5. Discussion
Although we find significantly decreasing IS ratios over time, our results contradict the ‘critical argument on behalf of inventory reduction . . . that it will improve the financial position of firms’ (Chen et al. 2005, p. 1025). From a capital market perspective, Chen et al. (2005) create portfolios of firms based on their relative inventory performance, and find abnormally high inventories associated with poor stock market performance. Considering quite simple shareholder value logic or the classical DuPont system of financial control, this is not very surprising. Furthermore, Chen et al. (2005) find that firms with slightly lower-than-average inventories have good stock returns, while firms with the lowest inventories have only ordinary returns. Obviously, this U-shaped relationship does not support the zero inventory paradigm. Nevertheless, according to signalling theory, Tribo (2009) finds a kind of ‘window dressing’ effect: firms tend to reduce inventories before an IPO in order to signal low capital costs to future investors. Apparently, the capital market sanctifies abnormal high inventories but does not honor low inventory per se. While the former is not in line with our results, the latter is so, which indicates that a certain level of
inventory is needed to run business processes properly.
5. DiscussionAlthough we find significantly decreasing IS ratios over time, our results contradict the ‘critical argument on behalf of inventory reduction . . . that it will improve the financial position of firms’ (Chen et al. 2005, p. 1025). From a capital market perspective, Chen et al. (2005) create portfolios of firms based on their relative inventory performance, and find abnormally high inventories associated with poor stock market performance. Considering quite simple shareholder value logic or the classical DuPont system of financial control, this is not very surprising. Furthermore, Chen et al. (2005) find that firms with slightly lower-than-average inventories have good stock returns, while firms with the lowest inventories have only ordinary returns. Obviously, this U-shaped relationship does not support the zero inventory paradigm. Nevertheless, according to signalling theory, Tribo (2009) finds a kind of ‘window dressing’ effect: firms tend to reduce inventories before an IPO in order to signal low capital costs to future investors. Apparently, the capital market sanctifies abnormal high inventories but does not honor low inventory per se. While the former is not in line with our results, the latter is so, which indicates that a certain level ofinventory is needed to run business processes properly.
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