliance affect investor behaviour in the COVID-19 times: evidence from herding in the global energy market

ABSTRACT This paper investigates whether the Shariah compliance matters in determining investor behaviour in herding across firms in the global energy market. Our sample comprises 2501 globally listed energy equities from 10 April 2019 to 8 April 2020 from the Refinitv Eikon database, which also flags firms as compliant or otherwise with Shariah or Islamic law. Using closing price data for the selected firms, we analyse herding behaviour across the two groups, in addition to various firm and market characteristics such as size, profitability, analyst recommendations about future performance and up and down market days. Our results suggest herding in both Shariah and non-Shariah-compliant energy firms, and on down market days in particular. Cross-sectional tests indicate higher herding in larger and more-profitable Shariah firms, and those with positive analyst forecasts for the future, which is consistent with pressure-driven behaviour to maintain performance. In particular, we find that the COVID-19 pandemic does not significantly alter herding behaviour for the sample firms.

The Influence of Investors’ Mood on the Stock Prices: Evidence from Energy Firms in Warsaw Stock Exchange, Poland

The subject of this publication is an analysis of the sentiment of stock exchange investors in terms of making investment decisions in the energy sector of the Polish stock exchange. The investment mood is considered in the context of the possible impact of weather factors on investment decisions. Possible effects are verified in relation to the rates of return and the volume of trading of energy sector entities. The analysis is carried out both in terms of co-integration analyses as well as in econometric terms, in the cross-section of classic OLS models or causality analysis using VAR vector autoregression models. The main purpose of the issues discussed is the problem of indicating (illustrating) the presence or absence of mutual relations between weather factors and the stock market in terms of the methods considered.

A Corpus-based empirical study on energy enterprises digital transformation

[Objective/Significance]This study aims to explore the role and mechanism of dynamic KM for the digital transformation of energy enterprises. This paper conducts an empirical study on mechanism of energy enterprises’ digital transformation from the perspective of KM, which is likely to contribute to relevant academic literatures. [Method/Process]On the basis of the KM theory, the SECIE Model was constructed, together with a self-built Corpus-based empirical model; Corpus’ AHP-DEMATEL evaluation system applies to verify both reliability and consistency of the model by Concordance and Matrix. [Results/Conclusions]The research results show that KM during the energy firm digitalization is evidently a dynamic process, rather than static, in which there are 5 key elements(with corpus word hits), namely, learning (942 hits), embed (771 hits), internalize (685 hits), adapt (614 hits), integration (315 hits), that are identified and worth paying attention to. Other than that , those five factors are essential for influencing the digital transformation of enterprises; empirical study confirms that they all play a positive and significant role. Knowledge integration possesses the greatest weight(0.28), followed by internalization(0.19), learning(0.18) and adaptation(0.18), with embedding(0.16) being much lower. Based on the results, this paper draws a conclusion: the mechanism of KM for promoting digital transformation of energy enterprises lies in the integration and optimization of digital resources. “Self-transcendence knowledge” is very pivotal in the role of knowledge management in promoting energy firms to swiftly respond to future digital opportunities.

Does corporate environmental responsibility affect investor future goal in the energy sector firms?

This study investigates the relationship between corporate environmental responsibility and firm’s financial performance by using a sample set of 2,241 firm-year observations representing 470 unique energy firms from 30 countries from 2013–2020. Supporting stakeholder theory, we find that firms with better environmental responsibility actions are associated with higher Tobins’q, suggesting that the investors react positively to the firm’s environmental initiatives. Overall, our findings suggest that firms in the energy sector should pay attention to corporate environmental responsibility practices to obtain a good response from the investors and achieve the firm’s long-term financial goals.