Love them or hate them, executive remuneration consultants are key players in remuneration committees’ pay determination processes. This book concerns the professional standards of executive remuneration consultants (and their ‘in-house’ counterparts; for example, Human Resources Director and Head of Reward) in providing remuneration committee advisory services. The author is a 25-year ‘veteran’ executive remuneration consultant, having worked around the world in this capacity (particularly in the financial services sector). This book is based on a qualitative empirical doctoral research exercise, involving 53 participants in the UK executive pay scene (including regulators, institutional shareholder bodies, proxy advisors, remuneration committees’ chairs/members, executive remuneration consultants and in-house executive reward specialists). The objective was to formulate conclusions that could be used to the benefit of UK practice and contribute to the relevant academic scholarship on executive remuneration consultants. The research covered 18 aspects, ranging from an examination of the independence of such consultants to whether there might be a specialised accreditation/qualification and/or licence to practise regime covering their services. It provides novel insights into this previously under-researched area of corporate governance/financial regulation. This book will be of interest to those involved in the UK executive remuneration scene, whether government, regulators or any of the other parties mentioned already (plus academics in universities and business schools). It is hoped too that overseas remuneration regimes that have respects in common with the UK’s will find this book useful.

This book provides a unique picture of green finance by highlighting, under both theoretical and practical lenses, current changing paradigms and future directions in this field. The book is founded upon four major aspects that characterize current debates in green finance: products and services, financial innovation, green washing and transparency, and external pressures. The book is particularly useful to understand the current perimeter of the field; identify the potentials and challenges of the sector; explore current changing paradigms and its potentials to act as drivers for mainstreaming green finance; and conceptualize future directions of the field, with particular focus on its role in the post-COVID recovery plans. The book therefore is not only useful for deriving theoretical or practical implications for researchers and policy makers, but also to capture the evolving complexity of the field at the eve of extraordinary and green-driven changes in financial industry and in policy programs. The book also opens up interesting questions on theoretical advances in financial theory derived from these innovations and accelerated by the pandemic. It will be of interest to scholars and students from different academic disciplines such as economics, finance, political science, and entrepreneurship, as well as practitioners interested in green finance and in the financing of environmentally impactful organizations and projects.

This book focuses on political connections in the United States. It contributes to the literature on the link between politics and business, and on the impact of political connections on firm value, by considering industry-level regulation as a discriminating factor in the investigation of firm value creation. Overall, the findings are consistent with the view that industry-level regulation matters.

This book responds to key issues in strategic management control by studying the interplay between ethics, social and environmental performance and governance. Grounded in research but written with practitioners and students in mind, it addresses the most up-to-date issues pertaining to ethical insights into management accounting and accountability.

This volume presents current developments in the fields of banking and finance from an international perspective. Featuring contributions from the 2nd International Conference on Banking and Finance Perspectives (ICBFP), this volume serves as a valuable forum for discussing current issues and trends in the banking and financial sectors, especially in light of the global economic challenges triggered by financial institutions. Using the latest theoretical models, new perspectives are brought to topics such as e-finance and e-banking, Islamic banking, international cross-border regulatory cooperation, bank fraud, the global financial crisis, microfinance, and corporate control transactions. Offering an opportunity to explore the challenges of a rapidly changing industry, this volume will be of interest to academics, policy makers, and scholars in the fields of banking, insurance, and finance.

The economic process of financialization is defined by many as the development of the dependence and subordination of the productive sector to the financial sector. Leading to an emphasis on maximizing shareholder value above all else, the financialization of the economy and production has an enormous impact on the everyday life of ordinary people including the erosion of employment right, the rise of precarious work, and rising inequalities. Using multicase study research and an exploratory approach, this book analyzes the financialization process in the ten companies with the highest market capitalization worldwide including tech firms, oil companies and banks. This book analyzes indicators of financialization in large corporations including a comparison between profitability sources; shareholding structure, acquisitions and sales of shares; mergers and acquisitions; the origins of directors; payment of compensation to executives; dividend payments to shareholders and stock repurchases; employee salaries; and employment levels. The data demonstrates that what would once have been considered non-core business activities have become more profitable than core business activities in many of these companies. In some cases, these companies are responsible for large investment funds and financial-type institutions which already surpass the largest banks in terms of assets under management. Meanwhile, the average salaries at some of these companies have been falling in real terms due to the rise of outsourcing and the use of cheap or precarious labour. Adopting an economic sociology approach, this book marks a significant contribution to the literature on financialization in economics, sociology and business.

Where institutions and individuals averagely invest the majority of their assets in money-market and fixed-income instruments, interest rate risk management could be seen as the single most important global financial issue. However, the majority of the key techniques used by most investors were developed several decades ago, and the advantages of multi-factor models are not fully recognised by many researchers and practitioners. This book provides clear and practical insight into bond portfolios and portfolio management through key empirical analysis. The authors use extensive sets of empirical data to describe the value potentially added by more recent techniques to manage interest rate risk relative to traditional techniques and to present empirical evidence of such an added value. Beginning with a description of the simplest models and moving on to the most complex, the authors offer key recommendations for the future of rate risk management.

This volume of Eurasian Studies in Business and Economics presents selected theoretical and empirical papers from the 25th Eurasia Business and Economics Society (EBES) Conference, held in Berlin, Germany, in May 2018. Covering diverse areas of business and management from different geographic regions, the book focuses on current topics such as consumer engagement, consumer loyalty, travel blogging, and AirBnB's marketing communication strategy, as well as healthcare project evaluation and Industry 4.0. It also includes related studies that analyze accounting and finance aspects like bank reliability and the bankruptcy risks of equity crowdfunding start-ups.

The terms venture capital and private equity may differ across countries. This book discusses venture capital not only as risk capital toward unlisted companies with the aim to enhance the investee firm, but also analyses broader forms of entrepreneurial investment: from early stage financing to buyout and turnaround transaction. This book is divided into four sections. The first section aims to shed light on the terminology and offers a comparison between private equity/venture capital, and the traditional banking sector as financing sources. The second section details the differences between private equity and venture capital transactions on the basis of firm life cycle, and summarizes the main characteristics of both private equity and venture capital investors and investee firms. The third section illustrates the evolution of the private equity and venture capital industry before and after the financial crisis by looking at three fundamental aspects: fundraising, investment and divestment, all in terms of volume and trends. The last section discusses the basic elements of corporate valuation applied to private equity and venture capital industry, with some practical examples.

It is not intuitive to accept that there exists a link between quantum physical systems and cognitive systems. However, recent research has shown that cognitive systems and collective (social) systems, including biology, exhibit uncertainty which can be successfully modelled with quantum probability. The use of such probability allows for the modelling of situations which typically violate the laws of classical probability. The Palgrave Handbook of Quantum Models in Social Science is is a unique volume that brings together contributions from leading experts on key topics in this new and emerging field. Completely self-contained, it begins with an introductory section which gathers all the fundamental notions required to be able to understand later chapters. The handbook then moves on to address some of the latest research and applications for quantum methods in social science disciplines, including economics, politics and psychology. It begins with the issue of how the quantum mechanical framework can be applied to economics. Chapters devoted to this topic range from how Fisher information can be argued to play a role in economics, to the foundations and application of quantum game theory. The handbook then progresses in considering how belief states can be updated with the theory of quantum measurements (and also with more general methods). The practical use of the Hilbert space (and Fock space) in decision theory is then introduced, and open quantum systems are also considered. The handbook also treats a model of neural oscillators that reproduces some of the features of quantum cognition. Other contributions delve into causal reasoning using quantum Bayes nets and the role of quantum probability in modelling so called affective evaluation. The handbook is rounded off with two chapters which discuss the grand challenges which lie ahead of us. How can the quantum formalism be justified in social science and is the traditional quantum formalism too restrictive? Finally, a question is posed: whether there is a necessary role for quantum mathematical models to go beyond physics. This book will bring the latest and most cutting edge research on quantum theory to social science disciplines. Students and researchers across the discipline, as well as those in the fields of physics and mathematics will welcome this important addition to the literature.

This book offers fresh impulses from different industries on how to deal with innovation processes. Authors from different backgrounds, such as artificial intelligence, mechanical engineering, medical technology and law, share their experiences with enabling and managing innovation. The ability of companies to innovate functions as a benchmark to attract investors long-term. While each company has different preconditions and environments to adapt to, the authors give guidance in the fields of digitalization, workspaces and business model innovation.

In the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, corporate collapses, accounting scandals and concerns around competition and auditor choice, the European Commission (EC) promoted the preparation of various reports on audit policy to support a harmonisation process of European auditing regulation. Consequently, the European Union Audit Regulation and Directive was implemented from 2016. This book provides a timely picture of the audit sector and how it responds to regulatory and technological challenges. It analyses the impact of EU reforms on audit practices by comparing the U.K. and Italy, which, representing two very different regulatory and cultural contexts, will offer insight into how the efforts at standardising audit regulation may lead to very different organisational firm responses within Europe. It addresses issues relating to public policy work and the concerns faced by the market for audit and assurance services, in promoting audit quality, better communication about the role of the auditor, capital market stability and confidence, and auditor independence. Moreover, it highlights what the future of auditing might look like in the EU particularly after the U.K. has left, and how meeting public expectations will continue to be a struggle for the accounting profession given the many problems ahead. The book encourages a deeper awareness of the challenges faced by those that monitor and certify the financial statements of the world's largest public companies and contributes to the general understanding of this controversial industry. It will serve as a useful guide to the recent EU audit reforms, not only for academics, and research students but also to regulators, policymakers, standard setters, industry professionals, and business executives worldwide.

This book illustrates the EU-wide Solvency II framework for the insurance industry, which was implemented on January 1, 2016, after a long project phase. Analogous to the system for banks, it is based on three pillars and the authors analyze the complete framework pillar by pillar with a consistent data model for a non-life insurer, which was developed by the Research Group Financial & Actuarial Risk Management (FaRis) at the Institute for Insurance Studies of the TH Koeln - University of Applied Sciences. The book leverages the long-standing and close cooperation between the University of Limerick (Ireland) and the Institute for Insurance Studies at TH Koeln - University of Applied Sciences (Germany).

This book presents new methodologies for rating non-financial issuers and project ratings based on the BFO (Brusov-Filatova-Orekhova) theory of capital cost and structure, and its perpetuity limit (Modigliani-Miller theory), as well as modern investment models created by the authors. It first provides a critical analysis of the methodological and systemic shortcomings of the current credit ratings of non-financial issuers and project ratings. In order to increase the objectivity and accuracy of rating assessments, it then modifies the BFO theory for companies of arbitrary age as well as and the perpetuity limit (Modigliani-Miller theory) for rating needs. The authors also incorporate the financial indicators used in the rating methodology into both the BFO theory and the Modigliani-Miller theory. Within the framework of the modified BFO theory for rating needs, they then present a detailed study of the dependence of the weighted average cost of capital of WACC, used as the discount rate for discounting financial flows, on the financial ratios used in the rating, on the age of the company, on the leverage level and on the level of taxation for a wide range of values of equity cost and debt cost for companies of arbitrary age. This makes it possible to correctly assess of the discount rate, taking into account the values of financial ratios. The use of well-established corporate finance theories (BFO theory and its perpetuity limit) opens up new horizons in the rating industry, providing an opportunity to switch from mainly qualitative methods for determining the creditworthiness of issuers to mainly quantitative methods in rating, and as such improving the quality and accuracy of rating scores.

Working capital refers to the money that a company uses to finance its daily operations. Proper management of working capital is critical to financial health and operational success. Working capital management (WCM) aims to maximize operational efficiency by maintaining a delicate balance among growth, profitability, and liquidity. WCM is a continuous responsibility focusing on a firm's day-to-day operations involving short-term assets and liabilities. By efficiently managing a firm's cash, accounts receivable, inventories, and accounts payable, managers can help maintain smooth operations and improve a company's earnings and profitability. By contrast, poor WCM could lead to a lower credit score, financial insolvency, legal troubles, liquidation of assets, and potential bankruptcy.This book provides an objective look into the dynamic world of WCM. Its coverage extends from discussing basic concepts and their applications to increasingly complex and real-world situations. The book stresses that WCM is a combination of both art and science. This volume spans the gamut from theoretical to practical while offering the right balance of detailed and user-friendly coverage. Readers can gain an in-depth understanding of this subject from experts in this field. Those who want a broad survey will benefit, as will readers looking for more in-depth presentations of specific areas within this field of study. In summary, Working Capital Management: Concepts and Strategies provides a fresh look at this intriguing but often complex subject of WCM.

Public-Private Partnerships for Infrastructure and Business Funding is ideal for scholars and practitioners who work in the field of public policy design and implementation, finance and banking, and economic development.

This open access book brings together narratives of inbound and outbound expatriate entrepreneurship in Japan to provide a comprehensive overview of international entrepreneurship in the region. Through in-depth interviews with expatriate entrepreneurs, policymakers, and additional stakeholders it provides the reader with a solid understanding of the current landscape of international entrepreneurship as it relates to Japan and the challenges for policymakers. The topics addressed in this book include definitions of expatriate entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship policy development and implementation, concepts of mindset, cultural brokerage, community, and identity as they relate to Japanese self-initiated expatriate entrepreneurs working in South East Asia and to non-Japanese self-initiated expatriate entrepreneurs working in Japan. Additionally, the book provides an overview of issues connected to regional development and economic growth in Asia. Illustrated through carefully chosen cases from Japan, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia and developed by connecting these cases to policy and interdisciplinary studies, this book is highly recommended to scholars, policymakers and practitioners who seek an in-depth and up-to-date integrated overview of the field of expatriate entrepreneurship in Asia.

This concise volume evaluates the cause and significance of recent corporate failures and financial scandals, and how they reflect on the fitness for purpose of the external auditors, financial reports, financial watchdogs, boards, directors and senior management. Failures like the disastrous collapse of Carillion, examined at length, have ultimately led to a crisis of confidence not only in the audit process but in the entire process of financial reporting. Revealing the shortcomings in audit quality, independence, choice and the growing expectation gap, Financial Failures and Scandals questions if the profession, its regulators or government watchdogs, are adequately prepared for the challenges of increasing regulation, public outcry and political scrutiny in the face of inevitable future financial failures. The fundamental structures of financial reporting, annual reports, boards of directors and senior management are often found to have failed. Tighter regulation and new requirements for reporting will inevitably result. Drawing on extensive research and interviews with insiders, users and experts, this unique book provides a compelling account of the profoundly disruptive impact of financial failures on corporate and financial accountability. Topical and readable, this book will be of great interest to students, researchers and professionals in accounting and auditing, as well as to policy makers and regulators.

There has been an increasing interest in financial markets across sociology, history, anthropology, cultural studies, and related disciplines over the past decades, with particular intensity since the 2007-2008 crisis which prompted new analyses of the workings of financial markets and how "scandals of Wall Street" might have huge societal ramifications. The sociologically inclined landscape of finance studies is characterized by different more or less well- established homogeneous camps, with more micro-empirical, social studies of finance approaches on the one end of the spectrum and more theoretical, often neo-Marxist approaches, on the other. Yet alternative approaches are also gaining traction, including work that emphasizes the cultural homologies and interconnections with finance as well as work that, more broadly, is both empirically rigorous and theoretically ambitious. Importantly, across these various approaches to finance, a growing body of literature is taking shape which engages finance in a critical manner. The term "critical finance studies" nonetheless remains largely unfocused and undefined. Against this backdrop, the key rationales of The Routledge Handbook of Critical Finance Studies are firstly to provide a coherent notion of this emergent field and secondly to demonstrate its analytical usefulness across a wide range of central aspects of contemporary finance. As such, the volume will offer a comprehensive guide to students and academics on the field of Finance and Critical Finance Studies, Heterodox Economics, Accounting, and related Management disciplines. Chapter 14 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license at https://tandfbis.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/rt-files/docs/Open+Access+Chapters/9781138079816_oachapter14.pdf

The Financial Crisis was a cross-sector crisis that fundamentally affected modern society. Regulation, as a concept, was both blamed for allowing the crisis to happen, but also tasked with developing and implementing solutions in the wake of the crash. In this book, a number of specialists from a range of fields have contributed their insights into the effect of the Financial Crisis upon the regulatory frameworks affecting their fields, how regulators have responded to the Crisis, and then what this may mean for the future of regulation within those industries. These analyses are joined by a picture of past financial crises - which reveals interesting patterns - and then analyses of architectural regulatory models that were fundamentally affected by the Crisis. The book aims to allow sector specialists the freedom to share their insights so that, potentially, a broader picture can be identified. Providing an interesting and thought-provoking account of this societally impactful era, this book will help the reader develop a more informed understanding of the potential future of financial regulation. The book will be of value to researchers, students, advanced level students, regulators, and policymakers.

The Enlightened Shareholder Value principle and Corporate Social Responsibility are areas of increasing academic and research interest. However, discussions on the ESV principle in relation to CSR are very limited. This book provides a critical analysis of the impact of the concept of ESV, embedded in the Companies Act 2006, on CSR and explores the scope for reform. Along with analysing existing empirical research, it presents the findings of an empirical study conducted to determine whether the concept of ESV is capable of promoting or assisting CSR. The book also examines whether implementing an ESV approach has had any impact on the CSR practices of multinational corporations that originate in the UK and operate in developing nations, as in order to assess whether the ESV principle links to CSR both its domestic and international impact need to be considered. This analysis was undertaken through the lens of a case study on the ready-made garment industry in Bangladesh, with some focus on the Rana Plaza factory disaster. This study also assists in demonstrating the changes that need to be made to improve the current situation. Lastly, the book addresses the need for reform in the area and provides possible suggestions for reform. This interdisciplinary book will be of great interest to students and scholars of corporate law, corporate governance and business studies in general as well as policymakers, NGOs and government departments in many countries around the world working in the fields of CSR, sustainability and global supply chains.

This book focuses on market developments of crowdfunding, crowdinvesting, crowdlending, social trading, robo-advice, personal financial management, online payment and mobile payment in Germany. FinTech companies are an important driver of innovation in the financial industry. By making financial transactions more user-friendly and transparent, these firms potentially contribute to financial stability and economic growth. The authors define and categorize the different market segments that have emerged. They further provide an assessment of current market volumes and make forecasts for the next 5, 10 and 20 years. Particular attention is given to the empirical findings resulting from scholarly research. Furthermore, the authors evaluate how the German FinTech market ranks relative to international standards. This book will appeal to finance and entrepreneurship researchers as well as practitioners from banking and tech industries. "This book offers a fresh and fascinating look at the FinTech market. The authors provide a rigorous economic analysis of the FinTech market in Germany and offer many insights that are of interest to practitioners, academics, and policymakers alike." -Professor Douglas Cumming, Schulich School of Business "Germany is one of the fastest growing FinTech markets in Europe. This book not only provides a comprehensive and systematic overview on the developments and actors, but undertakes a visionary outlook on the forthcoming decades based on scientific methods." -Dr. Thomas Puschmann, Head of Swiss FinTech Innovation Lab

This book is a guide to how financial steering is designed, measured and implemented with a special focus on the energy industry. The authors offer an overview of and practical insights into the links between financial steering and accounting, and the temporary cycles of investment, divestment, return and loss, market highs and lows that form the framework of the entire energy industry across all value chain stages. The faster and the larger the cash cycles of investments and their returns, the greater not only the value created, but also the potential loss if the financial steering is not properly designed and managed. Value and value generation require an understanding of how value is both defined and measured in both and how the business/project economics model of a company works - financial steering provides this. Further, the book also discusses accounting topics such as impairments, new IFRS standards and the impact of accounting on key performance indicators of financial steering, which are associated with these investment decision valuations. The combination of accounting with the cash flow perspective provides a complete understanding of selected practical topics of financial steering which are explained in detail in a large number of examples and case studies. The book is intended for a wide range of finance/controlling/treasury/accounting professionals and students. It is written in practical and simple terms to outline the financial steering concept and to bring it to life in daily work and in the decision making process for financial steering. All illustrated concepts are in the same manner relevant and applicable to all other asset-intense industry sectors and their financial steering processes.