Stock option compensation and equity values

I present a model where increasing employee participation in a stock option scheme leads to higher performance but with a cost to shareholders. I show that firms with higher market values per employee are more likely to have an option scheme and they offer stock options to a broader group of employees. The model yields empirical predictions that are consistent with the stock option boom of the late 1990s and their reduced popularity after the stock market decline.compensation

Taloudellinen lukutaito ja sen kritiikki

©2013 Taloustieteellinen Yhdistys.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Choice of Ownership Structure and Firm Performance: Evidence from Estonia

In this paper we use rich panel data for a representative sample of Estonian enterprises to analyse diverse issues related to the determinants of ownership structures and ownership changes after privatisation. A key focus is to determine whether ownership changes are related to economic efficiency. While employee owned firms are found to be much more prone than other firms to switch ownership categories, often “employee owned” firms remain “insider-owned” as ownership passes from current employees to managers and former employees. Logit analyses of the determinants of ownership structures and ownership changes provides mixed support for several hypotheses. As predicted: (i) wealth and resource constraints play a crucial role in the determination of ownership, with foreigners buying firms with the highest equity levels and insiders buying firms with the lowest equity valuations; (ii) risk aversion explains subsequent ownership changes, especially away from employee ownership; (iii) allocation of ownership depends on the pre-privatisation origin and location of the firm, and these factors also influence subsequent ownership changes. Finally we compare our findings with those achieved by using more conventional approaches to analyze efficiency that use very similar data. Reassuringly the evidence presented in this paper is consistent with the view that efficiency considerations drive ownership changes (while earlier analysis for Estonia and for many other transition economies has identified the impact of ownership on economic performance.) However, the findings in this paper also establish that there are important influences besides economic efficiency that affect enterprise ownership and ownership changes.http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/39945/3/wp560.pd

Firm and Employee Effects of an Enterprise Information System: Micro-econometric Evidence

We investigate the impact of adopting an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system on performance changes and employee outcomes in a retail chain. We find that: (i) sales and inventory turnover initially drop by 7 % and recover in 6-12 months; (ii) inventory turnover recovers more quickly for establishments that adopt ERP later; (iii) employee outcomes, including increased workload, greater job difficulty and enhanced multitasking, vary significantly over time, though implications for employee welfare are ambiguous.enterprise resource planning; retailing; Finland; IT

Risk-taking of the European Banks in CEECs : The role of national culture and stake vs shareholder view

The European bank system needs to consider the openness of markets of Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) above other forces among which competition, crises and regulation. This chapter has the aims to understand the impact of national culture on risk-taking by European banks with branches and subsidiaries in CEECs as well as the ownership effects (shareholders, stakeholders). The sample is composed of 328 Eastern European banks in 13 countries and data are from Bankscope. The two measures of culture individualism and power distance affect significantly the risk-taking measured by z-score, while EBRD index records a positive relation. The results on SHV and STV suggest that banks with cooperative BHCs in CEECs have the same behaviour as commercial banks in facing cultural characteristics of a host country.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Choice of ownership structure and firm performance: Evidence from Estonia

In this paper we use rich panel data for a representative sample of Estonian enterprises to analyse diverse issues related to the determinants of ownership structures and ownership changes after privatisation. A key focus is to determine whether ownership changes are related to economic efficiency. While employee owned firms are found to be much more prone than other firms to switch ownership categories, often “employee owned” firms remain “insider-owned” as ownership passes from current employees to managers and former employees. Logit analyses of the determinants of ownership structures and ownership changes provides mixed support for several hypotheses. As predicted: (i) wealth and resource constraints play a crucial role in the determination of ownership, with foreigners buying firms with the highest equity levels and insiders buying firms with the lowest equity valuations; (ii) risk aversion explains subsequent ownership changes, especially away from employee ownership; (iii) allocation of ownership depends on the pre- privatisation origin and location of the firm, and these factors also influence subsequent ownership changes. Finally we compare our findings with those achieved by using more conventional approaches to analyze efficiency that use very similar data. Reassuringly the evidence presented in this paper is consistent with the view that efficiency considerations drive ownership changes (while earlier analysis for Estonia and for many other transition economies has identified the impact of ownership on economic performance.) However, the findings in this paper also establish that there are important influences besides economic efficiency that affect enterprise ownership and ownership changes.Privatisation, ownership change, employee ownership, transition economies, Estonia

Credit Unions and Co-operative Banks Across the World

The national cases of co-operative banking will be considered by pattern: credit unions (as in the UK and the US), decentralized networks (as in Germany, Italy, and Austria), and centralized networks (as in France, the Netherlands, and Finland). The analysis will consider the historical evolution that has characterized the different patterns with regard to national peculiarities (social and economic). We also discuss performance measurement in financial co-operatives and how the recent economic and financial crises have impacted their success vis-à-vis shareholder banks. We also consider corporate governance and regulatory challenges facing financial co-operatives. The present process of hybridization in the sector will also be taken into consideration as well as relaunched co-operatives in the twenty-first century.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

The effects of game-based financial education : New survey evidence from lower-secondary school students in Finland

The authors of this article studied the effects of game-based financial education approaches using a sample of lower-secondary school students in Finland. The sample consisted of 640 students from 42 schools in different areas of the country. The authors focused on three different game-based interventions using a pre- and post-intervention survey design. They compared the effects of the interventions (and their combinations) to a control group that received only traditional teaching. They found robust effects with respect to knowledge gained from game-based approaches. However, the effects on self-reported financial behaviors were weak.© 2022 The author(s). Published with license by Taylor & francis Group, llc. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

Gamification Strategies : A Characterization Using Formal Argumentation Theory

Gamified software applications are omnipresent in everyday life. The idea of using game design elements in non-game contexts to engage and motivate tasks has rapidly gained traction in the human–computer interaction and the psychology fields, but scarcely in the artificial intelligence (AI) research area. In this paper, we propose a software agent perspective of gamification elements to solve two specific problems: (1) a reactive perspective that gamification designers have for those gamified affordances, i.e. the visual cue (output) is only triggered by user interaction, and (2) a lack of formal treatment of gamified software, where strict characterization of software behavior as done in AI, guarantee that the information-based output follows the intended goal of the software. Our contributions presented in this paper are (1) two taxonomies of affordances based on the type of information that every element communicates, and the type of agency that is capable; (2) a framework to formalize the decision-making process for gamified software agents; and (3) a characterization of gamified stories using formal argumentation theory dialogues. We exemplify our contributions with two gamified platforms in the healthcare and financial literacy fields.© The Author(s) 2022. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed