Firm-level and Country-level factors on leverage ratio

This paper aims to examine the factors affecting the choice of capital structure for publicly listed firms in four Nordic countries including Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden over the period 2004 – 2017. The result of the investigation into firm-specific determinants on the capital structure shows that tangibility and firm size have a significant positive relationship with long-term debt ratio for public firms in most of Nordic countries, except for Finland. On the other hand, profitability is negatively correlated with leverage ratio in all four countries; meanwhile, growth opportunity yields a mixed result: there is a significant negative relationship for Finnish public firms and a significant positive relationship for Danish public firms. Liquidity and Non-debt tax shields have no significant impact on leverage for most of Nordic countries, except for Finland in terms of liquidity and Sweden in terms of non-debt tax shields. Business risk shows a significant negative relationship with leverage ratio in Norway and Sweden. Moreover, by decomposing the sample set into different industrial categories, I find that there is evidence for the existence of industrial effect on firm-specific determinants, as the impact of those determinants on leverage ratio is different in different sectors. The result of the investigation into country-specific effects shows that GDP growth rate and the development of the stock market have a significant negative correlation with long-term debt ratio. On the other hand, the estimation results show that the development of the banking industry, the development of the bond market, and the inflation rate have no significant impact on capital structure decision for public firms in the Nordic region. These results may imply that Nordic firms in general prefer equity financing to debt financing, and when it comes to debt financing decision these firms prefer corporate bonds to bank loans

SERVICE-ORIENTED HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN LOCAL AND FOREIGN FIRMS IN VIETNAM

Abstract: As a result of its economic reform policies, Vietnam has emerged as an attractive country for foreign direct investment, especially in numerous service sectors such as banking and financial services, hospitality and retailing. The presence and operations of foreign service firms have also raised growing concerns regarding the competitive position of local service firms. However, after more than 30 years of the Doi Moi, little is known about whether there are differences in the service-oriented human resource practices within local and foreign service firms in Vietnam. Using a mixed method approach (surveys with 549 service employees and 20 in-depth interviews with managers and service employees in both local and foreign service firms), this study finds that foreign firms perform better than their local counterparts in several dimensions of service-oriented human resource practices (e.g. service-oriented recruitment, training, rewards and employee autonomy). Conclusions and implications for service managers have been provided.Keywords: service-oriented human resource practices, service firms, Vietnam

Depth and regularity of tableau ideals

We compute the depth and regularity of ideals associated with arbitrary fillings of positive integers to a Young diagram, called the tableau ideals