Search results

The role played by corporate governance mechanisms on corporate deleveraging policies has not been clarified. Empirical evidence is confined to developed economies, even with conflicting and inconclusive results. This paper aims to examine the role of corporate governance mechanisms, such as ownership structure, board composition and CEO dominance, in explaining corporate deleveraging policies.

Using a sample of listed Pakistani firms between 2010 and 2022, this study resorts to binary response models to examine the effects of governance mechanisms on firms’ decision to go debt-free.

A greater ownership concentration, institutional ownership and family ownership increase the propensity for zero leverage. Board gender diversity decreases the propensity for deleveraging policies, which seems to indicate that the presence of females reinforces the monitoring function of the board. Finally, lower managerial ownership or CEO dominance decreases the propensity toward zero leverage (interest convergence hypothesis), but higher managerial ownership or CEO dominance increases the propensity toward zero leverage (managerial entrenchment hypothesis).

Risk-averse managers who prefer to control a firm using little or no debt will find it easier to implement these financing policies in firms with greater ownership concentration and where institutional holders have a substantial stake. For shareholders, this study suggests that investing in firms with females on board reduces the risk of corporate deleveraging policies being adopted for entrenched reasons.

The presence of females on board seems to decrease the propensity of managers to adopt opportunistic actions and may also contribute to enhancing human welfare and society in developing countries.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study considering the effect of board diversity on zero leverage. Another singularity is that this study exhibits a nonlinear relationship between managerial ownership and corporate deleveraging policy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the effect of country and corporate governance mechanisms on zero leverage is heterogeneous across market- and bank-based financial systems.

Using logit regression methods and a sample of listed firms from 14 Western European countries for the 2002–2016 period, this study examines the propensity of firms having zero leverage in different financial systems.

Country governance mechanisms have a heterogeneous effect on zero leverage, with higher quality mechanisms increasing zero-leverage propensity in bank-based countries and decreasing it in market-based countries. Board dimension and independency have no impact on zero leverage. A higher ownership concentration decreases the propensity for zero-leverage policies in bank-based countries.

This study’s findings show the importance of considering both country- and firm-level governance mechanisms when studying the zero-leverage phenomenon and that the effect of those mechanisms vary across financial and legal systems.

For managers, this study suggests that stronger national governance makes difficult (favours) zero-leverage policies in market (bank)-based countries. In bank-based countries, it also suggests that the presence of shareholders that own a large stake makes the adoption of zero-leverage policies difficult. This last implication is also important for small shareholders by suggesting that investing in firms with a concentrated ownership reduces the risk that zero-leverage policies are adopted by entrenched reasons.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to consider simultaneously the effects of both country- and firm-level governance mechanisms on zero leverage and to allow such effects to vary across financial systems.

This study seeks to analyze the effect of the financial distress costs on small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) rebalancing of short-term and long-term debt ratios.

The authors use the system-generalized method of moments (GMM-sys) to treat data collected for a sample of Portuguese manufacturing SMEs for the period 2011–2017.

Financial distress costs positively impact the speed with which SMEs rebalance their short-term and long-term debt ratios The positive effect of financial distress costs on the speed of adjustment (SOA) is higher for the short-term than for the long-term debt ratio. This result suggests that SMEs seek to overcome quicker the financing imbalance in the short run, probably, due to their dependence on short-term debt.

SME owners-managers should seek to rely less on short-term debt to reduce the firm default risk, the financing imbalance and the financial distress costs. Banks should lend long-term loans to SMEs, given that the high financial distress risk of these firms results from their dependence on short-term debt financing. Policymakers should promote SME access to external finance sources with lower transaction costs, to SME rebalance their capital structures.

This study analyzes the effect of financial distress costs on the SOA with which SMEs rebalance their capital structure. We estimate the financial distress costs based on a hazard model, to analyze their effect on the SOA toward the target debt ratios.

From the network approach, the purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence about the role of international cooperative alliances (CAs) in the decision of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to internationalize and remain in the external market.

To fulfill the proposed objective, qualitative research was carried out through analyzing two SMEs (case studies) in the Portuguese textile sector. Data collection was based on structured interviews, direct observation and some documental analysis.

The results show that the analyzed SMEs internationalized immediately after their creation, with this decision not being influenced by CAs but rather by the founder’s role and above all by a saturated domestic market.

Alliances are determinant in subsequent developments in the foreign market, allowing SMEs to reach new markets, increase their market share and consolidate their name in the international market. Thus, managers/entrepreneurs should adopt strategies that stimulate the firm’s expansion in the external market, prioritizing the formation of CAs with international partners.

This study suggests that none of the dominant models can exclusively explain the internationalization process of the studied SMEs. Therefore, this research has implications for the recent stream of literature that argues for a holistic view of internationalization models, considering the arguments of all models instead of only one.

We present a critical literature review debating Brazilian research on social and environmental accounting (SEA). The aim of this study is to understand the role of politics in the construction of hegemonies in SEA research in Brazil. In particular, we examine the role of hegemony in relation to the co-option of SEA literature and sustainability in the Brazilian context by the logic of development for economic growth in emerging economies. The methodological approach adopts a post-structural perspective that reflects Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory. The study employs a hermeneutical, rhetorical approach to understand and classify 352 Brazilian research articles on SEA. We employ Brown and Fraser’s (2006) categorizations of SEA literature to help in our analysis: the business case, the stakeholder–accountability approach, and the critical case. We argue that the business case is prominent in Brazilian studies. Second-stage analysis suggests that the major themes under discussion include measurement, consulting, and descriptive approach. We argue that these themes illustrate the degree of influence of the hegemonic politics relevant to emerging economics, as these themes predominantly concern economic growth and a capitalist context. This paper discusses trends and practices in the Brazilian literature on SEA and argues that the focus means that SEA avoids critical debates of the role of capitalist logics in an emerging economy concerning sustainability. We urge the Brazilian academy to understand the implications of its reifying agenda and engage, counter-hegemonically, in a social and political agenda beyond the hegemonic support of a particular set of capitalist interests.

Magnetic fluid hyperthermia experiment requires a uniform magnetic field in order to control the heating rate of a magnetic nanoparticle fluid for laboratory tests. The automated optimal design of a real-life device able to generate a uniform magnetic field suitable to heat cells in a Petri dish is presented. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

The inductor for tests has been designed using finite element analysis and evolutionary computing coupled to design of experiments technique in order to take into account sensitivity of solutions.

The geometry of the inductor has been designed and a laboratory prototype has been built. Results of preliminary tests, using a previously synthesized and characterized magneto fluid, are presented.

Design of experiment approach combined with evolutionary computing has been used to compute the solution sensitivity and approximate a 3D Pareto front. The designed inductor has been tested in an experimental set-up.