IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v11y2019i14p3849-d248463.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Analysing Managers’ Financial Motivation for Sustainable Investment Strategies

Author

Listed:
  • Hsiao-Fen Hsiao

    (Newhuadu Business School, Minjiang University, 200 Xianyuanguan Road, Minhou County, Fuzhou 350108, China)

  • Tingyong Zhong

    (School of Accounting, Chongqing Technology and Business University, 67 Xuefu St. Nan’an, Chongqing 400067, China)

  • Hasan Dincer

    (School of Business, South Campus, İstanbul Medipol University, 34815 Beykoz, Istanbul, Turkey)

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to examine the importance of financial rewards and managers’ motivations, including sustainable investment projects. For that, the role of financial motivation for managers is analysed to understand strategic priorities for sustainable investment policies. Panel data for non-financial listed companies in China are used to determine the best-fit values of the proposed model, and the results of the Lagrange multiplier (LM) and Hausman tests are discussed for sustainable investment strategies. The results demonstrate that both low-paid and highly-paid managers in valuable project firms tend to be conservative and that managers consolidate their positions through underinvestment. This finding is clear evidence that managers are reluctant to take a risk on sustainable investment strategies. However, highly-paid managers of non-valuable project firms are generally willing to obtain high productivity through advanced technologies. The results are also generalized for strategies that are related to project managers’ financial motivation to increase the efficiency of sustainable investment decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Hsiao-Fen Hsiao & Tingyong Zhong & Hasan Dincer, 2019. "Analysing Managers’ Financial Motivation for Sustainable Investment Strategies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(14), pages 1-22, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:14:p:3849-:d:248463
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/14/3849/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/14/3849/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Agrawal, Anup & Mandelker, Gershon N, 1987. "Managerial Incentives and Corporate Investment and Financing Decision s," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 42(4), pages 823-837, September.
    2. Dincer, Hasan & Yuksel, Serhat, 2019. "Balanced scorecard-based analysis of investment decisions for the renewable energy alternatives: A comparative analysis based on the hybrid fuzzy decision-making approach," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 1259-1270.
    3. Felipe Arias Fogliano de Souza Cunha & Carlos Samanez, 2013. "Performance Analysis of Sustainable Investments in the Brazilian Stock Market: A Study About the Corporate Sustainability Index (ISE)," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 117(1), pages 19-36, September.
    4. Myers, Stewart C. & Majluf, Nicholas S., 1984. "Corporate financing and investment decisions when firms have information that investors do not have," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 187-221, June.
    5. Humphery-Jenner, Mark & Lisic, Ling Lei & Nanda, Vikram & Silveri, Sabatino Dino, 2016. "Executive overconfidence and compensation structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 119(3), pages 533-558.
    6. Wang, Nannan & Yao, Shengnan & Wu, Guobin & Chen, Xiaoyan, 2017. "The role of project management in organisational sustainable growth of technology-based firms," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 124-132.
    7. Stewart C. Myers & Nicholas S. Majluf, 1984. "Corporate Financing and Investment Decisions When Firms Have InformationThat Investors Do Not Have," NBER Working Papers 1396, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Smith, Clifford Jr. & Watts, Ross L., 1992. "The investment opportunity set and corporate financing, dividend, and compensation policies," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 263-292, December.
    9. Rajesh K. Aggarwal & Andrew A. Samwick, 1999. "The Other Side of the Trade-off: The Impact of Risk on Executive Compensation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(1), pages 65-105, February.
    10. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1989. "Management entrenchment : The case of manager-specific investments," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 123-139, November.
    11. Strobl, Günter, 2014. "Stock-based managerial compensation, price informativeness, and the incentive to overinvest," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 594-606.
    12. James R. Crotty, 1990. "Owner–Manager Conflict and Financial Theories of Investment Instability: A Critical Assessment of Keynes, Tobin, and Minsky," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 519-542, July.
    13. Roman Inderst & Manuel Klein, 2007. "Innovation, endogenous overinvestment, and incentive pay," RAND Journal of Economics, RAND Corporation, vol. 38(4), pages 881-904, December.
    14. Hayes, Rachel M. & Schaefer, Scott, 2009. "CEO pay and the Lake Wobegon Effect," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 280-290, November.
    15. J B Heaton, 2002. "Managerial Optimism and Corporate Finance," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 31(2), Summer.
    16. Holmstrom, Bengt & Milgrom, Paul, 1987. "Aggregation and Linearity in the Provision of Intertemporal Incentives," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 55(2), pages 303-328, March.
    17. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    18. Artur Morgado & Julio Pindado, 2003. "The Underinvestment and Overinvestment Hypotheses: an Analysis Using Panel Data," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 9(2), pages 163-177, June.
    19. Hsiao-Fen Hsiao & Chuan-Ying Hsu & Chun-An Li & Ai-Chi Hsu, 2011. "The Relationship Among Managerial Sentiment, Corporate Investment, and Firm Value: Evidence from Taiwan," Emerging Markets Finance and Trade, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(2), pages 99-111, March.
    20. Stiglitz, Joseph E & Weiss, Andrew, 1981. "Credit Rationing in Markets with Imperfect Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 393-410, June.
    21. Tobin, James, 1969. "A General Equilibrium Approach to Monetary Theory," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 1(1), pages 15-29, February.
    22. Alan Lewis & Carmen Juravle, 2010. "Morals, Markets and Sustainable Investments: A Qualitative Study of ‘Champions’," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 93(3), pages 483-494, May.
    23. Mufaddal Baxamusa, 2012. "The Relationship between Underinvestment, Overinvestment and CEO's Compensation," Review of Pacific Basin Financial Markets and Policies (RPBFMP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 15(03), pages 1-26.
    24. Dan Ariely & Uri Gneezy & George Loewenstein & Nina Mazar, 2009. "Large Stakes and Big Mistakes," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 76(2), pages 451-469.
    25. Jensen, Michael C, 1986. "Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow, Corporate Finance, and Takeovers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(2), pages 323-329, May.
    26. Bebchuk, Lucian A. & Fried, Jesse M., 2003. "Executive Compensation as an Agency Problem," Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics, Working Paper Series qt81q3136r, Berkeley Olin Program in Law & Economics.
    27. Lucian Arye Bebchuk & Jesse M. Fried, 2003. "Executive Compensation as an Agency Problem," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(3), pages 71-92, Summer.
    28. Baraki, Yemane A. & Brent, Alan C., 2013. "Technology transfer of hand pumps in rural communities of Swaziland: Towards sustainable project life cycle management," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 258-266.
    29. Lucian A. Bebchuk & Jesse M. Fried, 2005. "Pay Without Performance: Overview of the Issues," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 17(4), pages 8-23, September.
    30. Hutchinson, Marion & Gul, Ferdinand A., 2004. "Investment opportunity set, corporate governance practices and firm performance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 595-614, September.
    31. Lau, Chong M. & Roopnarain, Ketvi, 2014. "The effects of nonfinancial and financial measures on employee motivation to participate in target setting," The British Accounting Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 228-247.
    32. Myers, Stewart C., 1977. "Determinants of corporate borrowing," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 147-175, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Andreea Chițimiea & Mihaela Minciu & Andreea-Mariana Manta & Carmen Nadia Ciocoiu & Cristina Veith, 2021. "The Drivers of Green Investment: A Bibliometric and Systematic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-25, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Grzegorz Pawlina & Luc Renneboog, 2005. "Is Investment‐Cash Flow Sensitivity Caused by Agency Costs or Asymmetric Information? Evidence from the UK," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 11(4), pages 483-513, September.
    2. Trojanowski, G., 2004. "Ownership structure as a mechanism of corporate governance," Other publications TiSEM 5dbc874d-d1d0-44a5-9717-8, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    3. Aggarwal, Rajesh K. & Samwick, Andrew A., 2006. "Empire-builders and shirkers: Investment, firm performance, and managerial incentives," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 489-515, June.
    4. Stein, Jeremy C., 2003. "Agency, information and corporate investment," Handbook of the Economics of Finance, in: G.M. Constantinides & M. Harris & R. M. Stulz (ed.), Handbook of the Economics of Finance, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 111-165, Elsevier.
    5. Matthias Kiefer & Edward Jones & Andrew Adams, 2016. "Principals, Agents and Incomplete Contracts: Are Surrender of Control and Renegotiation the Solution?," CFI Discussion Papers 1603, Centre for Finance and Investment, Heriot Watt University.
    6. Matthias Fahn & Valeria Merlo & Georg Wamser, 2019. "The Commitment Role of Equity Financing," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 1232-1260.
    7. Sanjiva Prasad & Christopher J. Green & Victor Murinde, 2005. "Company Financial Structure: A Survey and Implications for Developing Economies," Chapters, in: Christopher J. Green & Colin Kirkpatrick & Victor Murinde (ed.), Finance and Development, chapter 12, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    8. Antonczyk, Ron Christian & Salzmann, Astrid Juliane, 2014. "Overconfidence and optimism: The effect of national culture on capital structure," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 132-151.
    9. Julio Pindado & Chabela De La Torre, 2009. "Effect of ownership structure on underinvestment and overinvestment: empirical evidence from Spain," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 49(2), pages 363-383, June.
    10. Isil Erol & Dogan Tirtiroglu, 2011. "Concentrated Ownership, No Dividend Payout Requirement and Capital Structure of REITs: Evidence from Turkey," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 43(1), pages 174-204, July.
    11. An, Suwei, 2023. "Essays on incentive contracts, M&As, and firm risk," Other publications TiSEM dd97d2f5-1c9d-47c5-ba62-f, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    12. Valentina Peruzzi, 2017. "Does family ownership structure affect investment-cash flow sensitivity? Evidence from Italian SMEs," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(43), pages 4378-4393, September.
    13. Chan, Chia-Chung & Lin, Bing-Huei & Chang, Yung-Ho & Liao, Wei-Chen, 2013. "Does bank relationship matter for corporate risk-taking? Evidence from listed firms in Taiwan," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 323-338.
    14. Chen, Minjia & Matousek, Roman, 2020. "Do productive firms get external finance? Evidence from Chinese listed manufacturing firms," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    15. Martynova, M., 2006. "The market for corporate control and corporate governance regulation in Europe," Other publications TiSEM 8651e281-4914-41f2-ac14-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    16. Alfonsina Iona, 2019. "Modelling the Relation between Managers, Shadow Cost of External Finance and Corporate Investment," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 7(11), pages 1-10, November.
    17. Sanjiva Prasad & Christopher J. Green & Victor Murinde, 2001. "Company Financing, Captial Structure, and Ownership: A Survey, and Implications for Developing Economies," SUERF Studies, SUERF - The European Money and Finance Forum, number 12 edited by Morten Balling, May.
    18. Muniandy, Balachandran & Hillier, John, 2015. "Board independence, investment opportunity set and performance of South African firms," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 35(PA), pages 108-124.
    19. Aloke Ghosh & Doocheol Moon & Kishore Tandon, 2007. "CEO Ownership and Discretionary Investments," Journal of Business Finance & Accounting, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 34(5‐6), pages 819-839, June.
    20. Saona, Paolo & San-Martin, Pablo & Vallelado, Eleuterio, 2024. "The zero-debt puzzle in BRICS countries: Disentangling the financial flexibility and financial constraints hypotheses," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:14:p:3849-:d:248463. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.