The Gender Quota and Female Leadership: Effects of the Norwegian Gender Quota on Board Chairs and CEOs

In this article, we use a sample of Norwegian quoted companies in the period of 2001–2010 to explore whether the gender quota requiring 40 % female directors on corporate boards changes the likelihood of women being appointed to top leadership roles as board chairs or corporate CEOs. Our empirical results indicate that the gender quota and the resulting increased representation of female directors provide a fertile ground for women to take top leadership positions. The presence of female board chairs is positively associated with female directors’ independence status, age and qualification, whilst the presence of female CEOs is positively related to the average qualification of female directors. Firms with older and better educated female directors are more likely to appoint female board chairs. The likelihood of female CEOs’ appointment increases with the percentage of independent directors and directors’ qualifications, especially those for female directors. Furthermore, the gender gaps with respect to qualification, board interlocks and nationality between female and male board chairs vanishes after Norwegian companies’ full compliance to the quota in January 2008. However, the gender quota has no significant impact on the gender gaps between female and male directors after its full compliance. Our article thereby contributes to understanding how gender quotas, presence of female directors, percentage of female directors on boards and other board characteristics can determine the gender of top leaders of organizations.     

The Media Impact of Board Member Appointments in Spanish-Listed Companies: A Gender Perspective

Recent corporate governance literature on gender diversity within boards has linked the effect of an increase in gender diversity to the firm’s corporate reputation. This paper analyzes the media impact of appointing new directors of Spanish companies at a particularly significant moment, during the period from 2007 to 2010, just a year before and 3 years after the Gender Equality Act was passed. By analyzing female and male board nominations in Spanish IBEX-35 companies, the paper examines whether appointing a female does have greater visibility than appointing a male, and thus a potential signaling effect for corporate stakeholders and an effect on the firm’s reputation. Results indicate that the effect on press visibility of appointing a female versus a male is negligible, although there is significant media visibility for new executive directors, in particular for the case of the only woman nominated as an executive director during the period. The paper contributes to the existing literature on gender diversity in corporate governance, specifically its effect on corporate reputation. The paper also offers information relevant to policy making and in particular to the current debate over quotas for women on boards.     

Entrepreneurial orientation and innovation in family SMEs: Unveiling the (actual) impact of the Board of Directors

Drawing on stewardship and resource dependence theories, we examine how the board of directors (BoD) influences the link between entrepreneurial orientation (EO) and ambidextrous innovation in small and medium sized family firms (family SMEs). Our analysis of 230 Spanish family SMEs shows that family involvement in the BoD has a negative effect on their ability to turn EO into innovation. Moreover, we show that the BoD's strategic involvement in service and control tasks and the provision of knowledge and skills have positive effects, whereas the intensity of BoD activity has a surprisingly negative effect. These findings underscore that the effects of the BoD on the entrepreneurship-innovation link are more complex than previously thought, pointing to the important role of both BoD composition and BoD functioning for enabling innovation in family SMEs.     

The Impact of Regional Factors on the Start‐Up Ratio in Japan*

We analyze regional factors of the start‐up ratio in Japan using two datasets with different regional aggregation levels. The explanatory variables represent demand, cost, human resource, financial, industry agglomeration and industrial structure, and other factors. The empirical results demonstrate that even though all these factors significantly affect the start‐up ratio at the municipality level, some of these factors are not significant at a larger economic area level. In particular, we obtained evidence that human resource factors, together with the average wage and average size of establishments, are important determinants of the regional start‐up ratio in both the samples.     

The Impact of the Dual Board Structure and Board Diversity: Evidence from Chinese Initial Public Offerings (IPOs)

Chinese listed companies have a two-tier (dual) governance structure that comprises a supervisory board/committee (SB) and the board of directors (BoD). However, as there is no hierarchical relationship between them, the two boards are independent. This is different from the governance mechanism in Continental Europe in which the SB appoints the directors of the management board; in this sense, the Chinese two-tier governance structure is unique. We investigate the impact of governance characteristics and ownership structure on gender diversity of both the BoD and the SB for a sample of 892 Chinese Initial Public Offerings floated in both the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges. We find that the average proportion of female directors and female SB members on the BoD and the SB are 10 and 22 %, respectively. Using both static and dynamic panel data methods, we find that there is no significant impact of board structure on gender diversity in China. However, we find a positive and significant relationship between SB size and gender diversity. We also find that the higher the state ownership, the lower the female representation on both boards. Finally, our findings show that there is a bi-directional relationship between financial performance and the proportion of female directors sitting on the BoD.     

The Role of the Board of Directors in Disseminating Relevant Information on Greenhouse Gases

In today’s world, the corporate image of the largest companies is closely linked to their performance in the field of corporate social responsibility and the disclosure of information on that topic, specifically, on climate change. Since the Board of Directors is the body responsible for this process, the aim of this article is to show the role that companies’ Boards of Directors play in the accountability process vis-à-vis stakeholders in relation to one specific aspect which has enormous significance in environmental information: practices used to monitor greenhouse gas emissions. In order to achieve this, we shall verify certain business characteristics, in addition to the size and activity of the Board of Directors, and we shall take different dependence models into consideration. These models will include variables related to the level of independence and diversity of the Board of Directors, which interact with dummy variables representing the company’s litigation risks regarding environmental behavior and the institutional macro-context of the organization’s country of origin. The results make it clear that Boards of Directors are basically focused on the traditional responsibility of creating economic value, instead of dealing with today’s broader business world concepts, which include social responsibility. This focus, therefore, does not favor the accountability process before other stakeholders, if this makes it more difficult to protect the interests of shareholders.     

Enjoyment of the Shopping Experience: Impact on Customers' Repatronage Intentions and Gender Influence

In this paper the authors investigate enjoyment of the shopping experience, its influence on consumers' intention to repatronise a regional shopping centre and the effect of gender differences on shopping enjoyment. Four dimensions of shopping enjoyment are proposed and a 16-item measure is developed to assess 536 consumer perceptions of the shopping experience across five counties in the United Kingdom. Findings indicate that shopping experience enjoyment has a significant positive influence upon customers' repatronage intentions. Furthermore, men are found to have a stronger relationship of enjoyment with repatronage than women. The implications of these results are discussed, together with managerial implications, study limitations, and future research directions.     

Mind the Gender Wage Gap – the Impact of Trade and Competition on Sectoral Wage Differences

This paper examines differences between women’s and men’s wages in 18 selected OECD countries in the period 1970 to 2005. The study is based on 12 manufacturing sector‐ and skill‐specific sets of panel data on the gender wage gap. We apply a system generalised method of moments (GMM) estimator to the extended version of the conditional gender wage gap convergence equation, controlling for sector concentration and industry‐specific measures of openness using a difference‐in‐difference approach: trade‐affected concentrated sectors versus trade‐affected competitive sectors. The results indicate that: (i) an increase in sector concentration is associated with wage gap growth; (ii) both import and export penetration are associated with a reduction of the high‐skill gender wage gap growth in concentrated industries; (iii) there is evidence of a widening impact of trade on the medium and low‐skill occupational gender wage gap growth in less competitive industries; (iv) institutional regulations of the labour market have an impact on the development of the gender wage gap: for highly‐skilled labour an increase in labour market regulation raises the growth of the gender wage gap, while for medium‐ and low‐skilled workers, it lowers it.     

股权结构、董事会特征与会计信息质量关系的实证研究——来自A股上市公司的经验证据

选取2001-2005年期间被我国证券监督委员会公开处罚的财务报告舞弊的上市公司为研究样本,并选取了股权结构、董事会特征等方面的10个指标,对公司治理结构与会计信息舞弊的关系进行实证研究。研究发现:独立董事比例、审计委员会的设置与会计舞弊显著负相关,董事会规模、控制股东的性质、监事会规模与会计舞弊显著正相关。     

内部审计在管控董事会风险认知偏差中的监督与协同机制研究

在信息化和科技化时代,风险愈加复杂和未知,企业强化风险管理的重要性凸显,需要及时、准确感知面临的风险,做出科学的决策,而这一决策又容易受到风险认知的影响。因此,为了减弱董事会做出不当决策的风险,内部审计通过发挥监督和协同作用能够缓解风险认知偏差带来的影响。创新之处在于尝试从关键风险参与者角度分析董事会产生风险认知偏差的原因,并通过内部审计发挥在风险管理中的作用,推动董事会、高管层与内部审计在风险管理中的战略协调和默契协作,使董事会做出正确的战略决策。     

我国ST上市公司治理缺陷与董事问责制关系的实证研究

我国ST公司治理的缺陷主要外化表现在关联交易的增加,公司业绩持续恶化,资产空心化状态不断加剧。董事问责机制的缺乏是我国上市公司治理结构的制度缺陷。董事问责制缺乏与上市公司治理缺陷之间具有较高的相关性,非公允关联交易是导致我国上市公司业绩持续恶化和资产空心化的主要原因之一。     

The Impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) on Customer Relationships

Abstract

The passage of the ADA has created sweeping changes for many companies. In addition to providing accommodation for disabled employees and customers, companies are learning how to deal with the disabled. This paper presents guidelines for salespersons who are likely to encounter disabled customers more frequently in the future. Suggestions for managing disabled customer relationships are made.     

楚纪南故城遗址区内居民行为及影响因素实证研究

楚纪南故城是中国东周时期楚国郢都故址。实证调研的结果表明,楚纪南故城遗址区内居民行为具有对遗址保护政策存在抵触情绪、遗产保护意识和知识薄弱、参与遗址保护度较低等三个特征。遗产管理体制不畅、遗址保护政策的限制、利益主体的多重博弈是影响居民行为的主要因素。为了保护楚纪南故城遗址,建议采取建立楚纪南故城大遗址保护特区、对遗址区内居民保护行为进行补贴、对遗址区内居民破坏行为进行惩治等对策。     

(Re)Presentations of Gender and Ethnicity in Diversity Statements on European Company Websites

This paper investigates how specific notions of gender and ethnicity are integrated into diversity discourses presented on 241 top European company websites. Large European companies increasingly disclose equality and diversity policies in statements on websites. Such statements may be used to promote an ethical image of the company in terms of how well it manages diversity and guards against discrimination. In this paper, we argue that diversity statement discourses are important as they play a key part in socially constructing how diversity should be regarded in the company by minority and majority groups, as well as indicating corporate values to external stakeholders (investors, government, community, press etc.). Sometimes, the notions of gender or ethnic diversity are positioned as a liability in need of protection, whilst in others, as a source of competitive advantage. We find evidence of use of discursive tools such as problematisation, rationalisation, fixation, reframing and naturalisation of the notions of gender and ethnic diversity, reinforced by use of symbols, such as statistics, photographs, membership badges and awards. Few statements directly associate gender and ethnic diversity with enhanced corporate performance. We found that diversity statements sometimes appear to reinforce existing business stereotypes of women and people from ethnic minorities, and in a few discourses, create new ones, particularly evident in photographs illustrating the diversity web pages. Val Singh received her PhD from Cranfield School of Management, where she is Senior Research Fellow in Organisational Behaviour. Her research areas include corporate governance and diversity; women directors’ careers, gender and ethnic diversity management, work/life balance, mentoring; role models, networking and impression management. She is Gender Section Editor of the Journal of Business Ethics, Associate Editor of Gender Work & Organization, and has published widely in both academic and practitioner journals. She has been a judge of the UK National Business Awards since 2003. Sébastien Point received his PhD in management from Institut d’ Administration des Entreprises, Lyon, France. He is currently Lecturer in Human Resource Management and International Management at the Université de Franche-Comté(France). He is also Visiting Fellow at Cranfield School of Management (UK). His research interests include diversity managment, organisational discourse and impression managemnt. Current research centers on analysing organisational discourse, through both corporate annual reports and websites, often with cross-national comparisons.     

Assessing the Impact of Market-Focused and Price-Based Strategies on Performance: A Neural Network Typology

Marketing practitioners operate in a turbulent environment with increased market competition and more discerning customers, which make it a necessity for organisations to constantly re-appraise their competitive strategies. Porter's (1980) typology is one of the most widely cited by academics and practitioners, but it is debatable whether a single strategy will lead to sustainable competitive advantage (Helms, Dibrell and Wright, 1997).Using a systems perspective where the focus is on the interaction between dependent and independent variables, this study shows how SBU managers could use neural networks to help improve the strategy formulation process in the hospitality sector. Findings suggest that market-focused and price-based strategies have contrasting effects upon performance. This study extends the knowledge of strategy formulation and performance by focusing on the service industry, and provides controls for market-level influences by being restricted to the hotel sector.     

Gender Differences in the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Employment,Unpaid Work and Well-Being in the EU

Intereconomics - Unpaid work carried out inside the home has increased in the pandemic, and evidence points to women’s share in care responsibilities and domestic tasks remaining higher than...     

Keeping anger in check: The role of personal and organizational characteristics on behavioral outcomes

ABSTRACT

The food and beverage sector of the hospitality industry is known for being an emotionally labor-intensive environment. The events that transpire over the course of a shift lead to various emotions, which ultimately dictate the behaviors of the employees working in this industry. Of particular interest to this study was the interplay between environmental antecedents (power and distributive justice) and their influence on a negative emotion (anger) and a positive emotion (affective organizational commitment). Additionally, this study sought to understand how anger and affective organizational commitment influenced positive (organizational citizenship behavior) and negative (counterproductive work behavior) workplace behaviors using the lens of the affective events theory. The results of this study revealed that anger had the strongest effect on counterproductive work behavior and that all of the relationships were significant except from anger to affective organizational commitment and affective organizational commitment to counterproductive work behavior.     

The Impact of Higher Standards in Patent Protection for Pharmaceutical Industries under the TRIPS Agreement – A Comparative Study of China and India

A comparative study is undertaken that explores Chinese and Indian pharmaceutical industries under different patent regimes. It is found that relative to India, which had implemented process patent protection until 2005, China with a product patent regime since 1993 suffers from both lower drug accessibility and availability (the latter is a missing parameter in the literature). Also, China lags behind in both lower R&D investment and patents filed by Chinese nationals. Based on these findings and associated legal interpretation, we conclude that higher patent protection in China generates negative impacts on the pharmaceutical industries. Thus, governments should utilise TRIPS flexibilities and other regimes such as price control to offset the anticompetitive effect in designing patent policies.     

计发办法改革对养老金性别差异的影响——以"新人"为例

近年来,随着我国养老社会保险制度的逐步确立,养老金性别差异问题也越来越受到人们的关注.养老金计发办法改革主要涉及养老保险中的"新人",故需要分析养老金计发办法改革前后"新人"养老金性别差异的变化.计发办法改革进一步拉大了"新人"养老金性别差异,而提高女性退休年龄,促进就业是缩小养老金性别差异的有效途径.