New publications from School of Finance faculty

New publications by School of Finance faculty have been released:

Ivashkovskaya I., Ivaninskiy I.  Building a Business Ecosystem: Deriving a Framework and Testing It with Case Studies // Journal of Corporate Finance Research. 2025.  Vol. 19. No. 3. P. 55–67. doi
Abstract : Ecosystem-based business models have received significant attention and praise in both business and research literature. Endeavours in building ecosystems sometimes prove successful, with firms transitioning to ecosystems enjoying valuation multiples significantly higher than their conventional peers. In practice, this entails firms expanding beyond their core offerings, such as a bank venturing into e-commerce. However, despite the evident interest in ecosystem-based business models, up to 85% of such ecosystems ultimately fail. Despite these notable failure rates, there has been limited discussion in research literature regarding the composition of businesses that yield reliable results within ecosystems. In this paper,
we first propose a “Hook-Engage-Monetize (HEM)” framework for understanding ecosystem business composition. We apply this framework to nine case studies of successful and less successful ecosystems from nine different countries. Our analysis demonstrates the potential of HEM as a tool for selecting businesses for ecosystems and for guiding future quantitative financial research in this area.

 

Ivashkovskaya I., Anilov A.  On compensation incentives, managerial overconfidence, and payout policy // Finance Research Letters. 2025. Vol. 85, Part B. P. 1–13. doi
Abstract : This paper investigates how CEO overconfidence interacts with compensation structure to influence corporate payout policy. Using a panel of 713 S&P 1500 firms from 2010 to 2019, we find that overconfident CEOs with higher equity-based (i.e., convex) compensation are associated with significantly lower levels of both cash dividends and share repurchases. In contrast, inside debt compensation (non-convex) mitigates this effect, encouraging higher dividend payouts. The results uggest that these effects operate through financial slack and risk-taking channels. The uncovered relationships are present only in firms operating in non-innovative industries and with strong corporate governance. We interpret this as evidence that boards in innovative firms preserve managerial discretion, while weak governance limits the board’s ability to discipline overconfident CEOs. Our findings are robust to alternative measures of overconfidence and endogeneity controls. These results highlight the importance of tailoring CEO incentives to behavioral traits such as overconfidence, particularly in relation to payout decisions.

 

Grishunin S., Ivashkovskaya I., Brendeleva N., Andreev A., Bairamukov A.  Resilience Index Development for Digital Ecosystems and Its Implementation: The Case of Russian Companies // Journal of Corporate Finance Research. 2025.  Vol. 19. No. 1. P. 25–40. doi
Abstract : Study examines the problems of business ecosystems, whose effectiveness and sustainability are determined by the organization of cooperation of all its participants using digital tools. The purpose of the research is to develop an index of digital ecosystem sustainability that would reflect changes in the value of the company. The article defines the main characteristics of digital business ecosystems by adapting the taxonomy of digital ecosystems to the Russian market and measuring the sustainability of Russian companies as Yandex and VK Group by using the digital ecosystem sustainability index (DESIn) that was developed by the authors for determining the strategic position of companies in the market. The authors identified the main classification features of digital ecosystems and measured their stability using financial and non-financial indicators as part of the DESIn index. The results of the research and the developed index of digital ecosystem sustainability can be used by Russian companies for developing their strategies, analysing their competitive positions, and choosing the optimal directions for digital ecosystem development.