Should Directors Have Term Limits? – Evidence from Corporate Innovation

This paper examines the effect that directors with extended tenure have on corporate innovation based on a sample of US firms from 1996 to 2006. Using the propensity-score matched-pair research design, I find that firms with a higher portion of outside directors enjoying extended tenure produce significantly fewer patents and that these patents receive fewer subsequent citations. These firms also have lower research and development (R&D) productivity and exploration intensity than their matched control firms, although I found no significant difference in their R&D investment intensity. Difference-in-differences tests based on director deaths and regulatory changes in the early 2000s suggest that the adverse effect of long director tenure on innovation performance is causal. I also find that the effect is mitigated when long-tenured directors have more years of overlap in service with CEOs, and when long-tenured directors are executives at other firms. Finally, I find that boards with extended tenure attenuate the contributions of innovation outputs to future firm value and performance. These findings shed new light on the debate over length of board tenure and provide another justification for imposing term limits on directors.     

Director Ownership and Voluntary Segment Disclosure: Hong Kong Evidence

Weakness of corporate governance and lack of transparency are often considered causes of or contributors to the Asian Financial Crisis. Publicly listed companies in Hong Kong, like other Asian firms, have concentrated director ownership. The study uses voluntary segment disclosure above the benchmark minimum as a proxy for transparency and examines its relationship to the ownership structure and composition of corporate boards in Hong Kong. We find that: (1) high (concentrated) board ownership explains the extent of low voluntary segment disclosure and this negative relationship is stronger when firm performance is very poor; (2) the contribution of non‐executive directors to enhance voluntary segment disclosure is effective for firms with low director ownership but not for concentrated‐ownership firms. These results have implications for policy makers and regulators in the Asia‐Pacific region striving to improve governance and transparency.     

独立董事制度与公司业绩的相关性分析：来自沪市A股的实证研究

独立董事制度是近年来我国上市公司为完善公司治理结构而从西方引入的一项重要措施。本文以沪市A股上市公司为研究对象 ,主要分两部分对独立董事展开讨论。其一 ,对独立董事的设立情况、薪酬现状、来源等问题进行分析 ;其二 ,对独立董事制度及其在董事会中所占的比例和公司业绩的相关性进行研究。分析发现 ,公司设立独立董事前后 ,公司业绩有显著性差异 ,但是公司业绩与独立董事在董事会中所占比例无关 ,而且引入独立董事后 ,公司业绩似乎变得更糟。     

我国独立董事制度的有效性研究——基于股东与独立董事的委托代理关系

独立董事在本质上也是剩余索取者的代理人,其本身首先是代理问题的一部分,只有在其与股东之间的代理问题得到较好解决后,独立董事制度才能有效发挥作用。本文通过对独立董事的行为特征分析,阐明独立董事的代理人性质;在理清股东与独立董事之间关系的基础上,分析影响独立董事制度有效性的主要因素,并对完善我国上市公司独立董事制度提出政策建议。     

独立董事网络位置、税收规避与企业价值

独立董事的治理效果影响着上市公司的治理状况,本文从独立董事网络的声誉机制和信息传递机制出发,选取2008?2017年沪深A股上市公司作为研究样本,实证检验独立董事网络位置与企业税收规避的关系。研究发现:独立董事网络位置对企业税收规避有负向影响;与所处地区市场化程度较高的公司相比,所处地区市场化程度较低的上市公司独立董事网络中心度对公司税收规避程度的影响更强;管理层权力削弱了独立董事网络中心度对企业税收规避程度的抑制作用。进一步引入企业价值后发现,独立董事网络中心度可以抑制税收规避对企业价值的减损。本文的研究结果完善了税收规避行为价值的研究体系,也为研究独立董事是否有效发挥治理作用提供了新思路。     

Executive pay and performance: the moderating effect of CEO power and governance structure

This paper examines the crucial question of whether chief executive officer (CEO) power and corporate governance (CG) structure can moderate the pay-for-performance sensitivity (PPS) using a large up-to-date South African data-set. Our findings are threefold. First, when direct links between executive pay and performance are examined, we find a positive, but relatively small PPS. Second, our results show that in a context of concentrated ownership and weak board structures; the second-tier agency conflict (director monitoring power and opportunism) is stronger than the first-tier agency problem (CEO power and self-interest). Third, additional analysis suggests that CEO power and CG structure have a moderating effect on the PPS. Specifically, we find that the PPS is higher in firms with more reputable, founding and shareholding CEOs, higher ownership by directors and institutions, and independent nomination and remuneration committees, but lower in firms with larger boards, more powerful and long-tenured CEOs. Overall, our evidence sheds new important theoretical and empirical insights on explaining the PPS with specific focus on the predictions of the optimal contracting and managerial power hypotheses. The findings are generally robust across a raft of econometric models that control for different types of endogeneities, pay, and performance proxies.     

独立董事的相对独立性与发挥作用的途径

本文的实证结果表明独立董事报酬无论与内部董事,还是与管理高层的整体报酬之间都呈现显著的正相关关系,这说明独立董事具有相对独立性是不以人的意志为转移的客观事实。在此基础上,研究了相对独立性对监督有效性带来的影响。结果表明,尽管独立董事只具有相对的独立性,但只要能挖掘出符合相对独立性要求的机制来激励独立董事做更多实实在在的工作,具有高认知能力的独立董事依然能在上市公司的治理中有效地发挥作用。     

董事会计师事务所工作背景与企业现金持有水平——来自中国资本市场的经验证据

基于2004—2012年我国上市公司数据,考察了董事会计师事务所工作背景对企业现金持有水平的影响。研究发现,董事会会计师事务所工作背景（董事会中是否有成员具有会计师事务所工作背景、董事会中拥有会计师事务所工作背景的董事人数、董事会中拥有会计师事务所工作背景的董事比例等）显著降低了企业的现金持有水平。进一步的分组检验结果还发现董事会计师事务所工作背景带来的现金方面的治理效应仅仅体现在高成长企业和管理层权力较大的企业之中,因为这两类企业面临的潜在代理冲突或信息不对称问题更为严重。     

独立董事的海外背景、审计师选择与审计意见

运用我国A股上市公司的数据,研究海外背景独立董事对上市公司审计师选择及审计意见的影响,以及这些影响在不同法制环境下的差异。研究发现,拥有海外背景独立董事的公司更可能聘请大型会计师事务所进行年报审计,也更容易获得标准无保留的审计意见,上述影响在法律保护较差的环境中更加明显。研究结论表明,海外背景独立董事能够提高独立审计有效性,提升公司治理水平,它是法制等较弱的外部治理机制的一种替代。     

中小上市公司治理结构与会计信息透明度关系研究

完善的公司治理结构对会计信息披露有着积极的作用,会计信息披露亦有助于提高公司治理和经营管理透明度。经对2007-2010年深市样本中小上市公司Logistic回归分析,结果表明:第一大股东控制力、董事会规模和公司规模与会计信息透明度正相关;独立董事比例、董事长与总经理两职合一和资产负债率与会计信息透明度负相关;监事会规模与会计信息透明度无明显的相关性。     

公司治理与代理成本——来自上市公司的经验证据

本文利用上市公司的数据,分析了公司治理与代理成本之间的关系。结果发现:股权集中度国家股比例、董事会规模、监事会规模、治理环境、公司透明度、企业规模与代理成本显著负相关;股权制衡度、领取报酬的董事比例、领取报酬的监事比例、董事会会议次数、股东大会会议次数与代理成本显著正相关;高管持股、独立董事比例、监事会会议次数、两职分离与代理成本无显著关系;财务杠杆率与代理成本的关系是混合的;国有上市公司和民营上市公司的公司治理与代理成本之间的关系与总样本基本一致。     

浅析设立独立董事需要注意的问题

新《公司法》明确规定上市公司设立独立董事制度,但是在实践中没有明确如何操作,本文就设立独立董事需要注意的问题加以阐述,来完善公司的外部监督,成为有中国特色的公司监督机构。     

Directors’ prior life experience and corporate donations: Evidence from China

We use a recent dataset of 16,082 firm-year observations from publicly traded Chinese firms to show that directors who have prior foreign study or work experience make more corporate donations, a result that supports the path dependency theory related to the effect of prior experiences on subsequent behaviors. The relationship between a director’s prior life experiences and corporate charitable contributions is robust across different types of ownership and industry. We show that corporate donations enable firms to have better access to bank loans, reducing their financial constraints. In addition, these directors appear to consume fewer perquisites, implying lower agency cost with corporate donations.     

独立董事声誉能抑制大股东掏空行为吗？——基于中小板的经验数据

在股权高度集中的背景下，大股东侵占公司利益已成为一种常态，导致了严重的公司治理问题。在此情形下，探讨有效的公司治理机制抑制大股东掏空行为、保护中小股东的利益、提高上市企业盈余质量显得尤为重要。因此，基于公司治理机制中的独立董事制度视角，利用2011—2015年我国中小板上市企业的样本，探讨独立董事声誉能否有效抑制大股东掏空行为。研究结论表明：独立董事声誉可以抑制大股东掏空行为；相较学者独立董事声誉，实务独立董事声誉抑制大股东掏空行为更显著；外部审计机构会为大股东掏空行为出具非标准审计意见，因而在治理大股东掏空具有一定效用。     

Value relevance on intellectual capital valuation methods: the role of corporate governance

Development of a knowledge economy has changed the main value of a firm from traditional physical assets to intellectual capital or intangible assets. Therefore, the accumulation and management of intellectual capital is the competitive advantage of knowledge-based industries. Intellectual capital valuation is the essential factor in firm valuation. Scholars have presented valuation methods of intellectual capital, such as Tobin’s Q, Knowledge Capital Earnings (KCE), and Value Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC). Management power of modern firms is separate from ownership, and easily occurs in the agency problem; therefore, firms must implement corporate governance to solve this problem. Researchers have presented that a complete appraisal of the firm value includes the effect of corporate governance. This study is the first to apply multi-regression models to examine value relevance on valuation methods of intellectual capital, and to further analyze the role of corporate governance for the information and electronic industry in Taiwan. The results show that Tobin’s Q, KCE, and VAIC have a positive relationship to firm value. The characteristic of director board, including board size, the ratio of outside directors, employed independent directors, and the manager concurrently the director, are correlated with the valuation of intellectual capital.     

探析信息时代的独立董事制度

本文提出了现代企业公司治理结构中存在的主要问题,并结合信息化对现代企业以及治理结构的影响,分析了独立董事在现代企业中的地位和作用。同时我们从信息化角度说明,以信息技术为支撑的独立董事是解决公司治理结构中信息不对称的有效环节。并且对于现有独立董事制度的缺陷,提出建议用以完善现代企业的公司治理结构体制。     

Unionization and CEO turnover

This article investigates whether unions have power to influence turnover of poorly performing chief executive officers (CEOs). Employing the transparency coalition framework, we develop hypotheses regarding CEO tenure given unionization, performance-turnover sensitivity, and firm performance following CEO turnover. We use Cox regression and a data set of US firms from 1993 to 2013 to show that CEO turnover is accelerated at firms that unionize. Discontinuity analysis suggests that the relationship is causal. Overall, the results show the significance of unions in the key corporate governance event of CEO turnover and suggest that, though they may proceed independently and for their own traditional goals of good pay and job conditions for their members, unions can be allies of investors and boards or directors when it comes to removing underperforming CEOs.     

Insider Trading, Earnings Management and Corporate Governance: Empirical Evidence Based on Hong Kong Firms

We document positive association between earnings management and insider selling after the fiscal year‐end for Hong Kong firms. This positive association is especially evident before the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis. Our findings suggest that Hong Kong executives manage reported earnings to maximize their private benefits from insider selling. Additionally, we find that a higher proportion of independent directors (INED) on corporate boards moderate the positive association between insider selling and earnings management. Stricter monitoring of earnings management by INED is especially evident when no member of the family with majority ownership is present on corporate boards as a director. This suggests that the presence of family members with majority ownership on corporate boards significantly reduces INED's monitoring effectiveness. Our findings suggest that strict regulations are needed to control insider trading, and independence of corporate boards is important for monitoring of earnings management associated with insider trading. Furthermore, appointment of family members with majority shareholdings should be avoided to enhance independence and to monitor effectiveness of corporate boards.     

Board internationalization and corporate social responsibility

This study examines the association between board internationalization and firms’ corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance in China during 2009–2019. Using a large dataset of director nationalities and CSR scores, we find that foreign directors promote CSR performance as evidenced by higher CSR scores. We further document that this relationship is more pronounced among government-controlled firms, firms with better corporate governance, and firms operating under stricter institutional environments. These findings remain valid after sequential robustness checks. Overall, our findings imply that foreign directors motivate the board of directors and their firms to actively pursue and practice social responsibility. Our study enriches the literature on the outcomes of board internationalization and determinants of CSR and provides the internationalization of corporate governance mechanisms a reasonable basis.     

独立董事背景特征、辞职行为与企业价值

利用2007年-2009年我国上市公司独立董事辞职数据,研究发现,独立董事辞职时企业价值显著下降,不同背景独立董事辞职时,企业价值下降幅度并不相同。学历较高、具有政府官员或企业高管背景的独立董事辞职时,企业价值下降幅度较大;年龄较大、具有学者背景或非会计类财务背景的独立董事辞职时,企业价值下降幅度较小。研究结论表明,不同背景独立董事在影响企业价值过程中具有不同作用。