11 Oct 2021 ISSUE
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11 Oct 2021 ISSUE
Contents 02 Research Insight
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What’s in a name? More than you think if you are a hedge fund! News Greater Bay Area Pay and Benefits survey 2021 result announced
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Research Excellence
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Upcoming Events
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2 / Research Espresso / Research Insight
Research Insight
Oct 2021 Issue 11 / 3
What’s in a name? More than you think if you are a hedge fund !
4 / Research Espresso
/ Research Insight
L
oosely regulated investment entities, hedge funds come in many shapes. While many are happy making anonymous bets on the direction of markets and currencies, others take a more personalised approach to investment. Activist hedge funds – not to be confused with NGOs agitating for social change – buy shares in companies to pressure management to adopt the ideas promoted by the funds, from replacing board members to selling subsidiaries and pay more dividends. Managing in excess of $127.5 billion, activist hedge funds deployed $42.2 billion to press changes at 712 companies worldwide in 2019. Given this new breed of corporate raiders have the
management to respond to such demands. But how? In a recent article, a team of researchers applied reacted to 468 campaigns conducted by 49 activist hedge funds. Since activists do enormous work prior to launching a campaign and are under no obligation to make announcements until formally launching a campaign, the management of targeted demands is about to come their way. Given this information asymmetry, market signalling theory suggests that the reputation of a hedge fund In principle, funds known as being generally confrontational should be expected to remain so across all campaigns. Since confrontations like proxy
Oct 2021 Issue 11 /
increasing their dividend payouts while lowering their research and development expenditures, cash balances and commitment to corporate social responsibility. It seems that management’s eagerness and long-term shareholders.
radar screen of an activist hedge fund would be bully, always a bully!
to a company's performance and could damage the management, the researchers believed it would make sense for management to quickly agree with the demands of aggressive activists. As predicted, activists with a reputation for being confrontational are indeed likely to be more successful capitulating to activists is not without consequences. While activist funds are likely to make money by selling their shares once an agreement has been reached, this
Dr. Albert Ahn Assistant Professor Department of Management Ahn, A., & Wiersema, M. (2021). Activist Hedge Funds: Beware the New Titans. Academy of Management Perspectives, 35(1).
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News
Oct 2021 Issue 11 / 7
Greater Bay Area Pay and Benefits survey 2021 result announced
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he Centre for Human Resources Strategy and Development (CHRSD) of the HKBU School of Business released the results of the “Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Pay and Benefits Survey 2021” on 21 October, attracting 150 HR professionals and reporters to the seminars. The survey was conducted between July and September 2021. For Hong Kong, questionnaire responses from 94 companies were received, covering 81,680 employees in Hong Kong. The respondents came from 11 business sectors, including: construction, education, engineering, hospitality & catering, information/communication & software technology, real estate & property management, retail, trading etc. The survey results suggest that the overall actual salary increase in Hong Kong for the period of July 2020 to June 2021 ranged from 1.3% to 2.1%. The projected salary increase for 2022 was 1.9% to 2.4%.
As for the Guangdong cities, a total of 141,116 employees from 196 organisations were covered in the survey. The results suggested that the overall actual salary increase in 2021 ranged from 5.2% to 6.0% for the same period, with the overall projected salary increase for 2022 at 5.3% to 5.8%. Dr. Felix Yip, Associate Director of the Centre for Human Resources Strategy and Development, said cities in Guangdong “are potentially attractive to young people from Hong Kong. Young people should be open-minded and go north to the Mainland to gain different working experiences.” The survey has been an annual collaboration between HKBU and the Hong Kong People Management Association since 1995, aiming at providing employers and human resources professionals with the latest market trends on compensation and benefits in the region. This year the CHRSD also partnered with the Research Centre for Human Resources Management of South China University of Technology (SCUT) and Talent Development and Management Association of Guangdong to extend the coverage of the survey to the Greater Bay Area.
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/ Research Excellence
Research Excellence Battles of mobile payment networks: The impacts of network structures, technology complementarities and institutional mechanisms on consumer loyalty Information Systems Journal Professor, Department of Finance and Decision Sciences
Talented inside directors and corporate social responsibility: A tale of two roles
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/isj.12366
Dr. Ahrum Choi
Assistant Professor, Department of Accountancy and Law
Journal of Corporate Finance
Dr. Gaoguang Zhou Associate Professor Department of Accountancy and Law
Oct 2021 Issue 11 /
Strategic Directions for AI: The Role of CIOs and Boards of Directors MIS Quarterly https://misq.org/strategic-directions-for-ai-the-roleof-cios-and-boards-of-directors.html
Dr. Matthew M. Li Associate Professor Department of Finance and Decision Sciences
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10 / Research Espresso
/ Upcoming Events
Upcoming Events Centre for Business Analytics and the Digital Economy
Economics
4 November 2021 / 9:00-10:30
2 November 2021 / 9:00-10:30
Choice Screen Auctions
On the Value of Information Structures in Stochastic Games
Prof. Michael OSTROVSKY Stanford University
Prof. Ichiro OBARA University of California, Los Angeles
11 November 2021 / 16:00-17:30
10 November 2021 / 9:00-10:30
Rise of the Central Bank Digital Currencies: Drivers, Approaches and Technologies
A Model of Censorship, Propaganda, and Repression
Dr. Jon FROST Bank for International Settlements
Prof. Scott GEHLBACH University of Chicago
19 November 2021 / 9:00-10:30 Monetary Policy with Opinionated Markets Prof. Alp SIMSEK Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Oct 2021 Issue 11 /
Finance and Decision Sciences 5 November 2021 / 13:00-14:00 2021 Hong Kong FinTech Week Education Series: In Search of Security in Financial Technology
Management 9 November 2021 / 10:00-11:30 Reconciling Female Agentic Advantage and Disadvantage with the CADDIS Measure of Agency Prof. Christy KOVAL Michigan State University
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Research Espresso – Impactful Research Insights for Business! The Research Espresso, a bimonthly e-publication covering everything you need to know about the latest research developments at the HKBU School of Business, focuses on four key areas: Research Insights (the main research topic of the month), Research Excellence (recognition of faculty members’ research achievements), News (research-related updates), and Seminars (sharing research skills and knowledge). The idea is to provide business practitioners with the most recent research findings from the School's faculty. We want to build links between research and practice and to ensure that the School's research has business and societal impact. Enjoy reading, and your feedback and input is always welcome!
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