公司财务信息失真促成了独立董事制度变化吗？

董事会的独立性对信息披露质量有着重要而直接的影响，独立董事（以下简称为独董）比例在很大程度上反映了公司董事会的独立性特征。关于独董的实际运作效果一直缺乏统一认识。本文选择了2003年至2005年92家发生财务信息失真的上市公司作为样本组，并考虑行业、资产等因素选择了配对样本公司作为控制组，分析财务信息失真前后样本组与控制组中独董比例小于1／3的公司所占比重的变化差异和独董比例的变化幅度，发现失真事件发生会促使相关公司提高独董比例；在政策强制影响作用下，样本组和控制组公司的独董比例都会显著提高，但样本组公司独立董事比例提高的幅度明显高于控制组公司。这一研究成果也为“独立董事比例提高将有助于防范财务信息失真”这一论点提供了支持证据。     

在独立董事制度下对完善公司内部监控制度的探析

加强公司内部监控制度的建设,提高公司财务信息的独立性和真实性,保护广大所有权人和投资者的利益,是社会广泛关注的一个问题。本文以2010年深交所主板A股上市公司为研究对象,通过对各个公司独立董事的人数比例,尤其是财务独立董事的数额,以及董事会规模,公司规模,第一股东持股比例,负债比例,公司成长性,自愿性披露水平,公司业绩等相关数据的分析,表明独立董事制度对于提高公司的财务信息质量有着积极的作用,从而能够提高上市公司自愿性信息披露的水平,最终达到完善公司内部监控,充分发挥公司内部监控制度作用的目的。本文从样本公司的财务背景角度系统的分析了独立董事制度对于公司内部监控制度的影响。     

山东省民营上市公司财务治理效率影响因素研究

本文以山东省民营上市公司2006-2015年的数据研究其财务治理效率的影响因素,利用SPSS分析这些影响因素与财务治理效率的关系,发现资产负债率与财务治理效率负相关,董事会规模与财务治理效率弱正相关,董事会会议次数与独立董事规模以及监事会会议次数与财务治理效率无关.文章提出应进一步鼓励山东省民营上市公司提高股权集中度和股权制衡度,健全独立董事制度,充分发挥监事会的监督管理作用,最大限度地提高山东省民营上市公司的财务治理效率,改善其经营业绩.     

独立董事与公司治理:理论、经验与实践

独立董事在董事会成员中所占的比例数在很大程度上反映了公司董事会的独立性特征。有观点认为 ,独立董事制度为公司的权益资本和管理雇佣契约提供了更为安全的治理措施。经验分析表明 ,目前实行的独立董事制度并没有发挥真正的效用。政策制订部门的当务之急就是协调监事与独立董事之间的功能冲突 ;同时 ,注意治理机制的互补作用 ,打造独立董事市场 ,发挥声誉机制的作用 ,并强化立法的质量与增大执法的力度。     

信托公司治理结构与风险控制

构建信托公司治理结构和风险控制制度的对策：一是股权多元化，建立股权制衡机制；二是建立独立董事制度，加强董事会在公司决策中的作用；三是建立信托公司风险管理制度；四是强化股东情况和风险控制的信息披露。     

公司治理因素对我国上市公司资本结构选择的影响——基于Panel Data模型的实证分析

本文采用PanelData模型分内外两条路径检验了公司治理因素对资本结构选择的影响。研究结果表明,股权集中度、国家股比例、流通股比例、董事会规模、产品要素市场竞争程度、创新战略指标和私人收益指标与资本结构水平负相关;独立董事比例、董事会会议频率和股权制衡度指数与资本结构水平正相关;法人股比例、董事长是否兼任总经理与资本结构水平关系不显著。     

浅析独立董事的独立性

独立董事制度首创于美国，是指在上市公司董事会中设立独立董事的制度。由于独立董事特有的独立性，使得独立董事一方面可以有效制约控股股东和经理层，遏制内部人控制问题；另一方面还可以凭借专业知识及独立判断提高董事会决策的科学化、透明化程度，促进上市公司规范运作。因此，独立董事制度是完善公司治理结构、保护中小股东利益的有效途径。     

我国上市公司资本结构影响因素实证研究

采用Panel Data模型分内外两条路径检验了公司治理因素对资本结构选择的影响，研究结果表明，股权集中度、国家股比例、流通股比例、董事会规模、产品要素市场竞争程度、创新战略指标和私人收益指标与资本结构水平负相关；独立董事比例、董事会会议频率和股权制衡度指数与资本结构水平正相关：法人股比例、总经理是否兼任董事长与资本结构水平关系不显著。     

公司治理因素对我国上市公司资本结构选择的影响——基于Panel Data模型的实证分析

本文采用Panel Data模型分内外两条路径检验了公司治理因素对资本结构选择的影响.研究结果表明,股权集中度、国家股比例、流通股比例、董事会规模、产品要素市场竞争程度、创新战略指标和私人收益指标与资本结构水平负相关;独立董事比例、董事会会议频率和股权制衡度指数与资本结构水平正相关;法人股比例、董事长是否兼任总经理与资本结构水平关系不显著.     

公司治理对财务信息质量影响的实证分析

本文以2005-2010年的非金融上市公司为样本,就公司治理对财务信息质量的影响进行实证研究.通过回归检验发现,股权集中度对财务信息质量具有负面影响,股权制衡度对财务信息质量具有正面影响;审计委员会的设立对财务信息质量的提高具有正面显著影响.研究同时发现,没有证据表明两职合一和两权分离会降低财务信息质量;也没有证据表明独立董事比例对财务信息质量具有显著提高作用.这一系列实证结果从公司治理角度为财务信息质量的提高提供了新的证据.     

Board Independence and Corporate Governance: Evidence From Director Resignations

Abstract:  As is evident from recent changes in NYSE and NASDAQ listing requirements, board independence is assumed to be an important and effective governance mechanism. However, the empirical evidence regarding the value of board independence is mixed. We examine board member resignation announcements and their perceived importance in the context of firms' existing governance structures. We find that outside director resignations appear to send negative signals to market participants. However, this market reaction is less negative when the board is more independent before the departure and when institutional ownership is high, but is more negative for higher levels of officer and director ownership and CEO incentive compensation.     

The Nature of Board Nominating Committees and Their Role in Corporate Governance

This study examines the association between the employment and composition of nominating committees with board and ownership characteristics. First, the results suggest that the likelihood of using a nominating committee is inversely related to the level of inside ownership and positively weakly, related to the independence, but not the number, of outside board members. Second, the percentage of insiders participating in the committee is positively related to inside ownership, and negatively related to proxies for outside director quality. Finally, outside directors are more likely to serve on the nominating committee the more outside directorships they hold, and the longer their tenure in the firm. The likelihood of insider committee membership rises with a director's equity investment, with board tenure, and with other committee memberships. Taken together, the results are consistent with nominating committees substituting inside ownership in controlling management, mostly improving board quality, and being staffed with independent, experienced, and knowledgable members.     

Board of director characteristics and earnings quality surrounding implementation of a corporate governance code in Mexico

Mexico recently enacted a corporate governance code. One objective of the code is to improve board of director oversight and to reveal more transparent information to shareholders by including detailed information regarding the structure of the board and its functions. Research in the U.S. has documented improvement in earnings quality associated with board characteristics. Whether or not board characteristics are associated with improved earnings quality in Mexico is questionable given the business environment in which firms operate, characterized by controlling family ownership and weak legal protection of property rights. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether or not board characteristics other than compliance with board independence (board composition disclosure, family concentrated ownership and shared-directors) are associated with the improvement in earnings quality found in previous research. Earnings quality is measured using income smoothing, timely loss recognition and conditional accruals. We find firms that do not have concentrated family ownership or share directors have greater increases in earnings quality than firms that have concentrated family ownership or share directors. We conclude that applying board-level corporate governance reforms, without considering cultural and legal environments, may limit the desired effects of the change.     

Bank power,block ownership,boards and financial distress likelihood: An investigation of Spanish listed firms

We investigate the effects of bank power, block ownership and board independence on the likelihood of financial distress. Using a matched sample design, we find that firms in which banks have power are more likely than their counterparts to enter financial distress. However, the bank power effects are moderated by block ownership and board independence. Specifically, on the one hand, financial distress due to bank power is lower for firms with greater ownership by pressure resistant blockholders and such blockholders appear to be the largest blockholder in the firm. The bank power effects are also lower in firms with greater outside directors and this appears to be primarily driven by proprietary directors than independent directors. On the other, we document evidence suggesting that the bank power effects are magnified for firms in which the board chair is a proprietary director aligned to non-financial blockholders or CEO/Chair, suggesting that banks might partly influence decisions via board chairs. Overall, the findings are consistent with bank power actions being detrimental to the firm, but the extent to which such actions harm the firm depends on the monitoring intentions of blockholders and/or board of directors. These findings have important implications for policymakers.     

Perpetuating traditional influences: Voluntary disclosure in Malaysia following the economic crisis

Prior research on listed companies in Malaysia, Hong Kong and Singapore during and before the 1997 financial crisis has reported a significant association between ownership structure and the extent of voluntary disclosure in annual reports. We examine data for Malaysia after the 1997 financial crisis to assess whether the regulatory reaction to the crisis increased the awareness of disclosure as a tool of corporate governance and reduced the influence of insider domination on voluntary disclosure. We contrast director ownership and government ownership as determinants of voluntary disclosure in Malaysian company annual reports. Additionally, we include consideration of proprietary costs by testing whether industry competitiveness has an impact on voluntary disclosure.We find that director ownership is significantly associated with the extent of voluntary disclosure while government ownership, new governance initiatives and industry competitiveness are not significant in pointing companies towards greater transparency. We conclude that, despite the upheaval of the economic crisis, traditional influences of director ownership and family domination of the board outweigh the effect of government-backed accountability initiatives in determining the extent of voluntary disclosure.     

Ownership, Governance, and Bank Performance: Korean Experience

The paper examines the effect of ownership and governance on firm performance. Tracing the post financial crisis experience, 1998–2002, of the Korean commercial bank industry, the paper investigates whether the involvement of foreign investors in the ownership structure had any significant effect on the banks' performance i.e., return and risk measures. Further, it examines the effects of the presence of outside directors, especially directors from foreign countries, in the corporate board structure impacts banks performance. Evidence indicates that the extent of the foreign ownership level, not the mere existence of foreign ownership, has a significant positive association with the bank return and a significant negative association with the bank risk. The number of outside board of directors does not have any significant affect on performance however the presence of a foreign director on that board is significantly associated with bank return and risk. These findings are relatively robust under the different specifications of performance measures.     

Independent directors and the propensity to pay dividends

Using data from 944 public companies in 2006, I examine how a firm's propensity to pay dividends is related to (i) board independence and (ii) independent directors' tenure, number of board seats (busy) and equity incentive compensation. After controlling for the effects of traditional economic, CEO entrenchment and ownership determinants of the propensity to pay dividends, I find evidence of a positive association between the propensity to pay and (i) board independence and (ii) director tenure, and a negative association between the propensity to pay and (i) busy directors and (ii) greater equity incentive compensation in the director pay structure. I find consistent results when the decision is to pay cash dividends or repurchase shares. In further tests, I find that equity incentive compensation in the independent director pay structure is the most pervasive determinant across other dividend measures such as dividend payout, total payout and repurchases. Overall, the findings suggest that the characteristics of independent directors are important determinants of the payout policy. The results also suggest that future corporate governance research could benefit from incorporating characteristics of independent directors rather than limiting governance measures to board independence especially when recent empirical evidence (Linck et al., 2008, 2009) shows convergence, and therefore, narrowing variation in the proportion of outsiders and insiders on a board.     

Do corporate governance attributes affect adverse selection costs? Evidence from seasoned equity offerings

We examine the relation between corporate governance attributes and perceived information asymmetry. In a sample of seasoned equity offerings between 1996 and 2001, we find that board independence, size of the audit committee, and officer and director ownership mitigate the negative effect of the equity offering announcement on share prices. These results are consistent with the notion that investors perceive certain governance systems to better align manager and shareholder incentives, which improves firm access to capital markets.     

Directors skill and financial reporting quality

Motivated by theoretical models in economics which show that there is matching between CEO skill and firm size, we introduce a new measure of director skill which is based on the aggregate size of firms on which the director serves as an independent director. We validate our measure by showing that it is positively associated with director experience, financial expertise, industry expertise and managerial experience. We then examine whether our average measure of skill across board members is positively associated with monitoring quality. Controlling for the endogenous relationships between board composition and financial reporting quality, we find a positive association between our board measure for skill and monitoring quality, and we show that directors have a causal impact on monitoring effort and outcomes. Furthermore, consistent with the enhanced monitoring provided by skilled directors, we document a positive association between the level of and changes in our measure and firm value.     

Director Compensation and CEO Bargaining Power in REITs

We analyze director compensation for Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) and investigate the relations between director compensation and other measures of the board independence and board monitoring. Using 136 REITs in 2001, we find that REITs that pay higher equity-based compensation to their board members are associated with higher financial performance. Our data indicate that board equity-based compensation is positively related to the existence of an independent nomination committee, however, it has no significant relationship with board size, proportion of outside directors, CEO duality and CEO tenure and ownership.