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STEWARDSHIP THEORY

Donaldson and Davis established the stewardship theory in 1989 and offered it as a normative substitute for the agency theory. Stewardship theory offers a non-economic foundation for describing the connection, unlike agency theory, which prioritises control and conflict (Sundaramuthy and Lewis 2003). According to the stewardship hypothesis, managers will take good care of the resources they are in charge of. It also asserts a direct link between employee happiness and an organization's ability to succeed. "Stewardship is the prudent practice of Allocation, management, and supervision of capital to produce long-term value for customers and beneficiaries, resulting in long-term gains for the economy, the environment, and society. Therefore, it is clear that stewardship must be seen from a long-term perspective in order to produce sustainable advantages for the stakeholders. According to the stewardship hypothesis, ownership just holds a firm trust rather than really owning it. A...

Green Washing

You've probably heard of whitewashing at least once in the corporate world. Whitewashing is when an organization hides or conceals scandalous information by presenting a biased account of the facts. However, greenwashing is less well-known. Many stakeholders are more conscious of environmental considerations due to rising environmental problems and, subsequently, rising general knowledge. Stakeholders like investors, buyers, governments, and corporate clients have increased their pressure on businesses over the past ten years to share information about their environmental performance and to produce environmentally responsible goods. Environmentalist Jay Westerveld coined "greenwashing" in a critical essay in 1986. This was inspired by the irony of the "save towels" movement in hotels, which had little impact other than saving on hotel laundry costs. The idea arose at a time when most consumers got their news primarily from television, radio and print media. ...

BUSINESS VALUATION

We can classify the financial market analysis into fundamental and technical analyses. But this study solely focuses on the fundamental analysis only.  Fundamental analysis Fundamental analysis is a technique for assessing securities that aim to calculate a stock's intrinsic worth. The primary tenet of fundamental analysis is that a company's actual worth may be linked to its financial features, including its cash flows, risk profile, and growth potential. A stock is under or overpriced if there is any departure from this genuine value. The main goal of fundamental analysis is valuation. While some analysts utilize multiples like the price-earnings and price-book value ratios to assess businesses, others employ discounted cash flow models. On average, investors that use this strategy anticipate that their portfolios will outperform the market because they own many inexpensive companies. Efficient market hypothesis When the market price accurately reflects the investment's a...

Resource Based Theory (RBT)

  RBT, or resource-based theory, is a well-known method for strategic management. In order for a company to maintain a competitive edge, it has been frequently used as a managerial framework to identify essential resources. The theory offers a crucial framework for deriving explanations for and projections of the basic drivers of a firm's performance and competitive advantage. Penrose (2009) introduced Resource-Based Theory (RBT) for the first time by putting up a model for the efficient management of organisations' resources, diversification tactics, and business possibilities. The idea of seeing a corporation as a coordinated collection of resources to address and tackle how it might achieve its goals and strategic behaviour was first put out in Penrose's book. RBT offers a framework to identify and foresee the core elements of business performance and competitive advantage. In response to prior managerial interest in the industry structure, a more macro viewpoint, RBT tu...

Trade off theory

 According to the trade-off theory of capital structure, business leverage is calculated by weighing the advantages of debt in terms of tax savings against the costs of bankruptcy. The theory was created at the beginning of the 1970s, and despite a number of significant obstacles, it is still the most widely accepted explanation of corporate capital structure.  According to the argument, if the tax system permits more generous interest rate tax deductions, corporate debt will rise in the risk-free interest rate. The amount of debt is dropping throughout a bankruptcy's deadweight losses. The tax advantages are reducing as the risk-free interest rate is rising, which affects the equilibrium price of debt. According to Friedman (1970), trade-off theory asserts that a company must utilise its assets and skills to best serve its shareholders and increase their profits (Gillan et al., 2021). Therefore, it contends that ESG-related investments come with extra expenses that might redu...

Stranded Assets

  It would be necessary to retain a significant amount of the world's current fossil fuel reserves underground in order to reduce the rise in global temperature to well below 2°C. In order to keep global warming to 1.5°C, the Paris Agreement target, an estimated 60% of oil and gas reserves and 90% of known coal stocks need stay untapped, according to a 2022 research published in the journal Nature. These "stranded assets"—fossil fuel resources that cannot be burnt and fossil fuel infrastructure, such as pipelines and power plants—that is no longer in use and may become a liability before the end of its expected economic lifetime—would be left behind in this scenario. The shift to a low-carbon economy might have an impact on companies that extract coal, gas, and oil, but other industries are also at danger. Other industries, like the aviation industry, that rely on fossil fuels as manufacturing inputs or are otherwise energy- or carbon-intensive, may also be affected. All ...

Informedness and the Consensus effects

The information in public announcements, such as the informedness and the consensus effects, may influence how the market responds to further information. When investors have more knowledge about business value at the time of an information release, the informedness impact takes place. As investors become more informed and take action to update their portfolios, this phenomenon typically results in an increase in share turnover and price volatility, but a decrease in the bid-ask gap since the realised price is likely to be further from the projected price. The consensus impact gauges the level of investor agreement at the time of an information release. Due to investors' tendency to perceive information uniformly and the fact that less ambiguity is addressed through the market aggregation process, it often results in a decrease in bid-ask spread and volume and an increase in price volatility.

The Porter Hypothesis (PH)

 According to the Porter Hypothesis (PH), polluting companies can profit from environmental laws. It is claimed that effective and strict environmental regulations can spur innovation, which in turn raises firm productivity or increases the value of products for consumers (Porter 1991; Porter and van der Linde 1995). The argument makes the case that there is no conflict between economic development and environmental preservation, just a win-win scenario. By encouraging dynamic efficiency, environmental regulations would benefit society and the regulated companies. These advantages may partially or entirely outweigh the costs associated with adhering to environmental regulations. Whether regulation promotes innovation is the main concern motivating the testing of the PH. This necessitates the investigation of the impact of ER on green investment as well as the impact of green investment on innovation and productive efficiency.  The hypothesis' conceptual and empirical unde...

Signaling Theory

The information asymmetry issue is resolved through the development of signalling theory. Given the significance of information in decision-making, the company must provide information to third parties. The investor needs complete, pertinent, accurate, and current information as a tool for analysis when making an investment decision. The investor will receive a signal to act based on the published information. The market participant is expected to interpret the information as good news if it has a positive value. The annual report serves as a vehicle for information dissemination and a tool for tracking business success. The annual report includes both mandated disclosure and voluntary disclosure as per the regulation. According to the signalling theory, the voluntary publication of non-financial information, such as private information, should send a signal to investors that the news is beneficial and boost the value of the company. High-quality businesses are more likely to alert the...

Green Accounting

  A new accounting paradigm known as "green accounting" contends that in addition to focusing on the financial element, the accounting process should also take social and environmental considerations into account. The three corporate pillars of social, financial, and environmental accounting are called "green accounting." Users of management and financial statements will use it as a guide for making both economic and non-economic decisions. The method of green accounting involves locating, calculating, recognising, and disclosing costs associated with environmental responsibilities. For management, shareholders, creditors, customers, employees, and the government, green accounting attempts to give information about the financial situation and company performance, corporate risk, business growth possibility and profit, and sustainability. Final economic and non-economic decisions are made using it.  Stakeholders have full access to information regarding management st...

Stakeholder Theory

  According to the principle of stakeholder relations, a company is accountable to more than simply its shareholders. Stakeholders are hopeful and interested in the climate change issue since it is significant to society. Firms are under pressure from society to publish environmental information, both directly and indirectly. Since firm management is better familiar with business operations than other stakeholders, information disclosure can serve as a communication channel between the company and its stakeholders. Companies are encouraged to publish information willingly to get access to high-quality resources since investors are constantly reviewing connected information. Information asymmetry and agency costs are decreased by the voluntary publication of gas emission data. The legitimacy and stakeholder perspectives complement one another.

Legitimacy Theory

 A frequent paradigm used to explain social and environmental disclosure is legitimacy theory. The social contract between a company and the community is discussed in the legitimacy theory. The central claim of legitimacy theory is that if an organisation operates within the bounds of societal norms, it may exist. The company voluntarily exposes its social and environmental facts to uphold its credibility in society and foster a positive view of its commitment to social responsibility. Some research explains social and environmental disclosure using the legitimacy paradigm. If there is a disconnect between the firm and society, the firm's legitimacy will be in jeopardy. A move is taken by an organisation to close the "hole" in the value gap between the enterprise and society. For the company to be well-regarded, society must be a part of it. The tension between the company and society should hopefully be lessened by strong legitimacy. Threats to legitimacy can be handled ...

Scope1 , Scope 2 and Scope 3 Co2 Emission

  Emission in Scope 1 Direct emissions from production,  Which protect against direct emissions from facilities that are all emissions from production using fossil fuels, are included in this category and are owned or controlled by the company. Emissions in scope 2 Indirect emissions from the use of purchased electricity, heat, or steam. In other words, it derives from the company's power consumption, steam, and bought heat. Emissions in scope 3 Other indirect emissions from the production of purchased materials, the use of products, the disposal of waste, outsourced activities, etc..These are produced by the business's operations, but they come from outside sources that it does not own or control.  The information on scope 1 and scope 2 emissions is extensively publicised. Data on scope 1 and scope 2 have been reported and approximated more consistently and correctly because they are simpler to measure and because disclosure requirements are stricter. On the other hand, ...

CARBON RISK PREMIUM HYPOTHESIS

 One can anticipate that CO2 emissions will influence stock returns in a number of different ways. First, since the usage of fossil fuels contributes to CO2 emissions, the risk associated with commodity prices and the price of fossil fuels impacts returns. In addition, companies that produce disproportionately large levels of CO2 emissions may be subject to the risk of carbon pricing and other governmental actions to control emissions. The most successful dependence on fossil fuels makes one more vulnerable to technical threats provided by cheaper renewable energy sources. A positive relationship in the cross-section between a firm's own CO2 emissions and its stock returns may result from forward-looking investors seeking compensation (Risk premium) for holding the stocks of companies with disproportionately large CO2 emissions. 

Capital Market theories

 Investor's Underreaction Hypothesis Under-reaction is the under-reaction of financial markets to news, resulting in a sustained drift in the price direction of markets and equities instead of the quick surge to the fair value predicted by EMH. We have created methods to take advantage of these cognitive biases in our investment management due to some of the most significant studies in behavioural finance, including Underreaction. A lag occurs before the market completely assimilates the information that is finally reflected in the stock price because investors underreact to new information because they anchor to their past views and prior information.  Investor under-reaction and overreaction to news present a problem for the Efficient Market Hypothesis since investors frequently do one of these things. These reactions may still align with the Efficient Market Hypothesis even if overreactions and underreactions were symmetrical. However, investor behaviour indicates...

Climate Transition Risk

The discussion of climate change frequently centres on its environmental effects, such as increased temperatures and harsh weather.  The risk is associated with evolving laws, customs, and technological developments as civilizations attempt to reduce their reliance on carbon known as transition risk. Those that include transition risk into a more extensive ESG programme will be better equipped to lessen these effects. These transition risks for the agriculture industry include modifications to land-use regulations, water conservation techniques, ESG reporting requirements, and more. Four primary categories of transition risk are identified by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures: 1. Legal and Policy Risks 2. Market Risk  3. Technology Risk 4. Risk to Reputation The last type of risk is reputation risk, which has to do with how the general public views a company's position or behaviour. Consumer preferences are being affected by climate-related actions m...

Emerging opportunities and threats in the Canadian logistics industry

  According to the Council of supply chain management (2021), logistic management is an element of supply chain management that guide management in planning, implementing and controlling the flow and storage of goods. It also helps manage information from the point of origin and consumption to satisfy customer needs and wants. An increase in international trade gives more prominence to intercontinental supply chain management (Supply chain logistic association Canada, 2011) . Logistic performance has a significant impact on the national income and GDP of a country, and the performance of logistics depends on the actions of public and private individuals (International transport forum, 2016) Canada is the third-largest country with vast natural resources like gas, crude oil, gold and silver. And the government also maintains international trade and agreements with countries worldwide through various treaties and agreements. The logistics management industry of a country has an act...

Impact of currency exchange rate volatility and Market risk on the portfolio

1. Market Risk In financial management, market risk refers to the loss experienced by individual investors or a firm due to changes in the factors affecting the financial market. The primary source of market risk changes is the interest rate, economic recession, political turmoil, disasters and terrorist attacks. The financial markets are inflation rate, interest rate, exchange rate etc. This variable can affect the return of the portfolio. So, the market risk mainly comprises interest rate, exchange rate, equity, and commodity risk (CFA Institute, 2022). The market risk is systematic since it can affect every sector in the market. So we cannot avoid such risk through diversification of investment. However, it cannot be hedged by employing some other techniques. Since the market is unpredictable, we cannot use a single model to predict the market risk. Most financial institutions employ Extreme Value Theory (EVT) to forecast fluctuations in the market (Koch and MacDonald, 2006). Genera...

Risk and Return investment objectives and investment strategy

Every person invests in securities to earn a return in the form of interest, profit or capital appreciation. A famous quote in finance is, "Higher the return, higher the risk". While investing in security, investors should be aware of the various security risks. Since if there is a return, there will be a risk. We need help finding out any risk-free security(Richardson, 1970). Even the government issuing securities is not risk-free. Several risks are associated with protection, such as liquidity risk, default risk, inflation risk, currency fluctuation risk and reinvestment risk. So, before deciding on the return objectives, the investor needs to consider the risk associated with the security. If the investor is risk-averse, he will not be ready to invest in risky securities. He always prefers securities which provide a lower income with less risk (The Economic Times, 2021). At the same time, the risk-tolerant investor is ready to tolerate any risk to earn a higher return (Gre...