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We examine the role of internet speed in sophistication among individual investors.

This paper utilizes archival data and regression-based analyses in examining the research question.

We first show that higher individual investor internet speed (IIIS) is associated with geographic measures of education, job type and income of users accessing EDGAR filings. We then show that higher IIIS is positively related to the market reaction to newly released 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K filings and that the relation is stronger for companies and filings where greater sophistication is needed. Higher IIIS is also associated with a lower price drift after the release of a 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K filing on EDGAR.

Overall, our findings suggest that greater internet access speeds can aid in the sophistication and price discovery process for individual investors.

This study uses the Electronic Data Gathering Analysis and Retrieval (EDGAR) implementation as an information shock to examine its effect on corporate payout policy.

This study uses a generalized difference-in-differences approach to assess the causal impact of EDGAR implementation on the US publicly traded firms’ payout policy for a period from 1990 to 1999. The approach captures the difference between changes in the dividend policy of firms subjected to EDGAR implementation (treated firms) and those not subjected to the implementation (control firms).

Firms increase payout ratios and the likelihood of paying dividends after the implementation of EDGAR. Notably, these effects are more pronounced in firms characterized by high agency problems ex-ante.

Policies designed to improve a firm’s information environment may yield divergent effects on corporate payout policy. Consequently, in countries aiming to promote cash dividends, policymakers seeking to enhance the firm information environment should carefully consider initiatives that will improve minority investors’ access to corporate information.

The findings contribute to the real effects of EDGAR implementation on firm policies, addressing the ambiguity surrounding the economic consequences of EDGAR adoption. This paper also contributes to the existing literature on the impact of information shock on corporate payouts. The findings emphasize the multifaceted influence of information shock on corporate payouts.

We examine why Cash ETRs of US domestic firms have decreased over time. Using samples from two periods – an early period (1994–1998) and a late period (2011–2015) – we regress Cash ETRs in each period on a set of explanatory variables, and allow coefficients to differ across time periods. We find that, when coefficients are allowed to differ, there is no longer a decline in the unexplained portion of Cash ETR across the two periods, and that the previously observed decline is associated with a change in the relation between firm size and Cash ETR between the two periods. Further analysis suggests that the coefficient on firm size has been declining over the past 20 years, and that controlling for this time trend alone is sufficient to explain the declining trend in Cash ETRs for domestic firms.

The aim of this research is to gain insight into the emotional impact and cognitive evaluations that these applications have on users from their own perspective.

Sentiment analysis methodology is used to analyze users’ comments and ratings, assess perceived benefits and determine the emotional impact these applications have on them.

The results suggest a benefit for happiness scholars, professionals, users and organizations focused on employee well-being and provide valuable insights into the evolving landscape of happiness applications. While the study relies on publicly available user data, it complements, but does not replace, market research or product evaluation conducted by app developers and companies.

Among the myriad channels disseminating the assumption that the good life is attainable through personal means and psychological know-how, smartphone applications have emerged as accessible, cost-effective and attractive tools to help users become happier and alleviate feelings of distress and discomfort.

One of the most cited literature in SHRM is Schuler and Jackson’s (1987) behavioural model. This model proposes that organisational performance is dependent on the extent to which HRM practices can be effectively connected to competitive strategy and desired employee behaviours. Importantly, this model recognises the salient role of employee behaviour in performance outcomes and, moreover that different competitive strategies imply both promulgation and reinforcement of different sets of employee skills and behaviours. Surprisingly, despite its significant influence on SHRM, studies rarely examine this model in its entirety. Motivated by the need to better understand this model’s arguments in contemporary settings, our study uses a multi-actor design to explore the connections between competitive strategies (cost reduction and differentiation), employee behaviours, and HRM practices in service environments.

Adopting a multi-level, multi-actor survey design, our exploratory deductive study assesses the utility of strategic HRM’s (SHRM) behavioural model. Drawing on data from a sample of service organisations and using univariate analyses, we compare operationalised HRM practices and employee behaviours across different strategy types.

Results lend provisional support for the behavioural model, particularly in the case of a differentiation strategy where notable differences in HRM practices and employee behaviours were observed. Findings suggest growing levels of memetic and competitive isomorphism may be occurring, with this likely attributable to the increased incidence of idea generation and information sharing about best practices occurring amongst practitioners, as well as a growing nuance in operating markets, managerial preferences, employee expectations, stakeholder objectives, and the like.

Our study suggests refinements to the behavioural model are needed. Some support for the model’s key tenets is found, but these appear context specific. Thus, the merit in developing a priori typologies linking strategy type to HRM practices and employee behaviours where organisations operate in environments which are particularised and tumultuous appears debatable.

This study highlights the behavioural model’s nuance to modern service organisations and, by doing so, practitioners are provided with a behavioural pathway for achieving competitive advantage through their HRM practices. Findings also suggest that increasingly competitive environments might be encouraging practitioners to engage in isomorphic behaviours.

The use of a comparative research design allowed our study to contribute much needed empiricism to the largely conceptually informed stylised typologies depicting the linkages between different competitive strategies, implied employee role behaviours and HRM practices, thereby supporting the need for model refinement.

Purpose: This study explores potential effects and challenges of integrating Principal Adverse Impact (PAI) indicators in a sovereign bond portfolio through select exclusion policies.

Design/Methodology/Approach: The authors created two model portfolios based on BlackRock’s IGOV and EMB ETFs. After recreating the data supplied to asset managers by MSCI, the authors apply two sample policies excluding the worst scoring sovereign bonds. This approach mimics the actual integration of PAI indicators into sustainable investments and, thus, lends itself to discussing the challenges of implementing PAI indicators in practice.

Findings: Sovereign PAI indicators disadvantage emerging markets (EMs) and exhibit a regional bias towards European and North American countries. Excluding sovereign bonds belonging to the 10% of the worst-scoring countries does not significantly impact the developed market (DM) portfolio composition, while the same threshold heavily affects the portfolio composition for developing markets. The current indicators have an inherent income bias, with four out of seven numeric indicators substantially correlated with GNI per capita, systematically disadvantaging EMs.

Implications: Applying PAI indicators for exclusion raises concerns about sustainable investment in sovereigns where a large transition is still ahead.

Limitations: Limitations are associated with the approach adopted by the authors, primarily due to the novelty of the regulation, as well as the absence of relevant data.

Future Research: Research is needed to explore the influence of PAI indicators on the composition of financial products, particularly their effects on sovereign bonds, as they remain underexplored in terms of environmental, social, and governance metrics.

This paper contributes to the literature as follows. First, it examines if option and stock compensations raise creditor's risk, and which one is more important than the other. Second, it explores if CEO's compensation interacts with CEO overconfidence to raise creditor's risk. Third, it investigates how banks use different loan terms to alleviate their credit risk.

This study used advanced regression analysis and use of generalized methods of moment methodology.

The results show that option compensation is more important than stock compensation in raising credit risk; option compensation interacts with CEO overconfidence, giving rise to a much higher credit risk; and covenant usage is more important than other loan contract terms in mitigating credit risk given that covenant use could not be substituted away by using other loan contract terms such as increasing interest rate, reducing principal or shortening loan duration. This paper has practical implications for credit markets.

The main implication is that hand-collect data are available up to 2010.

It informs creditors the potential sources of loan risk emanating from option rather than stock incentives; it informs creditors that option incentive interacts with CEO overconfidence rendering the credit risk bigger than expected, and it informs creditors the importance of using covenants vis-à-vis other loan contract terms for mitigating compensation and overconfidence risk.

Banks are alerted to the risk due to the interaction between overconfidence and compensations, implying that overconfident managers remunerated with options compensations are more risky than overconfident managers who are not remunerated as such.

This paper is original: (1) The authors show that option compensation is more risky than stock compensation from viewpoint of creditors. This has not been assessed. (2) Interaction between managerial compensation and managerial overconfidence has not been assessed before. (3) Use of different loan contract terms to alleviate risk from overconfident managers (who are prone to over investment but who are innovative according to the literature) has not been evaluated.