Karima Bouaiss

More than three’s a crowd . . . in the best interest of companies!

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to decipher the contradictions and the ambiguities of crowdfunding as a term and as a practice to reveal the deeper significance of its underlying Zeitgeist. Design/methodology/approach – Three steps were followed. In the first one, the authors underline the ambiguities of crowd as a concept in its traditional meaning as well as in the realities, it may depict when referring to connected people. Thereafter, the many practices of crowdfunding with the apparent univocity of this term were confronted. Findings – These analyses led the authors to consider crowdfunding as ideology: an incantatory use of crowd can conceal an effective profit-making process, as well as a new way to unblock a stalling social elevator. Originality/value – As per the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first one to try to conceptualize the social roots of crowdfunding and to analyze its deeper significance, as complementary to an already developed “how-to-do-it” literature. It is worth confronting this piece of reflexivity with the emerging literature on the assessment of specific crowdfunding operations.

The Complementarity of Regulatory and Internal Governance Mechanisms in Banks

Decisions taken by the manager of a bank are subject to the regulatory discipline of the Basel Committee in conjunction with the supervisory discipline of the Board of Directors, a body that represents shareholders. This research demonstrates that the two types of discipline act in complement to each other, whereas the extant literature shows that regulatory discipline is replacing the internal discipline exercised by the Board of Directors. We also show that these internal and external governance mechanisms are relevant to explain the simultaneous influences between financial performance, risk-taking and the capitalization of French banks from 1998 to 2004.

More than three’s a crowd... in the best interest of companies !: Crowdfunding as Zeitgeist or ideology ?

The purpose of this paper was to decipher the contradictions and the ambiguities of crowdfunding as a term and as a practice to reveal the deeper significance of its underlying Zeitgeist.Three steps were followed. In the first one, the authors underline the ambiguities of crowd as a concept in its traditional meaning as well as in the realities, it may depict when referring to connected people. Thereafter, the many practices of crowdfunding with the apparent univocity of this term were confronted. These analyses led the authors to consider crowdfunding as ideology: an incantatory use of crowd can conceal an effective profit-making process, as well as a new way to unblock a stalling social elevator. As per the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first one to try to conceptualize the social roots of crowdfunding and to analyze its deeper significance, as complementary to an already developed “how-to-do-it�? literature. It is worth confronting this piece of reflexivity with the emerging literature on the assessment of specific crowdfunding operations.

Réglementation bâle II et architecture organisationnelle : le cas du groupe banque populaire

Cet article s’interesse a la reforme du Comite de Bâle, modifiant le ratio Cooke au profit du ratio McDonough. La mise en place de cette reforme implique l’instauration, au sein des banques, de modeles de notations internes, qui ont un impact majeur sur leur organisation interne. Les consequences sur la structure interne des banques de ces modeles sont etudiees a travers la theorie de l’architecture organisationnelle. Le recours a une etude de cas nous permet d’analyser le processus de mise en place de ces modeles de notations internes et d’en apprecier les effets sur l’allocation des droits decisionnels et sur le systeme de controle interne des individus au sein du groupe mutualiste francais etudie.

Does a banking relationship help a firm on the syndicated loans market in a time of financial crisis

The volume of credit granted in the form of syndicated loans saw a marked downturn in 2008. This article seeks to understand how certain firms were nonetheless able to benefit from larger facilities or a lower interest rate than others. Using a sample of syndicated loans issued in 2008 in North America and Europe, and records of syndicated loans since 2003, we show that firms that had developed a relationship with an investment bank obtained a lower spread, but did not benefit from greater loan facilities or longer maturities.