Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2009. / Title from file title page. Ted Friedman, committee chair; Jonathan Sterne, Alisa Perren, Emanuela Guano, Kathryn Fuller-Seeley, committee members. Description based on contents viewed Sept. 28, 2009. Includes bibliographical references (p. 338-351).

Thesis (M.A .)--Marshall University, 2008. / Title from document title page. Includes abstract. Document formatted into pages: contains 39 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 39)

Thesis (A.M.L.S.)--University of Michigan, 1949. / "L.S. 391"--Cover.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1969. / Vita. Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references.

Cette thèse est consacrée à la sensibilité de l’entreprise au Tissu Economique Local. Le chapitre préliminaire présente un cheminement aboutissant à trois questions de recherche ciblant trois aspects de cette relation, au niveau, local, européen et mondial. Le premier article pose la question suivante : quelle est la perception, par les dirigeants d’entreprise, de la sensibilité de leur entreprise au Tissu Economique Local (TEL), et de son impact sur sa performance ? Cette étude porte sur 25 entretiens semi-directifs effectués auprès de dirigeants dans les départements des deux Savoie (France). Les résultats montrent une difficulté pour les dirigeants à lier sensibilité au TEL et performance, et font émerger les déterminants de la sensibilité. Le second article traite la question suivante : quel est l’impact de la sensibilité de l’entreprise au Tissu Economique Local sur sa performance ? L’échantillon d’étude est composé de 252 entreprises européennes cotées et notées par l’agence de notation extra financière VIGEO entre 2004 et 2011. Les résultats mettent en lumière un effet convexe, d’abord négatif puis positif, de la sensibilité au TEL sur la performance comptable. Il est donc nécessaire pour les entreprises d’investir fortement sur le marché local pour déceler une amélioration de leur performance. Concernant la performance boursière à l’horizon de trois ans, les entreprises peu sensibles surperforment les entreprises très sensibles et le marché. Enfin, le troisième article répond à la question suivante : comment a évolué la concentration géographique des investissements en capital-risque et quels en sont les déterminants ? L’échantillon étudié retrace les investissements au sein des pays de l’OCDE et les BRICS sur la période 1970 - 2013. Les résultats mettent en exergue quatre tendances pour quatre groupes de pays, ainsi qu’un effet positif de la quantité d’investissement sur la concentration, en particulier durant la période précédant la crise internet. A l’inverse, le niveau de développement financier des pays réduit la concentration géographique. / This thesis investigates the firm’s sensitivity to the Local Economic Fabric. A first analysis allows one to build three questions of research focusing on three aspects of this relation, at local, European and worldwide levels. The first paper answers the following question: What is corporate chiefs’ perception of their sensitivity to Local Economic Fabric (LEF) and its impact on firm performance? The sample being analyzed contains 25 interviews with corporate chiefs in the two departments of Savoie (France). The results highlight a difficulty for corporate chiefs to link sensitivity and firm performance. These qualitative interviews also show the determinants of sensitivity. The second paper answers to the next question: What is the actual effect of sensitivity to LEF on firm performance? This study uses the rating agency VIGEO dataset, which contains 252 European firms noted between 2004 and 2011. Results show a convex effect, first negative then positive, of the sensitivity to LEF on accounting performance. In other words, it is important for firms to invest at a minimum level on local markets to get better performance. About stock performance, for the three-years horizon, the lowest sensitive firms have better performance than the highest sensitive firms and market. The third paper provides an answer to the following questions: How has the geographical concentration of venture capital investments evolved from 1970 to 2013? What are the macro determinants of this evolution? Data involve all the investments of countries belonging to the OECD and the BRICS groups. Results show four evolutionary paths representing four groups of countries. The quantity of investment deals and the dot-com crisis increase the geographical concentration of venture capital while the level of financial development decreases it.

abstract: This paper examines the link between firm size and innovation. Given that innovation is highly reliant on human capital, the ability to attract, motivate, and retain high quality inventors is a key determinant of firm innovation. Firm size may affect these abilities, and small firms are known to account for a disproportionate share of aggregate innovation. I therefore investigate the role that sorting of inventors across firms plays in explaining this disparity. Talented inventors may find employment at a large firm less attractive due to the relative absence of growth options and a lower ability to link compensation to performance. Using inventor-level patent data, I construct employment histories for inventors at U.S. public firms. I find that the most productive inventors are disproportionately likely to move to small firms, while the least productive inventors disproportionately remain at large firms. These results cannot be explained fully by small firms' superior growth opportunities. In addition, productive innovators' turnover in small firms is sensitive to the level of option compensation. Taken together, this evidence is consistent with inventor sorting explaining part of the firm size innovation gap. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2016

The current extremely volatile business world requires firms to deal with a wide range of risks that pose threats to their organisations. The poor practices of risk management, based on Traditional Risk Management (TRM), was cited time and time again in the aftermath of the recent Global Crisis. Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) has been advocated as a solution to the problems of TRM. The aim is to centralise the management of risk within the organisation and ensure that the board deals with the risk. Hence strategic, external, internal, operational, compliance and reputational risk are dealt with jointly. In doing so, it is expected that ERM will bring value creation to firms. One of the main limitations facing researchers is the lack of a good standardised measurement of ERM implementation; therefore, it has not been possible to establish whether ERM does actually bring benefit to firms. In addition, many companies have set up ERM initiatives, but they lack a clear understanding of the factors that will lead to successful ERM implementation. The remaining unanswered problematic situation has led to two unanswered questions that will determine whether the solution to ERM implementation is avoiding potential pitfalls and improving business sustainability. Firstly, does ERM implementation have an impact on firm performance? And secondly, which is the firm-specific characteristic that leads to better ERM implementation level? This thesis answers the aforementioned questions by proposing a reliable ERM measurement method, and then testing whether firms that adopt ERM actually improve financial performance and determine the influential factor of ERM implementation. The proposed method for measuring ERM implementation is based on the components developed from the current ERM frameworks, where contribution scoring can be standardised to measure ERM implementation level. To demonstrate its viability, data was collected from publicly listed firms in Thailand and was then compared to three alternative methodologies: cluster analysis (CA), principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least squares (PLS). The results show that the proposed method did well compared to the alternatives, both statistically and in prediction performance. The relationship between the proposed ERM measurement and firm performance is then considered by taking appropriate control variables into account, such as the firm’s size and characteristics, industry effects, sales growth and the external environment: technology, market uncertainty, as well as economic factors. By using data from the Thailand Stock Exchange, it was found that implementing ERM could improve firm performance in term of Tobin's Q, ROE and ROA. The results show that ERM and firm performance are related. For the influential factor of ERM implementation, the empirical results show that a firm’s size and economic factors have a statistically positive relationship with a high level of ERM implementation, while lower ERM scores show more revenue volatility than those who have well-implemented ERMs. Furthermore, technology and growth are positively related to each ERM in the scoring system considered.

Although researchers have determined that immigrants are valuable to our society and produced several studies that seek to explain immigrant benefits, little has been done to study whether or not immigrant-founded firms outperform native firms. This report determines whether or not immigrant entrepreneurs are good investments from societal, financial and market perspectives. It analyzes the impact of immigrant founders on 2017 Fortune 500 company performance from a societal, investment and market perspectives. To compile the data set, it utilizes immigration classification from the Center for American Entrepreneurship’s report on 2017 Fortune 500 company founders as a means of categorizing firm immigration status. In order to be included in the sample, there were several requirements: firms had to have a publicly listed security with a Capital IQ identification ID. These criteria resulted in 463 firms. Financial performance and innovation data were gathered through Capital IQ. The analysis seeks to prove or disprove immigrant impact on performance in three categories. The first category, social impact, determined whether or not immigrant-founded firms are good societal investments. The second category, financial impact, determined whether or not immigrant-founded firms are good financial investments. The final category, market stability, determined whether or not immigrant-founded firms are good for overall market stability. There were no statistically significant results for the dependent variables that were regressed. The was a range of R Values, regressions we run with both robust precision adjustments, and Winsor control methods were tested to no avail. This leads to the conclusion that immigrant-founded firms are not better investments than native founded firms at the Fortune 500 level. This held true in all models for each of the 3 theses compiled.

The value add of gender diversity in the financial services industry has been overlooked. From providing capital for businesses to financing mortgages, it goes without question that financial institutions play a most critical role in the function of the economy. Our study poses a potential solution for managing the immense responsibility of these entities. The financial crisis of 2008 awakened the public to the high levels of risk that banks endure in the practice of their business. Banks often rely on a liquidity cushion in order to mitigate the risk of financial distress. Liquidity consists of the cash and other liquid assets that banks retain for times of unexpected demands for cash. Financial institutions often vary in their levels of liquidity due to different risk tolerances and appetites for return. This thesis contributes to existing literature by looking into the role that gender diverse boards play in managing liquidity risk and its transparent effect on bank performance. Through an analysis of seventy-four global, regional, small, mid and large cap commercial banks, we concluded that increased gender diversity results in increased liquidity and decreased risk to bank assets. In the process, we also test the effect of increased liquidity on bank performance, as it would likely be a concern for shareholders

In the U.S. firms spend millions of dollars each year on climate lobbying. Climate lobbying is often seen as “dirty” firms lobbying against environmental regulations; however, my study reveals a subset of major climate lobbying contributors actually have positive environmental performance records. This paper analyzes the relationship between firm-level environmental performance indicators and climate lobbying expenditures. To explore this relationship, I combine a firm level climate lobbying expenditures dataset from the Center for Responsive Politics, financial measures from Compustat and CRSP, and environmental performance indicators from MSCI. My results indicate more climate lobbying among firms that derive substantial revenues from products and services with environmental benefits and those with proactive carbon emission reduction policies/technologies