Corporate governance

About: Corporate governance is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 118591 publications have been published within this topic receiving 2793582 citations.

Corporate Governance and Shareholder Initiatives: Empirical Evidence

Abstract: Judging from prior writings, many researchers and practitioners think shareholder-initiated corporate governance proposals promote value-maximizing policies. These proposals are regarded as serving an important role in the governance of public corporations. Our findings, however, do not support this view. Shareholder-initiated corporate governance resolutions tend to target poorly performing firms, as measured by market-to-book ratio, operating return, and recent sales growth. This suggests that their sponsors seek improvements. We find little evidence, however, that proposals increase share values or spur performance improvements. The average wealth effects associated with shareholder-initiated corporate governance proposals are not significantly different from zero. Sales growth subsequently declines for firms receiving proposals relative to sales growth for control firms. And changes in operating return on sales are not significantly larger for proposal firms than their controls. We also find little evidence that shareholder proposals are associated with significant changes in firm policy. Turnover among chief executive officers is not significantly higher among firms that previously attracted proposals than for other firms matched by industry and size. We find that some of the firms attracting successful proposals changed managers or restructured operations, but such changes typically were motivated by external control threats, not the shareholder proposals. Even proposals receiving a majority of share votes are not associated systematically with significant changes in target firms' policies or stock values.

Foreign and Domestic Ownership, Business Groups and Firm Performance: Evidence from a Large Emerging Market

Abstract: We adopt a multi-theoretic approach to investigate a previously unexplored phenomenon in extant literature, namely the differential impact of foreign institutional and foreign corporate shareholders on the performance of emerging market firms. We show that the previously documented positive effect of foreign ownership on firm performance is substantially attributable to foreign corporations that have, on average, larger shareholding, higher commitment and longer-term involvement. We document the positive influence of corporations vis a vis financial institutions with respect to domestic shareholdings as well. We also find an interesting dichotomy in the impact of these shareholders depending on the business group affiliation of firms.

Governance Matters VI: Governance Indicators for 1996-2006

Abstract: This paper reports on the latest update of the Worldwide Governance Indicators (WGI) research project, covering 212 countries and territories and measuring six dimensions of governance between 1996 and 2006: Voice and Accountability, Political Stability and Absence of Violence, Government Effectiveness, Regulatory Quality, Rule of Law, and Control of Corruption. This latest set of aggregate indicators, are based on hundreds of specific and disaggregated individual variables measuring various dimensions of governance, taken from 33 data sources provided by 30 different organizations. The data reflect the views on governance of public sector, private sector and NGO experts, as well as thousands of citizen and firm survey respondents worldwide. We also explicitly report the margins of error accompanying each country estimate. These reflect the inherent difficulties in measuring governance using any kind of data. We find that even after taking margins of error into account, the WGI permit meaningful cross-country comparisons as well as monitoring progress over time. In less than a decade, a substantial number of countries exhibit statistically significant improvements in at least one dimension of governance, while other countries exhibit deterioration in some dimensions.

One Report: Integrated Reporting for a Sustainable Strategy

Abstract: Foreword. Acknowledgments. Introduction. Notes. Chapter 1 What Is One Report? The Meaning of One Report. Novo Nordisk: An Early Adopter of One Report. Rhetoric and Design in Natura's 2008 Annual Report. The Urgent Need for One Report. Notes. Chapter 2 United Technologies Corporation's First IntegratedReport. UTC's First One Report. A Brief History of Corporate Reporting at UTC. More on the 2008 Report. UTC's Half-Century of Corporate Reporting. Notes. Chapter 3 The State of Financial Reporting Today. Background on Financial Reporting. Complexity. Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL). Auditing. Notes. Chapter 4 The State of Nonfinancial Reporting Today. A Typology of Nonfinancial Information. Intangible Assets. Intangible Assets at Infosys. Key Performance Indicators. Environmental, Social and Governance Metrics. Assurance on Nonfinancial Information. Notes. Chapter 5 Sustainable Strategies for a SustainableSociety. Sustainability at Ricoh. Corporate Social Responsibility. Sustainability. Sustainable Competitive Advantage. Sustainable Strategies Require Integrated Reporting. Corporate Reporting at Ricoh. Notes. Chapter 6 It's Time for One Report. The Case for One Report. One Report for a Sustainable Strategy for a SustainableSociety. The Time Is Now. Objections to One Report. The Bottom Line. Notes. Chapter 7 The Internet and Integrated Reporting. A Web-based Perspective on One Report. The Essential Elements of Web-based Integrated Reporting. Web 3.0 and Integrated Reporting. Notes. Chapter 8 Integrated Reporting for a SustainableSociety. Companies Must Take Responsibility. Innovation. Support from the Investment Community. Development of Standards. Legislation and Regulation. Support from Civil Society. Notes. Appendix A: Companies and Organizations with URLs. Appendix B: Acronyms. Index.