• Journal of Korea Trade
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• v.25 no.7
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• pp.19-40
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• 2021

Purpose - This paper's purpose is to investigate how foreign ownership and innovation affect firm value. Design/methodology - Firm innovation is defined as operational efficiency, which is calculated by adopting data envelopment analysis (DEA). Additionally, R&D intensity is included as a measure of innovation in the analysis. We used firm-level data from manufacturing companies in Korea. The sample comprised 3,753 firm-year observations for every year in the period 2003-2017. Findings - We found that foreign ownership and innovation are positively related to firm value (Tobin's Q). Foreign ownership moderates innovation's contribution to firm value, implying that foreign ownership may enhance the value relevance of firm innovation. In addition, we found that firm innovation partially mediates the relationship between foreign ownership and firm value. Originality/value - This highlights the important role of foreign investors' monitoring; wherein foreign investors enhance firm value by facilitating firm innovation. Our results suggest that foreign ownership can be crucial for innovation and may serve to address weak ownership structures.

• Management & Information Systems Review
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• v.27
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• pp.31-52
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• 2008

Intangible Assets are more important determinants of firm value than others in a digital information-based economy(Lev, 2001). Prior research reveals that investments in intangible assets such as R&D and advertising expenditures are associated with firm value. This paper examines the effects of the corporate investments in the information technologies(IT) on stock return and economic goodwill. The sample consists of 152 firms listed on the Korean stock market in 2002. To test hypothesis We employed multiple regression models. Results are as follows; First, IT environment, IT process, and IT human resource are positively associated with firm's IT value. Second, firm's IT value is positively correlated with firm's economic goodwill. Third, firm's IT value is positively correlated with firm's stock return. These results suggest that the investments related with IT are effective in cultivating firm's value and Stock investors can make the best use of firm's announcements related with IT value. Thus the authorities concerned need to expand the public announcements related IT value.

• KDI Journal of Economic Policy
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• v.42 no.3
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• pp.33-52
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• 2020

Patents are widely used in the literature as a measure of firm-level innovation. It is regarded that patents improve a firm's operational environment and ultimately increase the value of the firm. However, the relationship between patents and firm value in Korea is under-explored in the literature due to the difficulty of constructing datasets. This paper examines whether patents in Korea increase the market value of a firm. To do this, I exploit novel data on firm-level patents and financial information of all listed Korean companies during the period of 1993-2015 and estimate the non-linear production-function type of Tobin's q equations on R&D, patents, and citations. Surprisingly, I find that patents and citations are weakly associated with firm value, while R&D is strongly associated with an increase in firm value. These results direct imply that policymakers in Korea should enhance patenting incentives to encourage firms to innovate.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.383-390
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• 2021

This study investigates the effect of shareholders' rights, disclosure, and transparency on firm value. This study also investigates whether corporate social responsibility (CSR) is pure moderation or quasi moderation in the effect of shareholders' rights, disclosure, and transparency on firm value. This study's novelty is building a model framework to increase firm value and the role of CSR in increasing firm value. This study used secondary data provided by Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand Stock Exchanges. The sample of this study is 142 companies with four years of observations from 2012-2015. Firm value is measured by Tobin's Q. While shareholder's rights, disclosure, and transparency are measured using the ASEAN scorecard. The analysis method used in this study is a fixed effect model using a panel data approach. The result of this study shows that shareholders' rights have a significant positive effect on firm value. However, disclosure and transparency do not affect firm value significantly. In comparison, the CSR disclosure has a moderation effect on the relationship between shareholders' rights and firm value. The CSR disclosure does not have a moderation effect on the relationship between disclosure and transparency and firm value.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.1241-1248
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• 2021

This study employs data from CRSP/Compustat files for the period from 2003 to 2017 and applies a panel data analysis. The results of this study show a positive relationship between trade credit and the firm's market value, however, the results show a negative relationship if we test the impact of financial credit on the firm's market value. The results have direct policy implications for investors, the firm's management, and financial strategy. An implication of our study is that using trade credit as a source of financing may give a positive signal of the firm's creditworthiness and increase the firm's market value. Also, the results of our study indicate that the benefits of using trade credit may outperform the cost of using it as a source of finance. Prior studies examine the impact of financial leverage on the firm's value, however, this study contributes to the existing studies that examine the factors that affect the firm's market value by examining the impact of using trade credit finance on the firm's market value. The main limitation of this study is that the results are based on listed firms, using data from unlisted firms is not available.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.63-72
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• 2020

The study aims to investigate the impact level of earnings quality on firm value. The study has used data with 3,910 observations at listed firms on Vietnam Stock Exchange for the period from 2010 to 2018, and GLS regression analysis is employed in this research. Earnings quality is measured in the aspects of earnings management, earnings persistence, and timeliness of profitability. This study also considers a number of controlled variables that positively influence the firm's value such as firm size, fixed asset investment rate and dividend payout ratio. The results show that earnings quality is positively associated with firm value with having statistical significance. In contrast, some determinants negatively influence firm value such as financial leverage, ratio of market value to book value, and revenue growth. Determinants of firm size, the rate of investment in fixed assets, the rate of dividend payment positively affect the firm value. In contrast, determinants of financial leverage, revenue growth rate and market value to book value ratio are inversely related to firm value according to economic value, Tobin's Q or Price. Based on the findings, some recommendations are proposed for investors, management and policy makers as well in the context of emerging countries including Vietnam.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.53-77
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• 2013

As advertising and promotions are categorized as operating expenses, managers tend to reduce marketing budget to improve their short term profitability. Gauging the value and accountability of marketing spending is therefore considered as a major research priority in marketing. To respond this call, recent studies have documented that financial market reacts positively to a firm's marketing activity or marketing related outcomes such as brand equity and customer satisfaction. However, prior studies focus on the relation of marketing variable and financial market variables. This study suggests a channel about how marketing activity increases firm valuation. Specifically, we propose that a firm's marketing activity increases the level of the firm's product market information and thereby the dispersion in financial analysts' earnings forecasts decreases. With less uncertainty about the firm's future prospect, the firm's managers and shareholders have less information asymmetry, which reduces the firm's cost of capital and thereby increases the valuation of the firm. To our knowledge, this is the first paper to examine how informational benefits can mediate the effect of marketing activity on firm value. To test whether marketing activity contributes to increase in firm value by mitigating information asymmetry, this study employs a longitudinal data which contains 12,824 firm-year observations with 2,337 distinct firms from 1981 to 2006. Firm value is measured by Tobin's Q and one-year-ahead buy-and-hold abnormal return (BHAR). Following prior literature, dispersion in analysts' earnings forecasts is used as a proxy for the information gap between management and shareholders. For model specification, to identify mediating effect, the three-step regression approach is adopted. All models are estimated using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods to test the statistical significance of the mediating effect. The analysis shows that marketing intensity has a significant negative relationship with dispersion in analysts' earnings forecasts. After including the mediator variable about analyst dispersion, the effect of marketing intensity on firm value drops from 1.199 (p < .01) to 1.130 (p < .01) in Tobin's Q model and the same effect drops from .192 (p < .01) to .188 (p < .01) in BHAR model. The results suggest that analysts' forecast dispersion partially accounts for the positive effect of marketing on firm valuation. Additionally, the same analysis was conducted with an alternative dependent variable (forecast accuracy) and a marketing metric (advertising intensity). The analysis supports the robustness of the main results. In sum, the results provide empirical evidence that marketing activity can increase shareholder value by mitigating problem of information asymmetry in the capital market. The findings have important implications for managers. First, managers should be cognizant of the role of marketing activity in providing information to the financial market as well as to the consumer market. Thus, managers should take into account investors' reaction when they design marketing communication messages for reducing the cost of capital. Second, this study shows a channel on how marketing creates shareholder value and highlights the accountability of marketing. In addition to the direct impact of marketing on firm value, an indirect channel by reducing information asymmetry should be considered. Potentially, marketing managers can justify their spending from the perspective of increasing long-term shareholder value.

• The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics and Business
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• v.8 no.12
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• pp.323-336
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• 2021

The present study aims to examine the impact of real earnings management on the future value of the firm and its persistence. The study also tests suspect firm effects on the relationship between real earnings management and the future value of the firm. The sample of the present study consists of all listed non-financial firms from the year 2011 to 2018. Real earnings management has been measured in three alternative ways viz., abnormal operating cash flows, abnormal discretionary spending, and abnormal production cost. Tobin's Q is used as a measure of firm value. The interaction term of real earnings management and Tobin's Q is used to test firm value persistence. The results of the analysis disclose that out of three measures of real earnings management, abnormal reduction in discretionary spending only has a significant negative impact on the persistence of firm value. Moreover, the suspect firm analysis reveals that when the underlying motive of real earnings management is to meet zero earnings, both abnormal increases in operating cash flows and abnormal reduction in discretionary spending have a significant negative impact on firm value persistence.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.57-69
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• 2021

Purpose - The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of macroeconomic conditions on the relationship between CSR and firm value. Design/methodology/approach - Employing KEJI index as a proxy for a firm's CSR activities, we investigate whether investors discount the value of CSR activity during the economic recession when a firm's bankruptcy risk is high and thus its future sustainability is suspected. Findings - Our empirical result represents that the value of a firm with high CSR score is undervalued during recession, reflecting investors doubt the sustainability of a firm whose CSR score is high when overall economy is exposed to high downside risk. Research implications or Originality - It implies that investors may not regard the CSR activities as an indicator of corporate sustainability. Also, the result represents that stable macroeconomic condition can be one of the important factors to make the CSR activity increase a firm's value.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.207-218
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• 2024

Considering the rising interest in environmental, social, and governance (ESG) globally, various studies have shown that ESG practice increases firm value; however, there is still much debate. This study focuses on the relationship between ESG practice and firm value. Further, we identify the mechanisms constituting this relationship to address relevant research gaps. Specifically, this study examines the connection between ESG practice and corporate valuation, emphasizing the mediating role of a company's reputation. Using panel analysis of data from 145 Korean firms (2014-2021), the study reveals that ESG practices notably enhance firm value, signaling their significance to stakeholders. Corporate reputation acts as a bridge between ESG efforts and value, with corporate reputation's influence varying across industries. This research presents broad implications for both academic and industrial fields, highlighting the strategic importance of ESG in enhancing firm value.