The moderating role of CEO sustainability reporting style in the relationship between sustainability performance, sustainability reporting, and cost of equity

in Journal of Business Economics (2022), 92

This paper explores the role of individual managers in the relationship between sustainability performance, sustainability reporting, and cost of equity. Based on prior research showing that both ... [more ▼]

This paper explores the role of individual managers in the relationship between sustainability performance, sustainability reporting, and cost of equity. Based on prior research showing that both sustainability performance and reporting reduce the risk premium, this paper contributes to the literature by acknowledging that the true motives behind a manager’s corporate sustainability engagement are not apparent to investors. Thus, investors need to rely on further information to assess the relationship between sustainability performance and risk. We argue that CEOs’ values and preferences drive their decisions regarding sustainability activities. Thus, their fixed effect on sustainability reporting conveys a signal to investors about the motives behind corporate sustainability engagement and the extent of reporting. In the first step of our empirical analysis, we document that a CEO’s specific reporting style indeed has significant statistical power in explaining a company’s level of sustainability reporting. In the second step, we find that improved sustainability performance is associated with increased cost of equity when the CEO exerts a strong personal influence on sustainability reporting. However, cost of equity declines if the CEO’s influence on the reporting of improved sustainability performance is low. Our results are consistent with the argument that investors interpret CEO’s fixed-effect on sustainability reporting as a signal. That is, for a high CEO fixed-effect, increases in sustainability engagement are conflated with the CEO's self-interested values. In further tests, we show that the signal seems to be particularly important for normative sustainability activities (vs. legal sustainability activities). [less ▲]

The impact of acquisitions on Chinese acquirers' innovation performance: An empirical investigation of 1,545 Chinese acquisitions

in Journal of Business Economics (2019), 89(2), 125-153

Acquisitions by Chinese firms have increased markedly in recent years. So far, we know little about the effects of these acquisitions on the acquirer’s innovation performance. Our paper focuses on two ... [more ▼]

Acquisitions by Chinese firms have increased markedly in recent years. So far, we know little about the effects of these acquisitions on the acquirer’s innovation performance. Our paper focuses on two interrelated research questions. First, to what extent can Chinese firms increase their patent output following an acquisition? Second, which factors influence the post-acquisition patent output? Using a comprehensive dataset of 697 publicly listed Chinese firms in the manufacturing sector that conducted 1545 acquisitions from 2000 to 2012, we find no significant overall effect of acquisitions on patent output. However, we find that several acquisition-specific factors have a positive effect on the post-acquisition patent output (e.g., size of the acquired knowledge base, relatedness of the acquired knowledge base, cross-border acquisitions). Our study extends prior research on post-acquisition innovation performance to the context of Chinese acquirers. [less ▲]

Personelle Unternehmensverflechtung und Vorstandsgehälter

in Journal of Business Economics (2009), 79