Does the Capital Market Punish Managerial Myopia?

March 2, 2014 Leave a comment

Does the Capital Market Punish Managerial Myopia?

Jamie Tong 

University of Western Australia; Financial Research Network (FIRN)

Feida Zhang 

Murdoch University – School of Business
February 14, 2014
FIRN Research Paper

Abstract: 
The extant literature provides conflicting arguments on whether the capital market punishes managers’ myopic behavior. Stein (1988, 1989) argues that the capital market is myopic and will push managers to behave myopically. In contrast, Jensen (1988) believes that the capital market is efficient and will punish managerial myopia. However, empirical studies on how the stock market reacts to managerial myopia are scarce. This study aims to fill in this gap by examining how the capital market reacts to managerial myopia. Using managers’ cutting R&D to meet short-term earnings goals as a research setting, this study reveals that the capital market actually penalizes managerial myopia, especially for firms with high investor sophistication. Our results are consistent with Jensen’s (1988) contention that the security market is not shortsighted. Additionally, we document that compensation, especially cash compensation, could be one of the reasons why managers behave myopically.

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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