基于控制权私有收益的企业非效率投资行为研究

大、小股东委托代理冲突问题反映在企业的投资决策上就是,大股东为追求控制权私有收益而产生的过度投资和投资不足两种非效率投资行为。本文的研究通过建立模型,将过度投资与投资不足两种非效率投资行为纳入到同一个框架下,探讨了大股东控制条件下的不同控制权配置方式及其企业非效率投资行为。结果表明:基于对控制权私有收益的追求,过度投资和投资不足两种非效率投资行为同时存在于大股东控制条件下的企业投资行为中;绝对控股条件下的企业投资行为,会随着控制性大股东的所有权比例变化而呈现出不同的非效率投资行为的特征;多个大股东相互监督或合谋都会同时缓解过度投资,以及加强投资不足,且合谋对企业非效率投资行为的影响取决于合谋成本的大小。     

产权性质、市场化改革与融资歧视——来自上市公司投资—现金流敏感性的证据

非国有企业是否面临融资歧视?以往的研究多着眼于国有和非国有上市公司负债率差异,不能克服企业"自主选择"因素的干扰。本文从投资—现金流敏感性入手探讨融资歧视的存在性,构建动态跨期联立方程回归模型,发现国有上市公司投资水平几乎不随现金流波动,而非国有上市公司显著受其影响,从而证实了融资歧视的存在性。进一步分析表明:股权分置改革有效地提高了资本市场信贷资源的配置效率,降低了不同所有制企业资金可得性的差异,为非国有上市公司提供了相对公平的融资环境。     

代理冲突、公司治理因素的激励约束效应与资本配置效率

以发生控制权转移的非金融类上市公司为研究样本,检验了公司治理因素的激励-约束效应在控制权私有收益影响资本配置效率过程中的治理效果,发现公司治理的约束机制能显著抑制控制权私有收益引起的非效率资本配置,激励机制对过度投资有显著的缓解作用,但对投资不足的抑制作用不明显。     

民营金字塔企业终极所有者融资约束与非效率投资行为研究

在对金字塔企业终极所有者投资行为进行理论分析的基础上,本文运用我国民营上市公司的非平衡面板数据,考察了民营金字塔企业终极所有者的非效率投资问题。研究发现:在受到融资约束的情况下,终极所有者会发生投资不足的行为;在不受融资约束的情况下,终极所有者出于最大化自身利益的考虑会进行过度投资;而在确保控制权的情况下,终极所有者所持有的现金流权越小,其过度投资越严重;投资者保护环境越差,越有利于终极所有者的过度投资行为。另外,文章运用理论模型探寻了终极所有者隧道挖掘与过度投资之间的关系,研究发现在不受融资约束的情况下二者呈正相关关系。     

政府干预、政府目标与国有上市公司的过度投资

对于国内企业过度投资的研究,目前均是从经理私人利益、管理者过度自信、管理者背景等角度展开的,这些研究没有考虑我国特有的制度背景对上市公司投资决策的影响.一些研究表明,政府控制的上市公司更可能从事过度投资行为.遗憾的是,这些文献并没有表明政府控制的上市公司过度投资的原因,可能的解释是国有上市公司的代理问题更严重.本文认为,国有企业过度投资并不一定是由代理问题引起的,政府控制的上市公司过度投资能够帮助政府实现一些目标.如就业、税收等.基于我国国有上市公司数据,本文研究表明,国有上市公司的过度投资是由政府将其公共目标.如就业、税收等内部化到其控制的企业的结果.另外,回归结果也显示,国有企业的过度投资并没有表现出自由现金流假说的投资一现金流的敏感性,债务也没有起到约束过度投资行为的作用,这也从侧面说明了国有上市公司的过度投资不一定因为代理问题引起的.     

融资约束与代理成本对上市公司非效率投资的影响——基于双边随机边界模型的实证度量

在有效地控制企业最优投资水平的前提下,本文将融资约束与代理成本同时纳入到前沿异质性双边随机边界模型(Two-tier stochastic frontier model)框架下对我国上市公司的非效率投资程度进行了实证度量,并探讨了各种财务因素对融资约束与代理成本的影响.实证结果表明:融资约束的存在使得上市公司的投资支出较最优水平低了37.5％,而代理成本导致上市公司的投资支出超出其最优水平的30.6％,两者的净效果使我国上市公司整体上表现为投资不足,投资不足率为6.9％.此外,流动资产净额和资本存量的增加有助于缓解公司面临的融资约束程度,而规模较大、持有较多自由现金流的公司内部代理问题更为严重,并且不同规模和地区之间的上市公司非效率投资程度存在较大的差异.     

股价信息含量与资本投资效率——基于投资现金流敏感度的视角

本文以2001-2008年在沪深证券交易所上市的制造业公司为研究样本,基于投资现金流敏感度的视角研究了股价信息含量与资本投资效率之间的关系,得到以下研究结论 :富含信息的股价有效降低了资本投资对现金流的敏感程度。进一步研究后发现,富含信息的股价不仅能够有效降低融资约束导致的投资现金流敏感度,而且也能够有效降低代理冲突导致的投资现金流敏感度问题,以上结论在添加了诸多影响资本投资的控制变量及稳健性检验后仍然成立。本文的研究从一个全新的视角证明,富含信息的股价通过缓和融资约束和代理冲突问题,有效地改善了企业的资本投资效率。     

终极控制权与资本结构决策

以2004～2008年我国上市公司为研究对象,从终极控制人的视角实证检验了终极控制股东特征对公司资本结构的影响。研究表明,负债融资扩大了终极控制股东可控制的资源,便利了其攫取行为,且不会导致控制权的稀释,终极控制股东两权分离程度与资本结构显著正相关。较高的现金流权能够有效制约终极控制股东通过扩大负债融资获取私有收益的行为,终极控制股东现金流权对其两权分离程度与资本结构间的关系具有显著的调节作用。与非国有控制公司相比,国有终极控制股东通过扩大负债融资获取私有收益的动机相对较弱,其两权分离程度对资本结构的正向影响也相对较小。     

管理者过度自信与企业投资行为异化——来自我国证券市场的经验证据

本文以非金融类A股上市公司为研究样本,考察了管理者过度自信与企业投资行为的关系。研究发现,过度自信的管理者倾向于过度投资,并对融资活动产生的现金流有更高的敏感性。即当公司有充裕的融资活动现金流时,过度自信的管理者会过度投资;反之,则投资不足。本文还发现,过度投资与经营活动产生的自由现金流之间的敏感性基本上不受管理者过度自信心理特征的影响,这与其它一些研究的结论不一致。     

企业非效率投资行为研究综述——基于委托代理的视角

基于现代委托代理理论,西方学者研究指出,在股东、债权人和经理之间代理冲突的条件下,内部现金流(或者说企业净财富)、资本结构等融资因素对企业投资行为具有重要的影响,并最终导致过度投资或者投资不足的非效率投资行为。西方学者的观点对研究转轨经济中的中国企业非效率投资行为具有重要的启示意义。     

Introduction to Special Section on Sensitivity Analysis and Summary of NCSU/USDA Workshop on Sensitivity Analysis

This guest editorial is a summary of the NCSU/USDA Workshop on Sensitivity Analysis held June 11–12, 2001 at North Carolina State University and sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Office of Risk Assessment and Cost Benefit Analysis. The objective of the workshop was to learn across disciplines in identifying, evaluating, and recommending sensitivity analysis methods and practices for application to food‐safety process risk models. The workshop included presentations regarding the Hazard Assessment and Critical Control Points (HACCP) framework used in food‐safety risk assessment, a survey of sensitivity analysis methods, invited white papers on sensitivity analysis, and invited case studies regarding risk assessment of microbial pathogens in food. Based on the sharing of interdisciplinary information represented by the presentations, the workshop participants, divided into breakout sessions, responded to three trigger questions: What are the key criteria for sensitivity analysis methods applied to food‐safety risk assessment? What sensitivity analysis methods are most promising for application to food safety and risk assessment? and What are the key needs for implementation and demonstration of such methods? The workshop produced agreement regarding key criteria for sensitivity analysis methods and the need to use two or more methods to try to obtain robust insights. Recommendations were made regarding a guideline document to assist practitioners in selecting, applying, interpreting, and reporting the results of sensitivity analysis.     

Distinguishing traumatic, vicarious and routine operational stressor exposure and attendant adverse consequences in a sample of police officers

Problems in studying occupational stress within the police service are identified and the paucity of work on operational duties as potential stressors are discussed. The present study reports the results of a factor analysis of operational stressors (N = 601 serving British police officers) that revealed three factors: exposure to death and disaster; violence and injury; sexual crime. These were demonstrated to be reliable scales and were included in logistic regression models together with a range of demographic and psychological variables. Models were applied to men and women separately, which showed there to be different predictors of the likelihood of suffering distress (measured by the General Health Questionnaire, GHQ) in terms of the officer's gender and operational role. Overall the model for women officers was better at predicting psychological distress than that for men. These findings are related to aspects of the police occupational culture. Further discussion is offered that conceptualizes police operational stressors as traumatic, routine and vicarious. Finally, some implications are drawn for the provision of stress intervention in the light of this differentiation.     

Power,authority and legitimacy

Management, human resources, organization, control, leadership, etc., all seem to be just so many euphemisms for power, and this suggests a discourse of management and organization that calls things by their proper name. This paper on the contrary stresses the need to resolve the concept of ‘power’ itself into more differentiated notions, and proposes that clarification may be derived from distinctions once explicit in the vocabulary of Classical antiquity, but lost in modern European languages. It argues that nothing but confusion in thinking about organizations, management and legitimation can result from the failure to recognize that the phenomena this vocabulary identifies and distinguishes are irreducibly different.     

Employees' perceptions of organizational restructuring: the role of social support

Organizational change and restructuring is often perceived as leading to increased occupational stress, impacting negatively on the psychological well-being of employees. This pragmatic study investigates the role of social support and dispositional affect as moderators of role stress post-restructuring for employees in a public utility company. A total of 176 employees, including 37 managers, 60 graded staff and 78 industrial staff completed a self-report questionnaire, approximately 1 year postrestructuring, retrospectively assessing role conflict, ambiguity, overload and positive and negative feedback pre- and post-restructuring. Results suggested that overall role stress increased for managers/ senior officers and graded staff, but not for industrial staff. Social support was linked with lower role stress, more positive feedback and less negative feedback at post-restructuring. For certain role stressors this impact was moderated by dispositional affect, but the effect was not consistent across occupational groups. Positive affect enhanced the effect of manager support in reducing role conflict for graded staff, and the effect of co-worker support in increasing positive feedback and reducing negative feedback for industrial staff. Findings suggest that managers should pay particular attention to support and feedback for employees during periods of chronic occupational stress following organizational restructuring.     

The Danish psychosocial work environment and symptoms of stress: the main, mediating and moderating role of sense of coherence

The aim of this cross-sectional study was to explore the main, mediating and moderating role of sense of coherence (SOC) on stress symptoms and on the association between perceived psychosocial work environment and stress symptoms. The sample includes 2053 Danish employees from 52 workplaces. Hierarchical regression models were applied for each measure of stress. The results strongly supported the presence of a main effect for SOC. People with high levels of SOC experienced fewer stress symptoms. A mediating effect of SOC was also supported. Thus, SOC in part explained the association between work environment and stress symptoms. In addition, some support for a moderating effect of SOC was found, suggesting that people with higher SOC coped more efficiently with work environmental strain that people with lower SOC. Taken together the regression models explained 11-32% of the variance in stress symptoms. The results suggest that measures of individual factors such as SOC should be included in analyses of the effects of work environmental factors on stress and well-being.     

Control at work: a generalized resource factor for the prevention of musculoskeletal symptoms?

During the last two decades two potent groups of predictors for work-related musculoskeletal problems have been identified: physical work load and poor psychosocial working conditions. However, little is known about their combined effects. In this study the buffering effect of control at work with respect to the negative effects of psychological demands and physical work load on musculoskeletal problems is examined. All study variables were sampled from 431 people working in geriatric nursing homes in Germany by means of questionnaires. Main effects and interactions were tested with multiple regression analysis. The results showed that control buffered the effects of high psychological demands, but not of high physical work load; the buffering effect of control was observed only when physical work load was low. The combined effects of demands and physical work load were over-additive. Thus, the power of different predictors for musculoskeletal symptoms depended on the level of other predictors. This suggests that the efficiency of certain strategies for the prevention of musculoskeletal problems is likely to depend on the level of risk factors, with different strategies being appropriate for different levels of risk.     

The moderating role of social support in Karasek's job strain model

This paper examines whether social support is a boundary-determining criterion in the job strain model of Karasek (1979). The particular focus is the extent to which different sources of social support, work overload and task control influence job satisfaction, depersonalization and supervisor assessments of work performance. Hypotheses are tested using prospective survey data from 80 clerical staff in a university setting. Results revealed 3-way interactions among levels of support (supervisor, co-worker, non-work), perceived task control and work overload on levels of work performance and employee adjustment (self-report). After controlling for levels of negative affect in all analyses, there was evidence that high levels of supervisor support mitigated against the negative effects of high strain jobs on levels of job satisfaction and reduced reported levels of depersonalization. Moreover, high levels of non-work support and co-worker support also mitigated against the negative effects of high strain jobs on levels of work performance. The results are discussed in terms of the importance of social support networks both at, and beyond, the work context.     

Job insecurity, coping resources and personality dispositions in occupational strain

This paper presents research on the relationships between the work-related stressor of perceived job insecurity and various indicators of occupational strain, taking into account employees' personality dispositions (trait negative and positive affectivity) and coping resources. Respondents were 222 Australian public servants surveyed during organizational restructuring that involved downsizing and threat to job certainty. The research was formulated within an adaptation of Osipow, Doty, and Spokane's (1985) framework of stress-strain-coping that included the possible direct as well as moderating effects of personality dispositions in reporting occupational strain (Parkes, 1990). Findings from hierarchical regression analyses indicate consistent significant independent effects of personality dispositions, coping resources and perceived job insecurity on various indicators of strain. There was also support for the moderating roles of negative affectivity and self-care in the relation between perceived job insecurity and physical strain. Implications for the role of dispositional factors, especially negative affectivity, and the utility of various coping resources in accounting for occupational strain in times of threatened job security are discussed.     

Comparison of Chemical Screening and Ranking Approaches: The Waste Minimization Prioritization Tool versus Toxic Equivalency Potentials

Chemical screening in the United States is often conducted using scoring and ranking methodologies. Linked models accounting for chemical fate, exposure, and toxicological effects are generally preferred in Europe and in product Life Cycle Assessment. For the first time, a comparison is presented in this article of two of the prominent, but structurally different methodologies adopted to help screen and rank chemicals and chemical emissions data. Results for 250 chemicals are presented, with a focus on 12 chemicals of interest in the United Nations Environment Programme's Persistent Organic Pollutants global treaty negotiations. These results help to illustrate the significance of described structural differences and to assess the correlation between the methodologies. The scope of the comparison was restricted here to human health, although the insights would be equally useful in the context of the health of ecosystems. Illustrating the current types of chemical screening and emissions comparison approaches, the relative significance of the scenario and structural differences of the Waste Minimization Prioritization Tool (WMPT) and the Toxic Equivalency Potential (TEP) methodologies are analyzed. The WMPT facilitates comparison in terms of key physical-chemical properties. Measures for Persistence, Bioaccumulation, and Toxicity (PBT) are calculated. Each PBT measure is scored and then these scores are added to provide a single measure of relative concern. TEPs account for chemical fate, multipathway exposure, and toxicity using a model-based approach. This model structure is sometimes considered to provide a less subjective representation of environmental mechanisms, and, hence, an improved basis for screening. Nevertheless, a strong relationship exists between the two approaches and both have their limitations.