Joanne Horton

Qualitative Research: Experiences in Using Semi-Structured Interviews

Publisher Summary The chapter discusses “real-life” experiences in using semi-structured interviews in qualitative research. The reasons for using semi-structured interviews, the design and development of the questionnaire used, the process of interviewing and choice of interviewees, and some of the problems encountered and overcome are presented in the chapter. The chapter describes the process of conducting the interviews that includes writing up the interviews and other activities, and explores additional problems in interviewing abroad. The chapter first covers a U.K. study and using it as the foundation, draws some contrasts from an EU study. The chapter concludes that the use of semi-structured interviews provides a valuable means to allow researchers to explore their horizons.

Resources or Power? Implications of Social Networks on Compensation and Firm Performance

Using a sample of 4,278 listed UK firms, we construct a social network of directorship-interlocks that comprises 31,495 directors. We use social capital theory and techniques developed in social network analysis to measure a directors connectedness and investigate whether this connectedness is associated with their compensation level and their firms overall performance. We find connectedness is positively associated with compensation and with the firms future performance. The results do not support the view that executive and outside directors use their connections to extract economic rents. Rather the company compensates these individuals for the resources these better connections provide to the firm.

Accounting standards and analysts’ forecasts:the impact of FRS3 on analysts’ ability to forecast EPS

Abstract This paper assesses the impact of the UK Financial Reporting Standard 3 (FRS3) “Reporting Financial Performance” on the ability of analysts to predict companies’ future earnings per share. FRS3 requires companies to publish a wider information set than before, to help users to appraise current performance and to form an opinion of future levels of performance. Our findings suggest that although in the first year of FRS3 there was some confusion over definitions, so that analysts’ forecast errors increased, in following years the additional information provided by FRS3 increased the accuracy of analysts’ forecasts.

The development of life assurance accounting and regulation in the UK: reflections on recent proposals for accounting change

At its beginnings in the late sixteenth century, UK life insurance was originally short-term, often one-year, insurance. Its development into a long-term investment medium exposed a tension between the emerging commercial accountancy conventions for stating financial position and results, based on past transactions, and the forward-looking,actuarial approach needed for the valuation of the business for solvency verification and for decisions about distributions. It is argued here that the first Companies Act in 1844 included insurance companies (unlike banks) with the generality of companies, and subjected them to the same accounting and auditing requirements, by default, as there was not yet sufficient confidence in the techniques and standing of actuaries to rely on specialist actuarial valuations. But the resulting confusion over how to present life insurance company accounts led to gradual recognition of the special nature of the public interest in insurance companies, and the nature of the accounting...

Security Analyst Networks, Performance and Career Outcomes

Using a sample of 42,376 board directors and 10,508 security analysts we construct a social network, mapping the connections between analysts and directors, between directors, and between analysts. We use social capital theory and techniques developed in social network analysis to measure the analyst’s level of connectedness and investigate whether these connections provide any information advantage to the analyst. We find that better-connected (better-networked) analysts make more accurate, timely, and bold forecasts. Moreover, analysts with better network positions are less likely to lose their job, suggesting that these analysts are more valuable to their brokerage houses. We do not find evidence that analyst innate forecasting ability predicts an analyst’s future network position. In contrast, past forecast optimism has a positive association with building a better network of connections.

Is Leverage Use a Better Indication of Overconfidence? Evidence from the Retail Forex Market

The overconfidence literature employs activity metrics such as account turnover and trade frequency to link misattribution/self-attribution to excess trading. In this paper we argue relative position size is a more meaningful indicator of overconfidence. Using a sample of retail traders, we find that when traders take relatively larger positions they make more impaired trade entry/exit timing decisions. The opposite is seen when they trade more frequently. We also observe that more sophisticated and experienced traders trade relatively smaller positions and exhibit less overconfidence, consistent with these individuals suffering fewer behavioral biases, for which a likely learning effect is observed.

The Dynamics of Managerial Entrenchment: The Corporate Governance Failure in Anglo-Irish Bank

What are the dynamics through which corporate boards led by dominant CEOs fail? We address this question by examining the case of Anglo Irish Bank. We focus on the dynamics in and around Anglo’s board of directors in the 3-year period leading to its collapse in 2008. Using documentary analysis and 21 interviews with Anglo’s senior managers and other key actors, we identify two interrelated sets of dynamics: a dominant CEO who used his influence to populate the board with affiliated individuals, leading to a low-skilled board and increasing further his dominance; and the establishment of norms whereby stock ownership signified loyalty rather than commitment to performance. We suggest these dynamics reflect a broader organisational change where new meanings were assigned to existing corporate practices, leading to poor scrutiny of executive decisions and subversion of intended incentives. Our findings contribute to the literature on managerial entrenchment by shedding light on how undesirable consequences of stock ownership are likely to emerge. More generally, we contribute to the management and corporate governance literatures by showing the dynamic and interdependent nature of factors that contribute to the emergence of organisational vulnerabilities and ultimately to corporate failures.