Journal Articles

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/7915

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    Do socially preferred firms disclose more ESG information?
    (Emerald Publishing Limited, 2025-08-25) Peng Z; Anderson HD; Chi J; Liao J
    Purpose While research shows “sin” firms voluntarily disclose more social responsibility information, little research examines such practices in socially preferred industries. This study aims to address this gap by contrasting firm-level environmental, social and governance (ESG) information disclosure of New Zealand firms. Design/methodology/approach This study extracts all New Zealand listed companies for which Bloomberg provides ESG data from 2010 to 2023. Besides, this study excludes firms in financial service sector. The final sample contains 52 companies and 514 firm-year observations. Findings This study find that retirement village firms and the healthcare industry whose operations are commonly considered to be socially preferred, disclose less ESG information than firms in other industries. This result remains after a series of robustness tests, including alternative measures and matching samples. The addition of ESG provisions in the 2017 New Zealand Exchange’s (NZX) Corporate Governance Code, female and independent directors have a significantly positive moderating effect on ESG disclosure. In addition, retirement village firms with higher financial constraints increase ESG disclosure. Furthermore, this study finds that increased ESG disclosure enhances market valuation and reduces the cost of debt. Research limitations/implications A natural limitation of this research is its limited sample size, focusing on New Zealand firms, which may limit the generalisability of the findings to other regions with different regulatory and cultural contexts. Practical implications This research suggests that firms in socially preferred industries, like healthcare and retirement villages, may need stronger incentives or guidelines to improve ESG disclosure. Enhancing corporate governance, particularly through independent and female directors, could positively influence ESG transparency, guiding policy and board composition strategies. Social implications The research highlights a potential gap in ESG disclosure among industries. This suggests a need for greater public awareness and advocacy to ensure that even socially favoured sectors are held accountable for their environmental and social impacts, promoting broader corporate responsibility. Originality/value This study contributes to the literature by revealing that socially preferred industries, such as healthcare and retirement villages, may disclose less ESG information than other sectors. It provides novel insights into the role of corporate governance, particularly the influence of female and independent directors, in enhancing ESG transparency.
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    Meta-analysis of the impact of financial constraints on firm performance
    (John Wiley and Sons Australia, Ltd on behalf of Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, 2023-06-17) Ahamed FT; Houqe MN; van Zijl T
    A large number of studies have investigated the relationship between financial constraints and firm performance. However, due to heterogeneity in study design factors, such as choice of measures for constraints and performance, control variables, estimation methods and study sample, the empirical results have been mixed. To mitigate this issue, this paper reports a meta-analysis of the association between financial constraints and firm performance. To assess the overall direction of the relationship and the sources of heterogeneity, we apply meta-analytic methods to 26 studies (providing 189 effect sizes) on the association between financial constraints and financial performance in listed companies. Our result shows that, overall, there is a positive relationship between financial constraints and firm performance. In addition, meta-regression results suggest that return on assets (ROA) and return on equity (ROE) as measures of financial performance, and external finance and size as measures of financial constraints, have a significant negative impact on the relationship between financial constraints and firm performance relative to the mean impact on effect size. Similarly, all of North America and Asia as regional differences, control of size and corporate governance as control variables, and journal quality as strength of results, also have a significant negative impact. On the other hand, market value as a measure of financial performance, and the Whited & Wu index as a measure of financial constraints, have significant positive impact relative to the mean impact. Similarly, cross-country and Europe as regional differences, and publication status as strength of results, all have significant positive impact. Given that firm performance is of fundamental importance to investors, this study therefore helps researchers and policymakers to understand the variation in the empirical results on the impact of financial constraints.
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    Financial constraints and asymmetric cost behavior
    (Springer-Verlag GmbH, 2021-03-01) Costa MD; Habib A; Bhuiyan MBU
    This study investigates the association between financial constraints and cost asymmetry. Using a large U.S. sample of firms from 1976 to 2016, we find that financially constrained firms exhibit less cost asymmetry. However, such low cost asymmetry is more pronounced for SG&A cost category compared to operating cost category. Our results remain generally consistent across various specifications of financial constraints measures and various asymmetric cost behavior measures. We explore three contextual settings that might affect the association differentially, namely, the future value-creating potential of SG&A expense setting, the investment opportunities setting, and the earnings management setting. In addition, we find evidence that financial constraint leads to lower cost asymmetry, even when managers have received optimistic signals about future sales. As resources drive the costs of a business, and financial constraints affect resource availability, studying the cost behavior of constrained firms makes a valuable contribution to the existing cost asymmetry literature.