Stakeholder value disclosures: anchoring on primacy and importance of financial and nonfinancial performance measures

In the growing debate about stakeholder values, there has been little discussion about information overload or whether the requested disclosures can be effectively used. Stakeholder advocates call for complicated and massive environmental and related social disclosures while not considering how information overload might affect the discourse about corporate performance. Stakeholders, including shareholders, plead for more transparency in financial statements, management discussion and analysis (MDA), and other corporate disclosures. As we know, shareholders and boards of directors are most concerned with the ‘Holy Trinity’ of earnings per share, dividends and market value changes. We believe that managers and stakeholders involved in performance evaluations have multiple interests that extend beyond traditional shareholder value measures. We note that the Balanced Scorecard (BSC) was developed as one tool to reflect and communicate these multiple measures. We test how managers use (or ignore) multiple performance measures and we posit that stakeholders will face many of the same constraints when using and processing multiple disclosures including Corporate Social Reports (CSR), environmental, or similar disclosures. While we do not directly test a wide variety of stakeholder disclosures, we examine eight (four for a single subject) shareholder values (financial measures) and four stakeholder values (nonfinancial measures). The eight measures included in our research instruments serve as proxies for the multiple concerns that might be of interest to many stakeholders. Note that stakeholders are likely to be extremely interested in nonfinancial performance measures, while many shareholders will likely concentrate on financial performance measures. Field research has reported managers tend to favor financial measures while discounting or ignoring nonfinancial measures when evaluating subordinates, making it difficult to align performance evaluations and incentives with corporate strategies (Ittner et al. Account Rev 78:725–758, 2003). In this study, we find the relative weights managers place on financial and nonfinancial performance measures are influenced by both (1) presentation order and (2) the relative importance of specific measures. When financial measures are presented first, the manager who performs better on financial measures is rated higher than the manager who performs better on nonfinancial measures. However, when nonfinancial measures are presented first, managers who excel on nonfinancial measures are rated higher. Reports that include financial measures that are relatively more (less) important also produce higher (lower) ratings for the manager who excels on financial measures. Thus, the relative weights that superiors place on financial and nonfinancial measures in evaluating corporate managers’ performance are substantially anchored both by the order in which measures are presented as well as by the importance of the specific performance measures employed. Other stakeholder disclosures are likely to be similarly anchored, perhaps biased, by primacy and a priori importance rankings.     

论管理学与意识形态——兼与李平商榷

"话语"是承载了一定的意识形态的"陈述",中国管理学界完全可以创建自己的学派,可是如果仍然采用主流的方法,虽然也可以称之为中国学派,但谈不上话语权问题。《试论中国管理研究的话语权问题》基于"话语能力"的所谓"策略"实际上是将"中国管理研究话语权策略"演变成"西方主流管理理论在中国进行扩散的策略"。当然,若将学术本土化演变成学术民族主义,将重点放在对西方主流的价值评判与道德批评上,同样无助于"管理的中国理论"话语权的取得——学术研究的话语权应在学术市场的竞争中取得——因此,其策略就只能是理解、宽容与构建学术竞争的公平市场。     

控股股东代理成本、纳税筹划方案抉择及其市场价值:基于J有限公司的案例研究

纳税筹划是实务界与学术界共同关心的领域,现有研究大量讨论了公司纳税筹划行为的决定因素及其经济后果,但仍存在巨大争议。一方面,纳税筹划节约了现金流,提升股东价值;另一方面,代理问题使企业的纳税筹划方案更可能有利于控股股东或管理层,而非上市公司利益最大化,从而可能降低企业价值,最终纳税筹划方案的经济后果取决于上述两方面的共同作用。本文基于某上市公司(J有限公司)收购大股东土地案例,分析了代理成本影响公司税务决策的路径及其经济后果。本文发现,控股股东构造了较为复杂的股权转移交易方式,为上市公司和控股股东节约了大量税务成本。但由于代理成本的存在,在多种纳税筹划方案中,控股股东并未选择对上市公司最为有利的方案,而选择了能够取得现金最多,控股股东利益最大化的方案。进一步的研究发现,市场非常关注该企业的纳税筹划行为,与本文搜集的对照样本相比,尽管J公司的控股股东未选择最优的方案,但投资者仍给予了该纳税筹划行为以积极反应,提升了企业价值。本文为研究代理成本影响公司税务决策的机理提供了重要参考。     

A new two-party bargaining mechanism

If resources and facilities from different partners need to be engaged for a large-scale project with a huge number of tasks, any of which is indivisible, decision on the number of tasks assigned to any collaborating partner often requires a certain amount of coordination and bargaining among these partners so that the ultimate task allocation can be accepted by any partner in a business union for the project. In the current global financial crisis, such cases may appear frequently. In this paper, we first investigate the behavior of such a discrete bargaining model often faced by service-based organizations. In particular, we address the general situation of two partners, where the finite Pareto efficient (profit allocation) set does not possess any convenient assumption for deriving a bargaining solution, namely a final profit allocation (corresponding to a task assignment) acceptable to both partners. We show that it is not appropriate for our discrete bargaining model to offer the union only one profit allocation. Modifying the original optimization problem used to derive the Nash Bargaining Solution (NBS), we develop a bargaining mechanism and define a related bargaining solution set to fulfil one type of needs on balance between profit-earning efficiency and profit-earning fairness. We then show that our mechanism can also suit both Nash’s original concave bargaining model and its continuous extension without the concavity of Pareto efficient frontier on profit allocation.     

Women on boards and firm performance

This study investigates the financial performance of Dutch companies both with and without women on their boards. The analysis extends earlier methods used in research by Catalyst (The bottom line: corporate performance and women’s representation on boards, 2007) and McKinsey (Women matter. Gender diversity, a corporate performance driver. McKinsey & Company, USA, 2007), two studies that are often cited in the literature, although, each has a number of methodological shortcomings. This article adds to the international debate, which is often normative, through examining 99 listed companies in the Dutch Female Board Index. Our results show that firms with women directors perform better than those without women on their boards.     

L(d,1)-labelings of the edge-path-replacement of a graph

For two positive integers j and k with j≥k, an L(j,k)-labeling of a graph G is an assignment of nonnegative integers to V(G) such that the difference between labels of adjacent vertices is at least j, and the difference between labels of vertices that are distance two apart is at least k. The span of an L(j,k)-labeling of a graph G is the difference between the maximum and minimum integers used by it. The L(j,k)-labelings-number of G is the minimum span over all L(j,k)-labelings of G. This paper focuses on L(d,1)-labelings-number of the edge-path-replacement G(P _k ) of a graph G. Note that G(P ₃) is the incidence graph of G. L(d,1)-labelings of the edge-path-replacement G(P _k ) of a graph, called (d,1)-total labeling of G, was introduced in 2002 by Havet and Yu (Workshop graphs and algorithms, 2003; Discrete Math 308:493–513, 2008). Havet and Yu (Discrete Math 308:498–513, 2008) obtained the bound $\Delta+ d-1\leq\lambda^{T}_{d}(G)\leq2\Delta+ d-1$ and conjectured $\lambda^{T}_{d}(G)\leq\Delta+2d-1$ . In (Lü in J Comb Optim, to appear; Zhejiang University, submitted), we worked on L(2,1)-labelings-number and L(1,1)-labelings-number of the edge-path-replacement G(P _k ) of a graph G, and obtained that λ(G(P _k ))≤Δ+2 for k≥5, and conjecture λ(G(P ₄))≤Δ+2 for any graph G with maximum degree Δ. In this paper, we will study L(d,1)-labelings-number of the edge-path-replacement G(P _k ) of a graph G for d≥3 and k≥4.     

Re-positioning the supplier: an SME perspective

As manufactured products become more complex, their design and manufacturing demands more and more resource which is being increasingly shared between the supply/value chain members. Competition is being typified less by firm versus firm and more by supply chain versus supply chain. The final assemblers are simplifying their supply chain to reduce logistics complexity and provide best value to the final customer. To suppliers, particularly SMEs, this gives rise to both opportunities for increasing 'added value', as well as threats of being dropped from rationalized supplier bases. Historically, SMEs have been sandwiched between large customers and suppliers and have always reacted to their superior bargaining power. Now, if the SMEs want to survive and grow, they have to adopt a more proactive stance to re-position themselves in response to these supply chain trends. In this paper, we present a technique for re-positioning the supplier in terms of'physical value added' and competency/practice-based 'differentiation'. We use the proposed approach to see how one supplier has successfully changed his business and another has developed plans to change, in line with the trends in their industry structure.     

Product universality and design for supply chain management

We describe our experience of developing models in which the principles of design for supply chain management (DFCM) have been implemented for new product development at Hewlett-Packard Company (HP). This experience arises from the development of a new product that is scheduled to be released in 1995. A key design decision faced by the product development team was whether to use a universal module or regionally dedicated modules to satisfy global market requirements. We describe a wide range of factors—including manufacturing and logistics costs—that could be used to support the design decision; these factors associated with product and process design contribute to tolal supply chain costs. We review the analytical model used to evaluate the cost and service implications of the two design alternatives. Finally, we discuss qualitative considerations that might influence the eventual decisions as well as the lessons learned from this real world experience.     

Hierarchical model to design manufacturing systems applied to a metal-mechanic company

This paper describes the application of a model to design and manage the manufacturing process through an integrated system, using a Hierarchical methodology-by means of different aggregation and disaggregation stages with an appropriate time horizon. The hierarchical model obtained allows interfacing between the master schedule and the schedule of the orders. At each level of the hierarchical model some decisions have to be made in order to design the manufacturing system, but having a model that also takes into consideration the management of the system. To do this it is necessary to use aggregated information concerned with the level at which decisions are made. It is obtained from the database, which contains the information at the highest level of aggregation. This model has been applied to a metal mechanic company, that makes final products such as car washers, etc. The benefits of this approach for the company are addressed in this paper.     

The value of rescheduling functionality within standard MRP packages

One of the basic functions of an MRP system is to issue rescheduling messages that urge the planner tospeed up or slow down open orders. It seems in practice that these messages are not used at all by planners. This is mostly due to the inaccuracy of MRP, that more or less ignores safety time, safety stocks and lotsize flexibility in the calculation of reschedule-in messages. Reschedule-out messages are usually ignored because planners do not see the value of the message. Other reasons for not adhering to rescheduling messages are a lack of maintenance of MRP parameters or simply the wrong use of the MRP function. In the future, MRP rescheduling functionality will be used even less than today, due to the changing role of MRP within the planning framework. With the uprise of finite capacity scheduling packages, MRP is being pushed one level upward in the planning hierarchy. This means that rescheduling functionalities for the short term will become completely obsolete in MRP systems.