Does the stock market curse contractor's bidding decision and winning a new contract?

Abstract

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the stock market reactions at the time of new construction contract winning announcements to explore whether the managements made wise bidding decisions and thus create values. Design/methodology/approach - A total of 813 new contracts awarded to publicly traded US construction firms for the years 2000 through 2009 are screened and these are analyzed by applying event study methodology. This paper estimates the effect of an event on stock market's responses, using cumulative abnormal returns (CARs), and the CAR values are estimated for four types of windows: days 0 (i.e. the day of the event announcement), (-1, +1), (-2, +2), and (-3, +3). The market responses are further subdivided according to such variables as the project type, owner type, project location, work scope, and bidder size. Findings - The results of this study show that the stock market did not curse contract winners by positively responding to the announcements of new contract awards. The sample firms' market value, on average, is increased by 1.168 percent during the seven-day window period, and is highly significant. In addition, the followings are observed: first, the stock market tends to favor larger contracts over smaller ones; second, small firms' events receive better market responses than those of large ones; and third, the level of returns varies considerably across the project types. Meanwhile, no statistical differences are observed in CARs for the owner type, work scope, and project location variables. Research limitations/implications - This study has several limitations. First, potential factors that may have effects on CAR could not be incorporated in the analysis, because a contract award announcement provides only limited information. Second, the level of consistency between stock market responses and the contract's actual outcomes could not be assessed. Practical implications - Wise bidding decision has critical implication considering the impact of a new contract award on a firm; a new contract increases the backlog of a firm while it may harm/improve the operating performance or decrease/increase the stockholders' wealth. Although the overall success level of the current sample, in terms of CARs, is positive and significant, CAR values vary significantly depending on the window period and/or variables. Therefore, managements should exercise careful discretion in selecting a target project and arriving at a bidding decision. Originality/value - While event study has been widespread for assessing the effect of numerous event types, project award received scarcely any attention. Moreover, it has widely been believed that cost/pricing and contract value are the primary sources for winners' curse argument. Accordingly, this study can be considered as a seminal work assessing stock market responses to validate winners' curse argument. This study contributes to the body of knowledge of decision-making discipline. In addition, from a strategic management perspective, the evidence and implications drawn from the analysis results will be valuable resources for bid or no-bid decision making in the project-based industry.