Corporate governance

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

The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on Investment Recommendations: Analysts' Perceptions and Shifting Institutional Logics

Abstract: We explore the impact of corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings on sell-side analysts' assessments of firms' future financial performance. We suggest that when analysts perceive CSR as an agency cost they produce pessimistic recommendations for firms with high CSR ratings. Moreover, we theorize that, over time, the emergence of a stakeholder focus shifts the analysts' perceptions of CSR. Using a large sample of publicly traded U.S. firms over 15 years, we confirm that, in the early 1990s, analysts issue more pessimistic recommendations for firms with high CSR ratings. However, analysts progressively assess these firms more optimistically over time. Furthermore, we find that analysts of highest status are the first to shift the relation between CSR ratings and investment recommendation optimism.

An Empirical Test of a Cross-national Model of Corporate Social Responsibility

Abstract: Most models of corporate social responsibility revolve around the controversy as to whether business is a single dimensional entity of profit maximization or a multi-dimensional entity serving greater societal interests Furthermore, the models are mostly descriptive in nature and are based on the experiences of western countries There has been little attempt to develop a model that accounts for corporate social responsibility in diverse environments with differing socio-cultural and market settings In this paper an attempt has been made to fill this gap by developing a two-dimensional model of corporate social responsibility and empirically testing its validity in the context of two dissimilar cultures – Australia and Bangladesh The two dimensions are the span of corporate responsibility (narrow to wider perspective) and the range of outcomes of social commitments of businesses (cost to benefit driven perspective) The test results confirm the validity of the two-dimensional model in the two environments The Factor analysis revealed two leading dimensions Cluster analysis pointed to two distinctive clusters of managers in both Australia and Bangladesh, one consisting of managers with a broad contemporary concept of social responsibility, and the other with a limited narrow view The paper concludes that corporate social responsibility is two-dimensional and universal in nature and that differing cultural and market settings in which managers operate may have little impact on the ethical perceptions of corporate managers

The Civil Corporation: The New Economy of Corporate Citizenship

Abstract: Can corporations be civil? Part 1 The new economy of corporate citizenship: opening minds ethical futures breaking the trust barrier civil regulation framing the business case the future of civil regulators the new civil governance. Part 2 The civil corporation: foundations of sustainability sustainability as the art of the possible civil learning. Part 3 Building the civil corporation: building civil corporations how much is enough useful measures conversational corporations professionalizing credibility. Part 4 Conclusions: how civil can corporations be?

The Fall of Enron

Abstract: The financial reporting and disclosure problems at Enron, as well as the high market valuations for its stock raise troubling questions about the functioning of capital market intermediaries, regulators and governance experts whose are supposed to ensure the effective functioning of the stock market. This paper examines the functions of key capital market intermediaries and analyzes how their own governance and incentive problems may have contributed to Enron's rise and fall. We conclude by proposing system modifications to resolve the observed problems.

Earth system governance as a crosscutting theme of global change research

Abstract: In 2001, the four global change research programmes ‘urgently’ called for ‘an ethical framework for global stewardship and strategies for Earth System management’. Yet this notion of ‘earth system management’ remains vaguely defined: It is too elusive for natural scientists, and too ambitious or too normative for social scientists. In this article, I develop an alternative concept that is better grounded in social science theory: ‘earth system governance’. I introduce, first, the concept of earth system governance as a new social phenomenon, a political programme and a crosscutting theme of research in the field of global environmental change. I then sketch the five key problem structures that complicate earth system governance, and derive from these four overarching principles for earth system governance as political practice, namely credibility, stability, adaptiveness, and inclusiveness. In the last part of the article, I identify five research and governance challenges that lie at the core of earth system governance as a crosscutting theme in global change research. These are the problems of the overall architecture of earth system governance, of agency beyond the state, of the adaptiveness of governance mechanisms and of their accountability and legitimacy, and of the modes of allocation in earth system governance—in short, the five A's of earth system governance research.