bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The effects of a tax dividend cut on payout policies: Canadian evidence
Authors: Deslandes Manon , Landry Suzanne , Fortin Anne 
Published: January 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the significant dividend tax rate reduction for individual investors in Canada in 2006 affected firms’ payout policies.

Design/methodology/approach
– Using regression models, the authors examine the impact of the 2006 dividend tax cut on dividends and share repurchases in Canadian listed firms from 2003 to 2008. The authors also ran a multinomial logit regression to examine choices between payout policies.

Findings
– Following the tax cut, firms increased their dividend payouts, with larger increases for firms in which shareholders benefited from the reduced tax rate. However, the 2006 tax cut appears to have had no negative effect on distributions through share repurchases. After the 2006 dividend tax cut, firms owned by shareholders subject to dividend taxes were more likely to use a combination of distribution mechanisms than share repurchases only, dividends only, or no payouts.

Practical implications
– Shareholders’ tax preferences are an important factor for firms to consider when designing payout distribution policies. Following the 2006 dividend tax cut, firms increased their dividend payouts.

Social implications
– The findings provide tax regulators with insight into how firms react to tax reform. They suggest that firms adapt their payout policy in the face of: a noteworthy dividend tax cut (6.2 per cent); a dividend tax cut that does not encourage tax arbitrage; and a dividend tax cut that does not economically favour dividend payment over share repurchases.

Originality/value
– The paper considers the 2006 dividend tax rate cut in Canada, which presents a number of significant features that allow capturing the effect of a tax cut on payout policies.
Are controlling shareholders extracting private benefits from European public acquisitions?
Authors: Thraya Mohamed Firas 
Published: January 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine the incentives of controlling shareholders in the market for corporate control. The author investigates the takeover premiums paid by a sample of European acquiring firms with voting rights structures that are highly concentrated. The results show a positive relationship between takeover premiums and the bidder’s concentration of both voting rights and excess voting rights over cash-flow rights. The author argues that with higher levels of entrenchment, takeover premiums reflect the private benefits of control which controlling shareholders in bidding firms seek to extract from a public transaction.

Design/methodology/approach
– This paper uses cross-sectional regression analyses to examine the relationship between takeover premiums and the extent to which bidding firm shareholders exert control as well as the arrangement which underlie this. The sample is composed by 210 deals. The data are collected from various databases (Thomson Financial’s Mergers and Acquisition; Faccio and Lang’s (2002); Datastream/Worldscope, LexisNexis).

Findings
– The premium paid in European M&A transactions is affected by the level of ownership exerted by the controlling shareholder. The results show premiums are positively and significantly associated with higher levels of voting rights, as well as, the level of separation of ownership and control when controlling shareholder ownership is low. Pyramiding structure seems to be the means of separation the most associated with takeover premiums.

Research limitations/implications
– This paper can be improved by other specifications. First, it would be interesting to analyze premiums paid by firms with dispersed ownership structure and to compare these premiums with those paid by firms with controlling shareholders. Second, the author suggests to examine whether a controlling shareholder occupy the seat of a CEO or a chairman. In these cases, the author assumes that the controlling shareholder can benefit from more discretion and can extract more private benefits. Third, the author suggests extending the sample period to 2007 at least to include the sixth wave. This wave was even more significant than the high-tech wave and has not been studied much. In these cases, the author assumes that the controlling shareholder can benefit from more discretion and can extract more private benefits.

Originality/value
– Previous studies show that the premium reflects the private benefits of control in privately negotiated transactions (mainly block transactions). In the present study, the author shows that the premium can also reflect private benefits in public merger transactions.
Solving strategy for unintended criticism in online space
Authors: Chung Sunghun 
Published: January 2015

Purpose– The purpose of this paper is to examine how information load, consumers’ regulatory focus, and prior attitudes interact to influence consumers’ response to firm crisis in the context of online discussion forum. By doing this, this study presents the solving strategy for unintended criticism in online space.Design/methodology/approach– Based on selective exposure and regulatory focus theory, the author proposes that consumers’ regulatory focus and prior attitudes toward a focal firm influence the relationship between information load and selective exposure phenomenon. The data for this study are obtained from an experimental research design. Data were collected from 165 college students who have an experience with an online discussion forum.Findings– The author finds that selective exposure is likely to occur when information load is high (vs low). More importantly, this selective exposure is influenced by regulatory focus. Prevention-focussed consumers with favorable (vs unfavorable) prior attitudes toward the target firm tend to evaluate it less favorably, whereas promotion-focussed consumers with unfavorable (vs favorable) prior attitudes are likely to evaluate it more favorably when information load is high.Originality/value– Evidence is found that consumers’ regulatory focus moderates the effect of information quantity on confirmatory information search, and induces different response strategies to firm crisis information.
Predictors of inconsistent responding in web surveys
Authors: Akbulut Yavuz 
Published: January 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to investigate the antecedents of inconsistent responding in web surveys. Consistency of responses to personal information questions and scale items were compared, and the influence of perceived social support, social appearance anxiety, academic self-efficacy and social networking habits on inconsistent responding was examined.

Design/methodology/approach
– A gaming application on Facebook was used to collect data. A repeated-measures design was conducted with 806 respondents in two online survey administrations. After inconsistent responses provided by the same nicknames were identified, consistent and inconsistent respondents were compared with regard to their responding patterns and research variables.

Findings
– Findings revealed that 45.7 percent of participants misreported their personal information such as age, educational status and gender. Participants were relatively consistent in their responses to attitude scales. Perceived social support led to inconsistent responding whereas social appearance anxiety and academic self-efficacy was not influential in response patterns. A binary logistic regression revealed that perceived family support, number of Facebook friends and Facebook use duration successfully distinguished inconsistent respondents from consistent respondents.

Research limitations/implications
– The sample frame has several limitations insofar as the study only addressed a unique gaming application on Facebook. Thus, unique interactive characteristics of the current context may have altered the nature of responding.

Practical implications
– Practitioners should not rely on the personal information provided by online survey respondents to conduct parametric tests, whereas responses to online attitude scales seemed relatively consistent.

Originality/value
– The principal contribution of the paper is that findings have provided insights into the current status of response patterns in online survey administrations. In addition, the paper highlights the importance of individual variables which influence the consistency of responses.
Inflation hedging and protection characteristics of infrastructure and real estate assets
Authors: Wurstbauer Daniel , Schäfers Wolfgang 
Published: January 2015

Purpose– Similar to real estate, infrastructure investments are regarded as providing a good inflation hedge and inflation protection. However, the empirical literature on infrastructure and inflation is scarce. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the short- and long-term inflation-hedging characteristics, as well as the inflation protection associated with infrastructure and real estate assets.Design/methodology/approach– Based on a unique data set for direct infrastructure performance, a listed infrastructure index, common direct and listed real estate indices, the authors test for short- and long-term inflation-hedging characteristics of these assets in the USA from 1991-2013. The authors employ the traditional Fama and Schwert (1977) framework, as well as Engle and Granger (1987) co-integration tests. Granger causality tests are further conducted, so as to gain insight into the short-run dynamics. Finally, shortfall risk measures are applied to investigate the inflation protection characteristics of the different assets over increasingly long investment horizons.Findings– The empirical results indicate that in the short run, only direct infrastructure provides a partial hedge against inflation. However, co-integration tests suggest that all series have a long-run co-movement with inflation, implying a long-term hedge. The causality tests reveal reverse unidirectional causality – while real estate asset returns are Granger-caused by inflation, infrastructure asset returns seem to cause inflation. These findings further confirm that both assets represent a distinct asset class. Ultimately, direct infrastructure investments exhibit the most desirable inflation protection characteristics among the set of assets.Research limitations/implications– This study only presents results based on a composite direct infrastructure index, as no sub-indices for sub-sectors are available yet.Practical implications– Investors seeking assets that are sensitive to inflation and mitigate inflation risk should consider direct infrastructure investments in their asset allocation strategy.Originality/value– This is the first study to examine the ability of direct infrastructure to assess inflation risk.
Landlord and Tenant Act 1954: time for a change?
Authors: Dowden Malcolm John 
Published: January 2015

Purpose
– This legal update examines recent decisions on the security of tenure given by Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 to business tenants, and asks whether it is time to revisit or remove a piece of legislation that was drafted to deal with the consequences of war damage and short supply of commercial premises during the 1950s. It highlights the narrow, technical rules and distinctions that make little sense to commercial parties. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Design/methodology/approach
– The paper considers recent court rulings in the light of the original purpose of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, focusing on provisions that were reformed in 1969-reflect changes in market conditions since the immediate post-Second World War period.

Findings
– Narrow, technical rules and exceptions carry considerable risks for commercial landlords and may not be appropriate or necessary in current market conditions.

Research limitations/implications
– The paper examines only a recent selection of court rulings, but highlights the potentially harsh impact on commercial landlords of legislation designed to protect tenant interests in market conditions radically different from those prevailing some 60 years after its enactment.

Practical implications
– With no immediate prospect of reform, the paper highlights the need for landlords to adhere closely to the precise technical requirements of the Act.

Originality/value
– The paper is based on the author’s reading and analysis of recent Court of Appeal rulings.
Organisational culture and the creation of brand identity: retail food branding in new markets
Authors: Rashid Sabrina , Ghose Kamal 
Published: January 2015

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between organizational culture and brand identity in the retail food and beverage industry and also to explore how independent retail coffee shops and cafes build their brands. The evolution of coffee drinking in many new markets is following a pattern similar to the one witnessed in New Zealand.

Design/methodology/approach
– A qualitative approach using semi-structured interviews, field notes, photographs and empirical material was carried out with 15 independent coffee shops and nine franchise coffee shops in Christchurch, New Zealand. In total five different approaches were adopted to provide diverse observations to compliment every angle of the research setting by using triangulation.

Findings
– The findings from this research reveal that an appropriate brand name helps to ease the process of brand identity creation. The personality of the market leader strongly influences organizational culture, and a constant flow of updated business intelligence plays an important role in creating a distinctive brand identity. Internal marketing and personal values are key to constructing internal culture while the acculturation process plays an important role in developing internal culture and building brand identity.

Research limitations/implications
– Difficulty in getting participants was a major limitation because many employees/owners declined to take part in the research due to the nature of their work which required full attention to serve customers when the outlet is operating.

Originality/value
– In previous years, research has focused on interaction between the organization and their customers (Hoeffler, 2003). This study extends previous research by investigating the internal culture of the organization and its relation to brand identity building within the organization.
An analysis of the viability of micro health takaful in Malaysia
Authors: Htay Sheila Nu Nu , Sadzali Nur Shazwani , Amin Hanudin 
Published: January 2015

Purpose
– This research aims to examine the viability of micro-health takaful in Malaysia. Current practices in the takaful industry in Malaysia reveal that takaful operators (TOs) are keen on offering products that are affordable for middle- to high-income people. However, the concept of takaful is based on mutual help, and, hence, it is believed that TOs should offer products affordable by the poor and lower income people.

Design/methodology/approach
– To achieve this objective, the interest of the poor to participate in this product is examined by sending the questionnaire. In addition, TOs were approached to understand why micro-health takaful products have not been offered as yet. The regulator was also interviewed to gauge whether the government is supportive of this scheme.

Findings
– From the survey, it was noted that the poor people are interested to participate in such a scheme. However, most of them are only willing to contribute about RM5 per month, while some of the respondents, especially, zakat recipients are unable to afford to pay at all. The zakat authority when interviewed stated they were unable to contribute on behalf of the zakat recipients. To a certain extent, zakat authority is required to obtain an approval from the National Fatwa Council with regard to that issue. The regulator views that the micro takaful is still in an experimental stage. From the perspective of TOs, it might be viable if the product is offered as part of the corporate social responsibility, rather than by individual operators. Therefore, it could be summed up that micro-health takaful will be viable if and only if TOs collectively offer it as a part of their corporate social responsibility, and it must be subsidized by the zakat or waqf authorities.

Research limitations/implications
– Particularly, this study only considers a limited geography in Malaysia to understand the viability of micro-health. On the same note, the current focus of the study is on micro-health takaful in which it has not tapped other potential micro takaful products.

Originality/value
– This study is a pioneering effort in understanding the viability of the micro health takaful in Malaysia.
Agency and stewardship attitudes of chief financial officers in private companies
Authors: Hiebl Martin R. W. 
Published: January 2015

Purpose– This paper aims to explore the differing attitudes of salaried chief financial officers (CFOs) that can be associated with agency theory and stewardship theory. CFO attitudes are investigated because CFOs typically face additional agency conflict in their roles as overseers of the financial and accounting functions that are responsible for the production of numerical information used as a basis for incentive compensation.Design/methodology/approach– A qualitative field study of 14 large privately held Austrian manufacturing companies was conducted. The findings rely on information retrieved from 18 semi-structured interviews conducted with individuals from these companies.Findings– The findings reveal a number of contextual factors that influence stewardship and agency attitudes of salaried CFOs. CFOs, who mainly report formally to owners, perceive more control in the hands of the owners. Short-term management appointments appear to facilitate agency-like behavior, whereas the existence of owner–managers and the typical CFO's maturity in terms of age and wealth seem to nurture stewardship behavior.Research limitations/implications– Further (quantitative) research is needed to corroborate the findings in this study, which are derived from a qualitative research approach. Further research on agency and stewardship behavior should also include the view of principal with respect to agent actions, as this paper shows that principal opinion strongly affects the way agents perceive control.Practical implications– The findings suggest that the behavior of company owners can influence and change a manager's agency or stewardship attitude. Owners who desire a culture of stewardship should set long-term goals and facilitate long-term management appointments. Moreover, owners can lower a manager's perceived level of owner control by adopting an active role in management.Originality/value– This paper is the first to analyze stewardship and agency attitude of salaried CFOs in privately held companies. It, therefore, adds to the current literature on the role of the CFO, as well as to the literature on governance issues in privately held firms.
The Governance Effect of the Media's News Dissemination Role: Evidence from Insider Trading
Authors: DAI LILI , PARWADA JERRY T. , ZHANG BOHUI 
Published: January 2015

ABSTRACTWe investigate whether the media plays a role in corporate governance by disseminating news. Using a comprehensive data set of corporate and insider news coverage for the 2001–2012 period, we show that the media reduces insiders’ future trading profits by disseminating news on prior insiders’ trades available from regulatory filings. We find support for three economic mechanisms underlying the disciplining effect of news dissemination: the reduction of information asymmetry, concerns regarding litigation risk, and the impact on insiders’ personal wealth and reputation. Our findings provide new insights into the real effect of news dissemination.
Effect of Ohmic Heating of Soymilk on Urease Inactivation and Kinetic Analysis in Holding Time
Authors: Li Fa‐De , Chen Chen , Ren Jie , Wang Ranran , Wu Peng 
Published: January 2015

AbstractTo verify the effect of the ohmic heating on the urease activity in the soymilk, the ohmic heating methods with the different electrical field conditions (the frequency and the voltage ranging from 50 to 10 kHz and from 160 to 220 V, respectively) were employed. The results showed that if the value of the urease activity measured with the quantitative spectrophotometry method was lower than 16.8 IU, the urease activity measured with the qualitative method was negative. The urease activity of the sample ohmically heated was significantly lower than that of the sample conventionally heated (P < 0.01) at the same target temperature. It was concluded that the electrical field enhanced the urease inactivation. In addition, the inactivation kinetics of the urease in the soymilk could be described with a biphasic model during holding time at a target temperature. Thus, it was concluded that the urease in the soymilk would contain 2 isoenzymes, one is the thermolabile fraction, the other the thermostable fraction, and that the thermostable isoenzyme could not be completely inactivated when the holding time increased, whether the soymilk was cooked with the conventional method or with the ohmic heating method. Therefore, the electric field had no effect on the inactivation of the thermostable isoenzyme of the urease.
Detection and Quantification of 4(5)‐Methylimidazole in Cooked Meat
Authors: Karim Faris , Smith J. Scott 
Published: January 2015

Abstract4(5)‐Methylimidazole (4‐MeI) is a nitrogen‐containing heterocyclic compound found in class III and IV ammoniated caramel colors, a group of additives widely used in the food industry. A suspected carcinogen and neurotoxin and efforts are underway to limit its presence in foods. Several methods have been developed to detect and quantitate 4‐MeI in different food matrices, including roasted coffee, beer, soft drinks, and soy sauce; however, no methods are available to measure 4‐MeI in cooked meat and meat products containing lipids and high levels of interfering nitrogen compounds, such as amino acids and peptides. A rapid method using 0.1 M sodium acetate buffer (pH 5) as an extraction solvent followed by derivatization with isobutylchloroformate and gas chromatograph mass‐spectrometry was developed to quantify 4‐MeI in cooked meat products with added caramel colors containing 4‐MeI. Selected ion monitoring mode was used to monitor 4‐MeI ions fragments. In the 8 commercial meat products tested, 4‐MeI levels ranged from 0.041 to 1.015 mg/kg, with recovery of 94.76% to 103.94%. In addition, a matrix‐matched calibration performed by analyzing a spiked cooked meat sample indicated no significant difference (P > 0.05), which means the meat matrix had no effect on the developed method. This method proved useful in analyzing 4‐MeI in meat products with added caramel color containing 4‐MeI.