Three Essays on Corporate Financial Communications

Firms rely on a variety of channels to communicate with financial stakeholders, aiming at providing information, discharging of accountability obligations, building relationships, and facilitating decision-making. This dissertation includes three essays on corporate financial communications with information intermediaries and investors. The first essay presents an overview of the relevant academic studies on firms' private communications with preferred investors or analysts in the post-Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD) period. Drawing on the U.S. and China's Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) evidence, this essay discusses recent literature on private meetings in the post-Reg FD era and concludes with several suggestions for future research. The second essay examines listed firms' private communications. Specifically, we use the most recent private meeting records to investigate the liquidity effect of private meetings under SZSE mandatory disclosure regulation. The results provide evidence that timely disclosure of private meetings improves stock liquidity, enhances information transparency, and increases the fairness of information acquisition. The study also documents the meeting participants' heterogeneity and their different motivations for private meetings, suggesting their different influences on information transmission. The third essay explores public firms' interactive communications with investors. Using quantitative research methods, we examine whether investor-generated interactions through a centralized and stock exchange regulated platform help improve firms' investor relations and investors' information assimilation. The results suggest that interactive communication via the regulated platform helps attract the attention of market participants and increases investor and analyst following. However, increased interactions between firms and market participants may add complexity to investors and reduce their ability to assimilate firm information. Overall, our findings could be of interest to regulators, investors, and other stakeholders interested in more transparent and effective communications between firms and market participants

SOME PERSPECTIVES ON NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION

Through non-verbal communication man may demonstrate behavior as meaningfully as he does through spoken language. Non-verbal language may be communicated in conjunction with speech in face-to-face encounters or may occur independently. It can be observed at random in public places such as elevators, bus stops and parks or in private places such as social gatherings or offices. Further, each individual emits behavior in an unconscious context through facial expression, dress, posture, laughter, space dynamics, use of time and other phenomena. In face-to-face meetings he is aware of his ability to convey meaning and in addition he emanates behavioral cues--communications--over which he has no control. When he is not engaged in an encounter he may control his behavior if he believes others are watching. Whether he controls it or not) it is still capable of giving off cues with which observers interact. When he is aware he is alone he may continue to behave as though in the presence of others or he may discard forms customary to his public manner.http://web.ku.edu/~starjrn

Handwashing with Soap -- Two Paths to National-Scale Programs Lessons from the Field: Vietnam and Indonesia

This paper describes two Southeast Asian programs that are making handwashing a feature of everyday lives on a national scale. The program in Vietnam has concentrated on first gaining an understanding on how people actually behave and then determing how to change that behavior, while the program in Indonesia leverages the reach of the private sector and other partners to scale up handwashing initiatives previously researched and already underway

Congressional Lawmaking: A Perspective On Secrecy and Transparency

[Excerpt] Openness is fundamental to representative government. Yet the congressional process is replete with activities and actions that are private and not observable by the public. How to distinguish reasonable legislative secrecy from impractical transparency is a topic that produces disagreement on Capitol Hill and elsewhere. Why? Because lawmaking is critical to the governance of the nation. Scores of people in the attentive public want to observe and learn about congressional proceedings. Yet secrecy is an ever-present part of much legislative policymaking; however, secrecy and transparency are not “either/or” constructs. They overlap constantly during the various policymaking stages. The objectives of this report are four-fold: • first, to outline briefly the historical and inherent tension between secrecy and transparency in the congressional process; • second, to review several common and recurring secrecy/transparency issues that emerged again with the 2011 formation of the Joint Select Deficit Reduction Committee; • third, to identify various lawmaking stages typically imbued with closed door activities; and • fourth, to close with several summary observations. This report will not be updated

Respite Partnership Collaborative (RPC) Innovation Project Evaluation: Report 2

The Mental Health Services Act (MHSA)—funded by Proposition 63—supports five unique components: (1) Community Services and Supports, (2) Prevention and Early Intervention, (3) Workforce Education and Training, (4) Capital Facilities and Technology, and (5) Innovative Programs. In September 2010, the Sacramento County Division of Behavioral Health Services (DBHS) initiated a community planning process to develop Sacramento's first Innovation Project. DBHS convened an Innovation Workgroup that developed the Innovation Plan and the Respite Partnership Collaborative (RPC) Innovation Project. American Institutes for Research (AIR) is conducting an evaluation of the RPC Innovation Project. Evaluation objectives are to assess the extent to which the RPC Innovation Project does the following:Promote successful collaboration between public and private organizations (i.e., DBHS and the Sierra Health Foundation: The Center for Health Program Management [the Center]) in Sacramento CountyDemonstrate a community-driven processImprove the quality and outcomes of respite services in Sacramento CountyTo address the evaluation objectives; the evaluation includes interviews, an RPC survey, a community survey, and a document review. This report presents findings from evaluation activities conducted from June 2014 to April 2015 to DBHS, RPC members, and the Center

Rebuild Iowa Office Quarterly Performance Report 3rd Quarter, April 2009

As the anniversaries of 2008 tornado’s and floods approach, the Rebuild Iowa Office vision of a safer, stronger and smarter Iowa is coming into sharper focus. While much more remains to be done, hundreds of displaced Iowans and businesses are on the road to recovery and the building blocks for communities coming together. While recovery is a marathon and not a sprint, the work done so far couldn’t have been accomplished without an extensive recovery planning effort and an unprecedented level of cooperation among local, state and federal governments, private citizens, businesses and non-profit organizations, there is a rebirth and recovery underway in Iowa

Eliminating Language Barriers for LEP Individuals: Promising Practices from the Public Sector

While the focus of this report is on eliminating language barriers for limited English proficient (LEP) individuals, any strategy to improve communications with this population must also include English learning and address the shortage of high-quality English as a Second Language (ESL) courses for adults. State-administered ESL programs currently serve only about a million of the estimated 12.4 million LEP adults in the United States who need language instruction. The underfunding of ESL programs means that large numbers of immigrant adults who wish to learn English are unable to enroll in classes or face overcrowded classrooms. For instance, a 2006 national survey of ESL providers found that 57 percent of these programs maintained waiting lists -- ranging from a few weeks to more than three years -- and could not accommodate the high numbers of immigrants interested in learning English. Policy experts and organizations that work with adult English learners have proposed various strategies to increase the availability of high-quality ESL courses, but lack of political support at the national level -- coupled with the current fiscal crisis -- has weakened efforts to help immigrants improve their English skills

Digital Town Hall

Presents findings from a survey of 520 locally elected officials. Explores to what extent they have embraced the Internet as part of their official lives and the effect that communication with constituents via email has had on community affairs