External growth strategies face crucial barriers when taken into consideration for investing if the involved companies are not audited. The integrity of a company’s financial information, its control systems, and its sustainable behavior represent cornerstones when participating in mergers and acquisitions (henceforth M&As). Thus, the audit function became a must and its role increased over the years, becoming an intrinsic part of faithfully disclosing financial and nonfinancial information (sustainable reporting included). M&As are ideal when the need for rapid innovation is required, in order to maintain or develop a sustainability policy. Given the environmental issues, we analyzed a sample of 1491 target companies listed on Bucharest Stock Exchange, clustered into three categories: polluters, medium polluters, and low polluters. The study reveals that the investors’ decision to purchase a certain amount of stake in target companies is influenced by the audit opinion and the sector in which they operate, depending on their pollution status.
Economic entities get involved in mergers and acquisitions (M&As) because they are interested in external growth strategies which can lead to an increase in the wealth of the shareholders of the participating entities. In M&As, from an acquirer or a target’s perspective, a company brings its resources, which can be material or immaterial (knowledge). In the post-M&A phase, through the integration process the shareholders expect synergy gains, or that the combined firms to report efficiency gains higher than if they would activate separately. In nowadays, in a boundaryless economy, one of the most appreciated resources is knowledge. In this respect, the intangible assets, in general, and patents, in particular, are the accounting representation of knowledge in a company. They are also considered to be predictors for the deal value paid to the target company. To those we add the size of the target company, its core activity and the value of the research and development expenses, the latter being a significant mediator variable for the proposed models.
Teleworking is known as a way of the future that enhances economic growth as an accumulation of physical as well as human capital. Using digitalization that increase the procedures and services efficiency and reduce the repetitive work of employers by using technology, teleworking improves firm performance by enhancing efficiency, motivation, and knowledge creation. This paper aims to analyze the influence of teleworking, based on its characteristics and determinants under the influence of financial and pandemic crises, on economic growth as measured by GDP growth; this was performed using econometric models from the literature and fuzzy logic. The econometric analysis included a two-step approach regarding the years 2008–2020 (including COVID-19 pandemic period) for the 27 member states of the EU. The research results suggest that access to the Internet, employment ratio, and average wage significantly influenced the teleworking ratio of the employees. Furthermore, the access to the Internet made a significant difference in using teleworking, given the infrastructure that was already created in the first COVID-19 pandemic wave. Employees took advantage of it and continued, at a lower scale, to maintain social distancing, although the measures taken in the second wave were not perceived to be as tough as in the first one.
Abstract:The performance and its monitoring is an objective for both economic entities and non-profit organizations (NPOs) that do not pursue the profit, but the engagement in certain social activities. One of the most known instruments used for this purpose is Kaplan and Norton's Balanced scorecard (BSC). In this paper we intend to adapt the classical BSC model in non-profit organizations which activate in educational field. The starting point of our research is represented by an analysis of the literature which contains BSC approaches for different types of NPOs. We consider a number of 22 papers and books in which there can be found aspects, different points of view and objectives, regarding BSC structure for NPOs. Forward we started with the BSC classical structure, reorganizing the four axes and proposing specific indicators and metrics for each of them. More than that, we proposed a hierarchy model for the chosen indicators. At its base, a good knowledge of the particularities of the NPOs for which the BSC was created is mandatory. In respect of, 41 indicators were identified for our model, out of which 10 for the customer axis, 6 for internal processes axis, 14 for financial axis and finally, 11 for innovation and growth axis. Certainly, creating a BSC for NPOs is subjected to potential limits related, on one way, to the organization's capacity/incapacity to obtain non-economic founds and, on the other way, to the ability of the top management to correlate its activity with the operational levels.
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