We investigate the Dead Hand Proxy Put, a contractual innovation in corporate debt agreements that may impact hedge fund activism. We find the provision principally in loans, not bonds, and provide evidence linking the adoption of the provision to hedge fund activism. Furthermore, controlling for endogeneity, we find that the provision significantly reduces the cost of loans. Bondholder wealth also increases. Moreover, cross-sectional analysis of share returns reveals that the provision is positively associated with repeat banking relationships and negatively associated with free cash flow problems, suggesting a cost-benefit tradeoff.

We investigate whether access to information prior to an initial public offering (IPO) generates a trading advantage after the IPO. We find that limited partners (LPs) of lead venture capital funds obtain high returns when they invest in newly listed stocks backed by their funds. These returns are not explained by LPs’ differing stock-picking abilities, and they are higher when LPs’ information advantage over the public is higher. LPs are more likely to invest if they have an information advantage, and access to information eliminates the familiarity bias that they display otherwise.

In this paper we present empirical tests of an extended version of the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) that replaces the single-period horizon with a probability distribution over different horizons. Adopting a simple parameterization of the probability distribution of the length of the horizon, we estimate the parameters of the distribution as well as the parameters of the CAPM. We find that the extended model is not rejected for several different samples of common stocks, and for these samples it outperforms not only the standard CAPM but also the Fama–French (1993) 3-factor model. The probability distribution over horizon dates varies over time with the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) turnover rate. We also find that returns satisfy the Euler equation of a representative financial institution that holds the market portfolio and has horizon probabilities estimated from 13F filings.

This study finds a positive, economically meaningful impact of generalist chief executive officers (CEOs) on shareholder value using 164 sudden deaths and 345 non-sudden exogenous turnovers. The higher a departing CEO’s general ability index (GAI), independently and relative to her successor, the lower is the abnormal stock return to turnover announcements. Returns reflect post-turnover changes in operating performance. Further, CEOs’ and successors’ GAIs are significantly positively related, but only for non-sudden turnovers. Consistently, for sudden deaths, we find positive stock returns to appointments of generalist successors. The results provide a market-based explanation for the generalist pay premium.

Governments support clean technologies to advance both environmental goals and national competitiveness. By adopting environmental policies early on, governments are argued to create durable competitive advantages for domestic companies that develop clean technologies for export to late adopters. This paper argues that policy competition between lead and follower markets conditions the ability of governments to create durable competitive advantages in low-carbon technologies. Depending on the complexity of the technology, we observe two patterns of green industrial policy competition. In low-complexity technologies, such as solar photovoltaics, follower markets are likely to adopt policies that support manufacturing capacity to rapidly achieve price advantages from economies of scale, with global supply chains intensifying this competition (“scaling up”). In high-complexity technologies, such as electric vehicles, follower markets are likely to adopt policies that support research and development to develop differentiated high-tech products for export (“innovating up”). We also suggest that new forms of interdependence in policy competition can affect the political sustainability of lead market policies. Competition in scaling-up is more likely to undermine political coalitions in favor of government support for low-carbon technologies, while innovating-up dynamics embed political coalitions that support lead market policies for low-carbon technologies.

Local isomorphism constitutes the regulatory, cognitive and normative profile of a host country. The regulatory institutional setting reflects the rules and legislation governing collective bargaining agreements, trade unions, local content laws and employment relationships. The cultural or cognitive dimension supports the widely held cultural and social knowledge and the normative profile acknowledges the influences of social groups and organizations on acceptable normative behaviour. Earlier literature lends support to the importance of institutional profile and its influence on the design and implementation of multinational enterprises’ human resource management policies and practices. This paper seeks to advance the concept of local isomorphism and highlight the implications of local isomorphism for future research on the transfer of multinational enterprises’ human resource management practices across and between subsidiaries.

This study examines the effect of perceived organisational politics on organisational silence through the mediating role of organisational cynicism. In addition, it tests the effect of perceived support on this relationship. A quantitative (questionnaire survey) design was used to gather data from 346 employees in three public hospitals in Iraq. The structural equation model was used for data analysis. The results demonstrate that all the major hypotheses were accepted, and important role of perceived support in reversing the positive relationship between perceived organisational politics and organisational cynicism was also highlighted. Furthermore, the mediating role was clear in terms of organisational cynicism and the relationship between perceived organisational politics and organisational silence.

This paper examines the sources of knowledge workers’ work intensity and the self-leading strategies they apply to deal with it. The paper is based on focus group interviews with management consultants in a Danish management consultancy firm. Work intensity was identified as resulting from a combination of: (1) a results-only focus, (2) vagueness, (3) boundaryless work, and (4) low control of the quantitative load. A framework for self-leading strategies is developed based on the dimensions of reactive/proactive and self-focused/externally focused strategies in different combinations. The results indicate that while consultants expressed a belief in internal self-discipline strategies of a more reactive nature, in fact, external and proactive strategies were the most effective in practice. In conclusion, the paper contributes to an extension of self-leadership theory to better account for current research on self-control.