People and Faculty
Julie Elston
Finance

Julie Elston

People and Faculty
Julie Elston
Overview
Overview
Publications

Publications

Academic Journal
Finance

“Are Family Firms More Efficient? Revisiting the U-Shaped Curve of Firm Scale and Efficiency”

This study applies a stochastic frontier model to examine the relationship between firm size and efficiency using a novel approach. The first novelty is that this study examines large and small firms separately to allow for heterogeneity between firm group sizes in terms of measuring the size-efficiency relationship. The second is that we use a modified frontier model which explicitly includes a family firm variable when measuring firm efficiency. Empirical results reveal that firms are in fact heterogeneous, with small-and-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) exhibiting a U-shaped scale efficiency curve, while large enterprises (LE) exhibit an efficiency curve which is positive and linear. Robust results also confirm that family firms are relatively more efficient than non-family firms. In addition, while controlling for family firms does not appear to change the firm’s size-efficiency dynamics, failure to control for family firms leads to a bias in characterizing the nature of the firm’s production returns to scale.
Details

2023 Springer Julie Elston Yingchao Zhang Ku-Hsieh Chen Pei-Hwa Chen View on: Google Scholar

Academic Journal
Finance

“Corporate Governance: What We Know And Don't Know”

The corporate governance literature provides a rich framework for examining the theoretical models and related mechanisms by which a firm is operated and controlled, but there are a number of challenges for future research that remain. This paper identifies some of the key studies and contributions of the existing corporate governance literature, while identifying several fruitful areas for research where our understanding of corporate governance is incomplete. For example, what is the relationship between corporate governance and corporate social responsibility, and how might this change in different institutional environments? Expanding standard models to include more nuanced factors within diverse and dynamic institutional environments is one challenge we face in modeling governance more comprehensively. In addition, as data becomes more easily available on smaller countries, transitional economies, and in frontier and emerging markets, we also need to expand our studies beyond the large Western country context. Future empirical work should undertake to better understand and examine the institutional structures, systems, mechanisms and incentives within understudied regions around the world. Beyond the notion of replication studies, careful cross-country studies would enable us to compare outcomes with existing studies and better inform us on fundamental differences (and similarities) between systems, contributing to our discussions on the limits of conversion between governance systems.
Details

2019 Springer Julie Elston View on: Google Scholar

Academic Journal
Finance

“Internationalization and Regional Entrepreneurship in China”

This study examines the importance of geographic location on the empirical link between internationalization and entrepreneurial intention. Integrating data from multiple sources to create a measure of internationalization intensity, this study directly contributes to the literature by revealing a significant and more complex relationship between internationalization and entrepreneurship than previously suggested in the literature. Specifically, while highly internationalized locations allow better access to resource markets they may also hinder entrepreneurship for several reasons, including the fact that these locations have higher competition for resources. Results provide direct empirical support to recent theories on the importance of within country comparative differences.
Details

2019 Springer Julie Elston Alois Weidinger View on: Google Scholar

Academic Journal
Finance

“Business Cultural Intelligence Quotient: A Five-Country Study”

Cultural intelligence (CI) has often been linked to performance at the individual, team and firm levels as a key factor in international business success. Using a new measure of CI, the business cultural intelligence quotient (BCIQ), our study provides empirical evidence on several key antecedents of CI using data onbusiness professionals across five diverse countries (Austria, Colombia, Greece, Spain and USA). The findings suggest that the most important factors leading to cultural intelligence, in order of importance, are: the number of countries that business practitioners have lived in for more than six months, their level of education and the number of languages spoken. We find that cultural intelligence varies across countries, suggesting that some countries have a higher propensity for cross-cultural business interactions. By teasing out the common antecedents of BCIQ among professionals, our findings may help with screening and training professionals for international assignments. Future research may examine the environmental (country-specific) factors associated with a higher propensity for cultural intelligence (such as immigration, cultural diversity, languages spoken, and international trade) to explain the effect of country of origin on cultural intelligence in the professional community.
Details

2016 Julie Elston Ilan Alon View on: Google Scholar

Academic Journal
Finance

“The role of informal capital on new venture formation and growth in China”

This study examines the nature and role of informal capital used by micro-firms in the dynamic emerging market of China. Using a unique source of data for 260 urban entrepreneurs, this study provides empirical evidence that entrepreneurs’ personal savings and family funding are important sources of start-up capital. However, household income is the most important funding source in driving firm growth over time. This research directly addresses the lacuna of studies on entrepreneurship in emerging economies and contributes to our understanding of the critical role informal capital plays in the Chinese entrepreneurial process. Overall findings suggest that informal capital is still predominantly used over formal capital sources for financing firm start-up, underscoring the slow transition in China from an emerging to a modern economy.
Details

79-91 pages 2016 Julie Elston Sandy Chen Alois Weidinger View on: Google Scholar

Academic Journal
Finance

“Executive Compensation and Agency Issues in Italy”

From a theoretical perspective, we posit that that dividend policies may be relevant in resolving agency issues even in a governance environment dominated by family controlled firms. Earlier research has found that in more market based systems such as the US and Canada, dividends are in fact instrumental in solving agency issues. Prior empirical research has also found that dividends have a role in mitigating agency conflicts in a bank-dominated corporate environments like that in Germany (Elston and Goldberg, 2003). This paper extends the findings of earlier research by empirically investigating whether dividends retain their importance as the mechanism for resolving residual agency issues in a family controlled governance environment like Italy
Details

2014 International Journal of Corporate Governance Julie Elston Laura Rondi Nalanaksha Bhattacharyya Unknown View on: Google Scholar