Investment Commitment Research Articles

Performance implications of using signaling and screening for expanding interfirm business networks: Evidence from franchising

Entrepreneurial business firms such as franchisors can enhance their network performance by attracting high-quality partners and preventing low-quality partners from joining the network. We draw on agency and transaction cost theories and the substantive literature on voluntary information disclosure to develop a theoretical framework that examines the consequences of using signaling and screening mechanisms for interfirm network performance. Our model posits a complementary effect for signaling and screening because of their ability to offset the disadvantages of each other. We empirically evaluate our hypotheses through econometric analyses of a unique multi-sector panel dataset from the U.S. franchising industry. We find that ex-ante signaling and screening at the contractual relationship formation stage are complementary mechanisms that enhance network performance when they are used together. Additionally, we find that specific investments by the focal firm and by the partners positively moderate the performance impact of screening and signaling respectively. Our findings suggest that the joint use of screening and signaling and their synchronization with specific investment commitments from each side can assist an entrepreneurial business network in mitigating the double-sided adverse selection problem at the formation stage of dyadic network partnerships and enhancing network performance.

Investment, value, and the making of entrepreneurship in India

In recent years, a new class of entrepreneurs and investors has emerged in India. In this article, based on fourteen months of ethnographic fieldwork with start‐ups in Delhi, I examine how entrepreneurs are valued by investors and the sociocultural implications of this process. I make two arguments. First, the criteria used to judge creditworthiness, including personal networks, technological capability, and ability to undertake speculative risk, serve as signals of an entrepreneur's value to prospective investors. Second, as investors acknowledge, the investment is made in the specific personhood of the entrepreneur rather than the business plan. Therefore the process of seeking investment capital, far from being simply a means of scaling one's business, is an act of cultural construction. The entrepreneur's value as wealth‐in‐people is not judged objectively; rather, it is created through the process of pitching and securing investment commitments. One of the contributions of this research is to center the real and perceived relationship between entrepreneurs and investors in studying start‐up spaces in India. Examining this relationship reveals the forms of economic, sociocultural, and moral value that are interwoven with each other. The multiple, often contradictory meanings attached to entrepreneurship are negotiated through the prism of investment, which emerges as a dynamic site for constructing and contesting entrepreneurial identities.

Reckitt Benckiser confirms £200 M UK investment commitment including new Science & Innovation Centre

Reckitt Benckiser confirms £200 M UK investment commitment including new Science & Innovation Centre

Мировой опыт ГЧП: пятна на солнце

<span>Мировой опыт государственно-частного партнерства рассмотрен как объект для сравнения с российской практикой. Показаны сильные и слабые стороны ГЧП, изучены его потенциальные возможности, рассмотрено, в какой степени последние используются в реальной практике. Динамика инвестиционных обязательств и численности инициированных проектов в двух группах стран</span><span class="myHorizontalScaleForEmDashSpaceBefore"> </span><span>–</span><span class="myHorizontalScaleForEmDashSpaceAfter"> </span><span>с высоким уровнем экономического развития и с развивающимися рынками</span><span class="myHorizontalScaleForEmDashSpaceBefore"> </span><span>–</span><span class="myHorizontalScaleForEmDashSpaceAfter"> </span><span>показала, что в последнее десятилетие происходит повсеместное существенное замедление инвестиционного процесса. Выявлено, что во всех странах мира, не исключая и Россию, статистика проектов ГЧП обладает серьезным дефектом: в то время как инвестиционные обязательства отражаются в статистике почти неукоснительно, реальный инвестиционный процесс отражения не находит. Благодаря принятию в Великобритании закона о доступе граждан к информации, накапливаемой в государственных органах, удалось установить множество неприглядных фактов, в частности, выяснить, что при реализации проектов государственно-частного партнерства часто происходит обогащение частных партнеров за счет государственных финансов. Искусственно созданный дефицит информации позволяет скрывать извлечение частной выгоды за счет налогоплательщиков.</span>

The Effect of Investment Committee on the Financial Sector Performance of Saudi Financial Market in View of Vision 2030: A Panel Data Approach

The investment committee is primarily a decision-making entity that aims to implement investment decisions taken by the company. In the framework of the powers conferred upon it by the board, the importance of this committee is highlighted and as such, in the present study, the primary aim is to examine the effect of investment on Saudi financial sector, an examination that is the first of its kind. The investment variable was measured by investment committee characteristic including, size, independence, meeting, commitment and allowance for session attendance. The study data was gathered from the annual reports of the financial firms spanning from 2014 to 2017. Panel data was used to conduct the hypotheses testing concerning the relationship among the variables of the investment commitment and the performance of the financial firms. Based on the findings, investment committee size and investment committee independence positively and significantly related with the performance of the firms. This study has several contributions to literature, particularly concerning information about the importance of investment committee. In addition, this study is clarified our understanding concerning best practices of corporate governance structure existing in Saudi financial listed companies.

The Reform of the International Investment Regime: An African Perspective

Abstract The international legal framework for investment in Africa is complex, consisting of a large number of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and regional investment agreements. This is in addition to a number of non-binding regional investment instruments and models that influence African countries' investment policy directions. Looking at the numbers, African countries have concluded over 860 BITs of which 160 are intra-African treaties. This represents around 28 percent of the BIT universe. For over 50 years African countries have been signing BITs that have core elements developed by third countries. Little attention has been given to the implications of these treaties on African countries’ right and duty to regulate investment in their territories. The result is a web of legally binding and broadly formulated commitments on investment protection. Today, African countries are taking a more active approach in the formulation of their international investment commitments at the national, bilateral and regional levels. Africa is becoming a laboratory for innovative and sustainable development-oriented investment policymaking. While these reform efforts occur in parallel and sometimes overlap with one another, they all converge in their attempt to formulate a new approach to investment policies that aims at safeguarding the right and duty of African countries to regulate and to reflect emerging sustainable development imperatives. The challenge remains in the existing stock of outdated African BITs and in the investor–State dispute system. Tribunals have broadly interpreted BIT commitments in ways that were not foreseen by African countries. The system that was originally developed to foster legal predictability in investment relations between countries has today become a source of legal uncertainty, debate and controversy. So far, African countries have been observing proposals and discussions for the reform of the ISDS system, including through the establishment of a Multilateral Investment Court (MIC) from a distance. They have been allowed to raise concerns, propose ideas and suggestions, but were not included in the original construction of the concepts and structures of any of the proposed solutions.

How to compete with Google and Co.: big data and artificial intelligence in stones.

To elucidate the keywords big data and artificial intelligence and corresponding literature in the field of urolithiasis. Numbers of publications on big data and artificial intelligence in the field of urolithiasis are rising, but still low. Most publications describe the development, testing, and validation of automated computational analyses of clinical data sets and/or images in a preclinical setting. In the field of digital health services, there is a discrepancy between the enormous commitment of large private companies and investments of public funds. This situation means a still small number of medical publications on this topic in the urolithiasis field. Nevertheless, as doctors and scientists, we should try to provide our patients with secure and worthwhile digital services.

POSSIBLE LEGAL COURSE OF ACTION UPON THE TERM EXPIRATION OF THE MACAU SAR CASINO CONCESSIONS AND CASINO SUB‐CONCESSION CONTRACTS VIS‐À‐VIS THE MACAU GAMING LAW

POSSIBLE LEGAL COURSE OF ACTION UPON THE TERM EXPIRATION OF THE MACAU SAR CASINO CONCESSIONS AND CASINO SUB‐CONCESSION CONTRACTS VIS‐À‐VIS THE MACAU GAMING LAW

Political Stability and the Contribution of Private Investment Commitments in Infrastructure to GDP: An Institutional Perspective

New institutional economics and transaction costs economics assert the importance of political stability as the primary determinant of an economy’s institutional quality. Rallying both perspectives, this article investigates the impact of political stability on public-private partnerships’ performance. A political system founded on impersonal organizations corrects for the natural monopoly characteristics of public services by eroding rents and decreasing transaction costs stemming from the public partner’s opportunism. Panel data regressions with country-specific effects, on a sample of 14 emerging countries for the period 1999–2014, confirm that the marginal effect of private infrastructure investments on GDP per capita depends on political stability.

The Commitment of Foreign Direct Investment and Foreign Portfolio Investment on the Monetary Development of Pakistan

Foreign direct investment has played an essential role in the economic growth of developing countries. The flow of foreign capital in the capital takes place mostly in the form of loans, foreign direct investment (FDI) and foreign portfolio investment (FPI). The FDI could influence higher consumption and Investment in short-term and reflect destructively on long-term growth. However, an increase in FDI may decrease FPI volatility because it enhances the confidence of foreign investors and brings more investment in the home country. The Pakistan growth rate was witnessed from 2001-2016, which was descending due to various macroeconomic variables which influence the foreign direct investment of Pakistan. The FDI affects positively in the development process and economic progress as it supplies capital for developing nations for investment purpose. A few investigations have been directed on contact between FDI, FPI and large-scale manufacturing. Because of this plausibility, FDI impacts monetary extension, and thus, financial solidness impact FDI inflow, the connection among FDI and the development of the economy are likely unique. Also, the remote venture may impact monetary progression legitimately and in a roundabout way. In this manner, it is recommended in reliance hypothesis that FDI stream would not impact long haul practical limit in creating economies. Henceforth the progression of remote capital in a nation happens for the most part as credits, FDI and FPI. Likewise, the determinants of FPI incorporates factors which increment interest for outside trade and urges remote speculators to contribute their capital over the creating scene. Hence, therefore, this paper highlights the importance of FDI and FPI on the growth of developing countries.

Environment and Commitment, Locus of Control and Intention to Act

This study was aimed at finding out the confirmatory information from the Hungerford and Volk (1990) model regarding the effect of personal investment, personal commitment, locus of control, intention to act, and citizenship behavior toward the environment. A survey method was used by involving 185 generation Z students as sample in this study. There were five instruments in this study for measuring citizenship behavior toward the environment (21 items, reliability .917), personal investment (28 items, reliability .947), personal commitment (30 items, reliability .938) Locus of control (30 items, reliability .923 ) and intention to act (24 items, reliability .945). Data was analyzed by descriptive statistical analysis, inferential statistics for linearity test and path analysis. The results revealed that citizenship behavior toward the environment significantly affected directly personal investment, personal commitment, locus of control and intention to act. Moreover, it was also found that citizenship behavior toward the environment significantly affected indirectly by personal investment and personal commitment through locus of control and intention to act. Based on those findings, it can be concluded that variations in citizeship behavior toward the environment of generation Z are affected by variations in personal investment, personal commitment, locus of control and intention to act. It means that locus of control and intention to act are suitable mediator variables for personal investment and personal commitment to citizenship behavior toward the environment.

Internationalisation strategies of African MNEs: a case analysis of Angolan and Mozambican enterprises

This study investigates the internationalisation strategies of Lusophone Africa multinational enterprises (LAMNEs) from Angola and Mozambique. While previous scholarship examining the investment decisions and actual investment commitments found that MNEs make choices to internationalise incrementally to reduce uncertainty, this research expands this body of scholarship by identifying Angolan and Mozambican MNEs that were born global or created to become international new ventures (INVs). Key implications of this study suggests that despite several disadvantages faced by entrepreneurs in frontier economies, particularly in Angola and Mozambique LAMNEs relied on external resources to launch themselves into international markets, utilising web-enabled digital and virtual resources, such as the Internet, social media and online professional communities of practice. In addition, most did not enter foreign markets alone and chose to rely on modes of entry that included joint ventures and partnerships, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), e-commerce, and e-business.

Do clean energy (equity) investments add value to a portfolio?

Investment in renewable energy needs to increase significantly to address climate change. Large institutional investors with huge asset bases, such as pension funds, mutual funds, insurance companies, and sovereign wealth funds, can be a prime potential source of capital for renewable energy. One way to ensure increased investment commitment from such investors is for them to treat clean energy as a separate asset class in their portfolios. Through this paper, our aim is to present initial insights into the potential effect the addition of clean energy listed equity as a separate asset class can have on existing portfolios. We focus on the value of listed renewable energy equity in a static portfolio optimization problem. Our main finding is that treating renewable energy listed equity as a separate asset class within an investor's portfolio does not appear to add value to that portfolio. On one hand, this may reflect the need for applying more sophisticated techniques to show value. On the other hand, it may also imply that governments, policy makers, and regulators must keep working to ensure the clean energy sector is conducive to mainstream investment.

THE MODERATING IMPACT OF PROFITABILITY ON CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY (CSR) AND TAX AVOIDANCE RELATIONSHIP

This study aims to determineThe Moderating Impact of Profitability on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Tax Avoidance Relationship. The population are manufacture companiessubsector food and beverage listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange. We use purposive sampling method. We have 40 firm years. We use moderated regression analysis (MRA). We find that CSR has negative effect on tax avoidance and profitability strenghten that relationship. This research implies that the commitment of a company's social investment negatively impact the tax avoidance. Although companies have high social awareness, they will avoid tax when they are faced with financial constraint because of its low profitability. Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), tax avoidance, profitability, Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), cash effective tax rate (CETR), moderating, moderated regression analysis

The Educational Return on Investment Commitment: Using Predictive Analytics and Financial Aid to Leverage Retention

This study employed propensity score matching and regression analysis to determine whether or not a retention scholarship pilot program at a mid-size public research university was effective at increasing first-year retention. The scholarship pilot did not require any application process for students but rather used a predictive logistic regression model for identifying recipients and automatically awarded students $5,000. The scholarship was only awarded for the students’ sophomore year. The award was not continued as students persisted to their junior and senior years. Findings demonstrated that students who did not receive the scholarship were two times more likely to depart from the institution at the end of their first year compared with scholarship recipients. Longitudinally, nonscholarship recipients were 1.4 times more likely to depart at the end of their sophomore year.

Obtaining collaboration benefits: the role of collaboration-specific investment and absorptive capacity in China

This study examines the role of collaboration-specific investment and absorptive capacity on the attainment of interorganizational collaboration benefits. Grounded in the extended resource-based view, and using survey data from Chinese executives, we study the driver for, and test the impacts of, collaboration-specific investment and organizational learning on collaboration performance. Our findings indicate that resource similarity between the collaborative partners affects the level of collaboration-specific investment and learning, and demonstrate an approach that firms can use to obtain both abnormal common and private benefits from participation in an interorganizational collaboration. Specifically, the findings suggest that collaboration-specific investment has a direct effect on the enhancement of absorptive capacity and attainment of common and private collaboration benefits. Furthermore, due to the direct effect of absorptive capacity on attainment of collaboration benefits, commitment of collaboration-specific investment has an indirect effect on the attainment of common and private collaboration benefits. This study is the first to apply both the competence-capability framework and extended resource-based view to study interorganizational collaboration. In fact, this study aims to determine mechanisms for a collaboration-participating firm to obtain more benefit, whether common or private. Our findings provide support for the importance of learning capability as a factor in the acquisition of collaboration benefits.

ASEAN Gas Integration

The ASEAN region's most ambitious mega-project, the trans-ASEAN Gas Pipeline (TAGP) aims to connect the gas reserves of the Andaman Sea, Gulf of Thailand and South China Sea to the urban and industrial demand centres of Southeast Asia. The economics prospects for the TAGP are poor, dependent as it is on the uncertain development of the vast but costly reserves of the East Natuna basin. Developments in the past few years have made it apparent that the ability to directly import LNG has become a preferred option among ASEAN member countries. It facilitates access to gas supply quickly and at low cost, to meet the energy needs of the association's member economies. Thus the example of Singapore that has built LNG re-gasification facilities to reduce its reliance on piped natural gas imports from Malaysia and Indonesia illustrates these arguments. If it is not likely that the TAGP project as envisioned by ASEAN officials will be a major factor in CBI investment commitments in the region, the concept of LNG trading hubs which has received significant attention more recently, both in policy and industry circles, faces equally challenging hurdles.

The Driving Forces of the Convergence of WTO Dispute Settlement Mechanism and International Investment Arbitration

Contemporary jurisprudence of international adjudication has seen an emerging trend of the convergence of WTO dispute settlement mechanism (DSM) and international investment arbitration (IIA). Although there is currently a scarcity of a general conceptual framework for the convergence, which leads to an ambiguous threshold of resemblance, interaction or integration that can be considered to form or indicate the convergence, it has become evident by now that the convergence, both extant and emerging, has been and is being promoted directly or indirectly by a number of driving forces. Economic reality that increases the inter-linkage between trade and investment, the confluence of public and private international law, the homogeneity of trade and investment dispute resolution and the utilization of WTO DSM and IIA as complementary tools to enforce trade and investment commitments are arguably four primary driving forces that are able to converge WTO DSM and IIA.

Asymmetric Returns and the Economic Content of Accruals and Investment

We examine the economic content of accruals and investment and test whether they are related to nonlinear equity value and asymmetric returns arising from firm growth. We confirm that current accruals mainly reflect capital investment commitment to assets in place arising from past growth, though a part is related to future growth arising from innovation capacity (IC). We show that past and future growth components of accruals and investment have opposite effects on investors’ expectations of future asymmetric returns, i.e., skewness. The part of expected idiosyncratic skewness predicted using investment growth variables is negatively related to returns. A new growth-driven skewness factor built on differentials in expected idiosyncratic skewness significantly explains the time-series variation in hedge-portfolio returns of accruals and investment. Investments in innovative capacity (real options) are more pronounced in periods of greater uncertainty. We find that the accruals component related to past growth and commitment is significant in economic states of low market sensitivity, while the part related to future growth is significant in high sensitivity states.

Management perceptions regarding factors impacting privatisation of parastatals in a developing country

Background: Worldwide, the ownership of public organisations has been transferred to the private sector through privatisation. The poor performance of public organisations has necessitated privatisation of these organisations. Aim: This article explored management perceptions regarding factors impacting the privatisation of parastatals in a developing country, namely Zimbabwe. Setting and method: A comprehensive literature study provided the theoretical framework for this research. Primary data were collected by means of a survey obtaining 301 self-administered structured questionnaires from 27 parastatals in Zimbabwe. Seven null-hypotheses were tested using advanced statistical techniques such as regression and correlation analyses. Results and conclusions: Factors identified in this study that could impact privatisation of parastatals in Zimbabwe are stakeholder consultation, stable macroeconomic conditions, government transparency and a well-developed privatisation process plan. If privatisation is implemented effectively, it could lead to increased organisational performance, effective governance and economic empowerment. It also appeared that variables such as union consultation, role ambiguity, political intervention, attractiveness to foreign investment and government commitment do not exert a significant influence on perceptions of privatisation. Practical guidelines were also provided to enhance the implementation of privatisation in parastatals.