The Case for Mandatory Ownership Disclosure

The use of equity derivatives to conceal economic ownership of shares (“hidden ownership”) is increasingly drawing attention from the financial community, as is the exercise of voting power without corresponding economic interest (“empty voting”). Market participants and commentators have called for expansion of ownership disclosure rules, and policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic are now contemplating how to respond. Yet, in order to design appropriate responses it is key to understand why we have ownership disclosure rules in the first place. This understanding currently appears to be lacking, which may explain why we observe divergent approaches between countries. The case for mandatory ownership disclosure has also received remarkably little attention in the literature, which has focused almost exclusively on mandatory issuer disclosure. Perhaps this is because most people assume that ownership disclosure is a good thing. But why is such information important, and to whom? This paper aims to answer these fundamental questions, using the European disclosure regime as an example. First, the paper identifies two main objectives of ownership disclosure: improving market efficiency and corporate governance. Next, the paper explores the various mechanisms through which ownership disclosure performs these tasks. This sets the stage for an analysis of hidden ownership and empty voting that demonstrates why these phenomena are so problematic.ownership disclosure; market efficiency; corporate governance; monitoring; hidden ownership; empty voting; hedge fund activism

M-health review: joining up healthcare in a wireless world

In recent years, there has been a huge increase in the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to deliver health and social care. This trend is bound to continue as providers (whether public or private) strive to deliver better care to more people under conditions of severe budgetary constraint

International Conference on Information Systems

UBT Annual International Conference is the 11th international interdisciplinary peer reviewed conference which publishes works of the scientists as well as practitioners in the area where UBT is active in Education, Research and Development. The UBT aims to implement an integrated strategy to establish itself as an internationally competitive, research-intensive university, committed to the transfer of knowledge and the provision of a world-class education to the most talented students from all background. The main perspective of the conference is to connect the scientists and practitioners from different disciplines in the same place and make them be aware of the recent advancements in different research fields, and provide them with a unique forum to share their experiences. It is also the place to support the new academic staff for doing research and publish their work in international standard level. This conference consists of sub conferences in different fields like: Art and Digital Media Agriculture, Food Science and Technology Architecture and Spatial Planning Civil Engineering, Infrastructure and Environment Computer Science and Communication Engineering Dental Sciences Education and Development Energy Efficiency Engineering Integrated Design Information Systems and Security Journalism, Media and Communication Law Language and Culture Management, Business and Economics Modern Music, Digital Production and Management Medicine and Nursing Mechatronics, System Engineering and Robotics Pharmaceutical and Natural Sciences Political Science Psychology Sport, Health and Society Security Studies This conference is the major scientific event of the UBT. It is organizing annually and always in cooperation with the partner universities from the region and Europe. We have to thank all Authors, partners, sponsors and also the conference organizing team making this event a real international scientific event. Edmond Hajrizi, President of UBT UBT – Higher Education Institutio

The impact of regulation on market quality

This dissertation studies the impact of market structure changes on market efficiency and integrity. Thematically, it is concerned with the actual behaviour of market participants and their associated impact on key market variables such as the degree of liquidity, the size of trading costs, the quality of price discovery and the integrity of the market itself. The fundamental changes to the trading landscape brought about by fragmentation have significantly changed the way that many traders execute transactions. In light of the vast and complex changes that have recently occurred in markets, this thesis conducts an empirical investigation of these microstructure issues. These studies contribute to the understanding of modern markets, the health of which is integral for effective price discovery and liquidity provision. The four studies in this dissertation examine several key market microstructure issues, including: causes of the pre-bid price run-up ahead of takeover announcements; the impact high frequency trading has on market efficiency and integrity; and the effect of both the introduction and regulation of dark trading. The outcomes of these studies are comprehensively discussed and their contributions to the field are duly noted. Given the significant and rapid change occurring in current equity markets, the findings in this dissertation are relevant for market practitioners, exchange venue designers, and market regulators

An Insider Misuse Threat Detection and Prediction Language

Numerous studies indicate that amongst the various types of security threats, the problem of insider misuse of IT systems can have serious consequences for the health of computing infrastructures. Although incidents of external origin are also dangerous, the insider IT misuse problem is difficult to address for a number of reasons. A fundamental reason that makes the problem mitigation difficult relates to the level of trust legitimate users possess inside the organization. The trust factor makes it difficult to detect threats originating from the actions and credentials of individual users. An equally important difficulty in the process of mitigating insider IT threats is based on the variability of the problem. The nature of Insider IT misuse varies amongst organizations. Hence, the problem of expressing what constitutes a threat, as well as the process of detecting and predicting it are non trivial tasks that add up to the multi- factorial nature of insider IT misuse. This thesis is concerned with the process of systematizing the specification of insider threats, focusing on their system-level detection and prediction. The design of suitable user audit mechanisms and semantics form a Domain Specific Language to detect and predict insider misuse incidents. As a result, the thesis proposes in detail ways to construct standardized descriptions (signatures) of insider threat incidents, as means of aiding researchers and IT system experts mitigate the problem of insider IT misuse. The produced audit engine (LUARM – Logging User Actions in Relational Mode) and the Insider Threat Prediction and Specification Language (ITPSL) are two utilities that can be added to the IT insider misuse mitigation arsenal. LUARM is a novel audit engine designed specifically to address the needs of monitoring insider actions. These needs cannot be met by traditional open source audit utilities. ITPSL is an XML based markup that can standardize the description of incidents and threats and thus make use of the LUARM audit data. Its novelty lies on the fact that it can be used to detect as well as predict instances of threats, a task that has not been achieved to this date by a domain specific language to address threats. The research project evaluated the produced language using a cyber-misuse experiment approach derived from real world misuse incident data. The results of the experiment showed that the ITPSL and its associated audit engine LUARM provide a good foundation for insider threat specification and prediction. Some language deficiencies relate to the fact that the insider threat specification process requires a good knowledge of the software applications used in a computer system. As the language is easily expandable, future developments to improve the language towards this direction are suggested

The impact of regulation on market quality

This dissertation studies the impact of market structure changes on market efficiency and integrity. Thematically, it is concerned with the actual behaviour of market participants and their associated impact on key market variables such as the degree of liquidity, the size of trading costs, the quality of price discovery and the integrity of the market itself. The fundamental changes to the trading landscape brought about by fragmentation have significantly changed the way that many traders execute transactions. In light of the vast and complex changes that have recently occurred in markets, this thesis conducts an empirical investigation of these microstructure issues. These studies contribute to the understanding of modern markets, the health of which is integral for effective price discovery and liquidity provision. The four studies in this dissertation examine several key market microstructure issues, including: causes of the pre-bid price run-up ahead of takeover announcements; the impact high frequency trading has on market efficiency and integrity; and the effect of both the introduction and regulation of dark trading. The outcomes of these studies are comprehensively discussed and their contributions to the field are duly noted. Given the significant and rapid change occurring in current equity markets, the findings in this dissertation are relevant for market practitioners, exchange venue designers, and market regulators

An analysis of insider dysfunctional behavours in an accounting information system environment

Insider deviant behaviour in Accounting Information Systems (AIS) has long been recognised as a threat to organisational AIS assets. The literature abounds with a plethora of perspectives in attempts to better understand the phenomenon, however, practitioners and researchers have traditionally focussed on technical approaches, which, although they form part of the solution, are insufficient to address the problem holistically. Managing insider threats requires an understanding of the interconnectedness between the human and contextual factors in which individuals operate, since technical methodologies in isolation have the potential to increase rather than reduce insider threats. This dilemma led many scholars to examine the behaviour of individuals, to further their understanding of the issues and in turn, control insider threats. Despite promising findings, some of these behavioural studies have inherent methodological limitations, and no attempt has been made to differentiate between apparently similar, yet fundamentally different, negative behaviours. Using the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) and actor network theory (ANT) as a foundation, the current study addresses the first concern by integrating AIS complexity and organisational culture, and identifies the contextual factors influencing behaviours that lead to insider threats. Secondly, the study addresses concerns regarding methodological approaches, by categorising various deviant insider behaviours using the concept of dysfunctional behaviour, based on two-dimensional behaviour taxonomy. Partial least square structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) revealed that TPB‘s predictor variables: attitude (ATT), subjective norm (SN) and perceived behavioural control (PBC), together with the moderator variables of organisational culture (CULTURE) and AIS complexity (COMPLEX), accounted for substantial variations in intention (INTENT) to engage in dysfunctional behaviour. The findings also indicated that PBC is a dual-factor construct. Changes in predictors at the behavioural subset level were highlighted, and the findings of previous studies, that ATT is a salient predictor of intention, were confirmed. This was significant across all four dysfunctional behaviour categories. These findings add to the body of knowledge by contributing a theory that explains insider threats in AIS by deciphering dysfunctional behaviour using a predictive model. The study also provides a methodological foundation for future research to account for behavioural factors. Moreover, the findings have implications for managerial practices who want to reduce insider threats to an acceptable level by strengthening organisational culture, moderating AIS complexity, and focussing on management programs with sufficient momentum to impact attitudinal change

Dual class shares in the age of common ownership

Dual class shares and the anticompetitive effects of common ownership are two of the most discussed corporate governance issues of our time. In this Article, we identify a hidden connection between them, which allows us to derive policy implications that are relevant for both. The traditional debate on dual class shares is based on the trade-off between having visionary founders firmly in control of the firm and the risk that they extract private benefits of control. We show that the exclusive focus on this trade-off is rooted on the outdated assumption that all shareholders are firm-value-maximizing (FVM), that is, aim at maximizing the value of the firm in which they have invested. But, as the debate on common ownership acknowledges, diversified institutional investors à la BlackRock care about maximizing the value of their funds’ portfolios, irrespective of what happens to any individual investee company: they act as portfolio-value-maximizing (PVM) shareholders. Consequently, they might prefer a lower level of competition in product markets to maximize the joint value of the competitors that are in their portfolio. In present-day financial markets, dominated by PVM institutional investors, dual class shares can then serve the additional purpose of allowing insiders to silence PVM shareholders, thus mitigating the anticompetitive effects of common ownership. For this reason, we argue against banning dual class shares, or even introducing a mandatory time-based sunset. But that is not the end of the story. The ongoing climate crisis is showing that a relatively low number of major carbon emitters can impose gigantic externalities on the planet. The macroeconomics literature, in turn, has provided ample evidence that a subset of systemically important firms can affect the whole economy. Allowing these companies to have dual class shares without limitations grants FVM shareholders à la Zuckerberg the unfettered ability to inflict systemic harm on society. If limitations were imposed on such shares, PVM shareholders would internalize part of these externalities via their other portfolio holdings, and hence have the incentive to steer individual portfolio firms into being mindful of these externalities. Thus, we suggest that there should be limits placed on the use of dual class shares by systemically relevant firms and show how such limitations ought to be tailored according to a firm’s specific ability to impose systemic externalities

Thought and Behavior Contagion in Capital Markets

Prevailing models of capital markets capture a limited form of social influence and information transmission, in which the beliefs and behavior of an investor affects others only through market price, information transmission and processing is simple (without thoughts and feelings), and there is no localization in the influence of an investor on others. In reality, individuals often process verbal arguments obtained in conversation or from media presentations, and observe the behavior of others. We review here evidence concerning how these activities cause beliefs and behaviors to spread, affect financial decisions, and affect market prices; and theoretical models of social influence and its effects on capital markets. Social influence is central to how information and investor sentiment are transmitted, so thought and behavior contagion should be incorporated into the theory of capital markets.capital markets; thought contagion; behavioral contagion; herd behavior; information cascades; social learning; investor psychology; accounting regulation; disclosure policy; behavioral finance; market efficiency; popular models; memes

Guiding the Automation and AI Revolution: What the Rise in Automation Means for Shifting Standards of Human Value and Our Societal Structure

The automation revolution is inevitable; however, this technology does not have to be our destiny. Traditionally, the idea of automation has been associated with replacing human jobs; however, through deliberate implementation it can be used to empower human beings. The impact of the rise in automation depends on how the technology is adopted by individuals, a human-centric approach from employers, and policy responses to inherent shifts in societal structures and economic systems.Plan II Honors Progra