Investors’ Irrational Sentiment and Stock Market Returns: A Quantile Regression Approach Using Indian Data

Business Perspectives and Research, Ahead of Print.
Studying sentiment is crucial for investors and portfolio managers to determine whether sentiment can be used as information to make profits. This study examines the relationship between irrational sentiment among investors and excess returns in the Indian stock market using monthly data from July 2001 to December 2019. The study constructs a composite sentiment index that includes condensed information from 10 variables. The empirical analysis reveals that the influence of irrational sentiment among investors on excess returns in the stock market is not uniform across quantiles. Specifically, our results indicate that the irrational sentiment index has information regarding contemporaneous (future) variation in excess returns in upper (all) quantiles. Results also suggest that the predictive ability of irrational sentiment is enhanced when market conditions are right. We also decompose the sentiment into positive and negative irrational sentiment and find an asymmetrical impact in upper quantiles but lost at lower quantiles.

Corporate Social Performance, Legitimacy, and the Choice of Foreign Partners by State‐Controlled Entities in the Global Extractive Industries

Abstract

We study the outcome of the decision of a state-controlled entity (SCE) to form an international joint venture (IJV) with a foreign partner in the SCE's country. Focusing on the perspective of the host SCE, we propose that in its search for a partner, the SCE will evaluate the sociopolitical legitimacy effect of a candidate partner's corporate social performance (CSP). Thereby, the SCE will consider CSP an important selection criterion because of its legitimacy effect on the selection decision, the SCE, the IJV, and the host state in the eyes of salient local and international stakeholders. Moreover, the legitimacy effect of a candidate partner's CSP will further influence the decision outcome through its interaction with the level of corruption in the candidate partner's home country, the extant sociopolitical legitimacy of the host state, and the number of neighbouring countries of the host country participating in international multi-stakeholder initiatives. We find support for our hypotheses using a novel sample of extractive industries IJVs between SCEs from 48 countries and 203 foreign partners from 22 countries for the period 2000–15.

The Dent in the Floor: Ecological Knowing in the Skilful Performance of Work

Abstract

This paper draws on a phenomenological perspective to explore how people develop and enact skill in work at through ecological knowing – a sensuous form of knowing in one's being embedded in and across place and time. In doing so, we abductively interweave the work of Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa and British anthropologist Tim Ingold with an empirical study of two industrial museums and two contemporary illustrations of choral conducting and motion capture performance. Our contribution is threefold: first, we expand theories of knowledge and corporeality by theorizing ecological knowing as encompassing emplaced wisdom and embodied skill – thus elevating embedded and embodied human agency in contrast to studies that focus on the body, skill, and knowledge as objects. Secondly, we present an alternative way of understanding how expertise develops and is enacted in work activities. Finally, we offer methodological resources, currently underutilized in management studies, for studying this sensorial form of knowing in a way that is consistent with its underlying phenomenological commitments.

Exploring the Determinants of Investment Behavior: Evidence from Agrarian Investor Class of India

Business Perspectives and Research, Ahead of Print.
The current research aims to identify the factors that influence the investment behavior of the agrarian investor class, an untapped potential segment for the investment market, in India. The study observes the antecedents of investment behavior and intention. Thus, the present study analyses the responses of 400 agrarian rural respondents. Data from a well-structured questionnaire administered to the study’s target participants were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results observed the utmost influence of financial self-efficacy in establishing the agrarian rural investors’ attitude and has least influence in determining personality traits and financial knowledge, which ultimately determine the investment intention of investors. Further, social influence has the least effect on how agrarian rural people think and act. The findings demonstrate that investment intention is the leading factor in cementing the investment behavior of agrarian rural investors. This article claims its distinctiveness by adding important insights to the literature of the investment behavior and intention for the Indian agrarian investor class.

Decentralising for local information? Evidence from state‐owned listed firms in China

Abstract

This study investigates the effect of decentralisation of SOEs on stock price crash risk. In so doing, we test two competing hypotheses. Under the Political Influence Hypothesis, decentralisation aggravates local government's expropriation of minority shareholders (type II agency conflict), and thus increases crash risk. Under the Local Information Hypothesis, decentralisation decreases monitoring distance (type I agency conflict), strengthens external monitoring and thus decreases crash risk. We find robust evidence supporting the Political Influence Hypothesis. Cross-sectional analyses show that our baseline results are more pronounced when firms are decentralised to the provincial level and politicians have greater incentives to pursue their political objectives. We further show that bad news hoarding and risk-taking are two potential channels through which SOE decentralisation increases crash risk. Taken together, our results imply that the decentralisation exacerbates the type II agency conflict rather than ameliorates the type I agency conflict in SOEs.

Agricultural Producer Markets in the Maldives: How Poor Market Connectivity Between Farmers and the Markets can be Enhanced

International Journal of Rural Management, Ahead of Print.
In 2018, a multisite case study investigated the agricultural challenges faced by Maldivian farmers and farming stakeholders. The study interviewed a total of 373 farmers and stakeholders from 51 islands across 15 atolls. In their own words, farmers and stakeholders identified factors in macro and micro levels agricultural systems that are related to poor connectivity between farmers and the markets. This research article conducts a deeper investigation into these factors using the Ecological Systems Theory. In this investigation, the data clearly reveal that any efforts towards market connectivity resolution must address the individual within the context of the greater, extrinsic challenges present in the interrelated systems of farming in the Maldives. While the individual is placed at the smallest level of a greater system, and the interconnections of the larger systems are great in impact, the individual is ultimately the decision maker on what and how things work, and how effective they will be. In this article, five recommendations are identified to enhance farmers’ connectivity to markets. This first-person perspective of smallholder farmers is an essential contribution to understanding what measures are needed to address connectivity challenges between Maldivian farmers and the markets they would like to supply.