我国上市公司独立董事所面临的尴尬

2001年8月21日中国证监会发布了《关于在上市公司建立独立董事制度的指导意见》,这标志着中国上市公司独立董事制度正式启动。《指导意见》公布后,在两年多的实践中,尽管大家对我国建立独立董事制度有很多不同看法,但也有达成共识的看法,这就是独立董事制度在改善我国上市公司治理结构、提升上市公司质量,在强化公司董事会的战略管理职能,在监控“一股独大”和“内部人控制”以及协调利益者之间的利益等方面还是起到了一定的积极作用。同时不可否认,出于中国上市公司的特殊背景,以及国家法律制度所存在的制度惯性和路径依赖致使我国的独立董…     

关于在上市公司建立独立董事制度的指导意见

中国证监会近日发布了《关于在上市公司建立独立董事制度的指导意见》。全文如下：为进一步完善上市公司治理结构，促进上市公司规范运作，现就上市公司建立独立的外部董事（以下简称独立董事）制度提出以下指导意见：一、上市公司应当建立独立董事制度（一）上市公司独立董事是指不在公司担任除董事外的其他职务，并与其所受聘的上市公司及其主要股东不存在可能妨碍其进行独立客观判断的关系的董事。（二）独立董事对上市公司及全体股东负有诚信与勤勉义务。独立董事应当按照相关法律法规、本指导意见和公司章程的要求，认真履行职责，维护…     

以制度激发独董有效履职内生动力

<正>提升独立董事人才供给端的数字化水平,通过大数据等新技术手段让公司可以更充分了解独立董事候选人的过往执业经历,避免有执业污点的人员异地担任独立董事,充分发挥市场作用,促进独立董事群体的优胜劣汰2023年4月《国务院办公厅关于上市公司独立董事制度改革的意见》印发,这是继2001年《关于在上市公司建立独立董事制度的指导意见》施行以来,我国上市公司独立董事制度又一里程碑式的重大发展。     

上市公司独立董事存在问题分析与对策研究

今年以来,随着某些大股东利用控股地位,控制董事会,大搞关联交易,严重损害了上市公司和中小股东的利益。为此,建立和完善上市公司治理结构与独立董事制度的呼声也越来越高。5月31日,中国证监会发布了《关于在上市公司建立独立董事制度的指导意见》的征求意见稿,独立董事制度成为人们关注的对象和舆论的焦点。在上市公司引入独立董事制度,对于发挥独立董事的制衡和监督作用,完善上市公司治理结构具有重要的现实意义。     

关于独立董事制度的几点思考

一、制度的尴尬独立董事制度源于英美法系国家 ,成熟于美国 ,是一元化公司体系的制度组成部分。而我国《公司法》采用二元化的大陆法系框架 ,制度环境的差异 ,企业文化背景的差异 ,导致了独立董事制度一经引入我国 ,即面临着各个层面的尴尬。1 法律的尴尬。缺乏相关的法律环境 ,配套法规滞后 ,是独立董事制度首先面临的一大难题。我国目前实施的《公司法》 ,并未就独立董事有关问题做出明确规定 ,证监会发布的《关于在上市公司建立独立董事制度的指导意见》 (以下简称《指导意见》) ,对上市公司设立独立董事所做出的规定显然与现行《公司法…     

告别“花瓶”，还是涛声依旧？“争锋”独董制度2.0

<正>“及冠”之际的中国独立董事制度,迎来了重大变革。2023年4月14日,国务院办公厅发布《关于上市公司独立董事制度改革的意见》,提出要通过改革,加快形成更加科学的上市公司独立董事制度体系,推动独立董事权责更加匹配、职能更加优化、监督更加有力、选任管理更加科学。同日,中国证监会就《上市公司独立董事管理办法（征求意见稿）》公开征求意见。     

独董:中国式最佳实践

尽管离公众期待的还有距离,但中国独立董事大多已不再是"花瓶"。自2001年中国证监会颁布《关于在上市公司建立独立董事制度的指导意见》的12年来,我国独立董事群体迅速壮大,成为上市公司董事会中不可或缺的中坚力量。     

中国独董新纪元

<正>在中国公司治理改革进程中,关于独立董事的话题一向备受关注,热度很高。这次同样不例外。2023年4月14日,国务院办公厅发布《关于上市公司独立董事制度改革的意见》,提出要通过改革,加快形成更加科学的上市公司独立董事制度体系,推动独立董事权责更加匹配、职能更加优化、监督更加有力、选任管理更加科学。同日,中国证监会就《上市公司独立董事管理办法（征求意见稿）》公开征求意见。     

独董：中国式最佳这践——独董的角色困惑

尽管离公众期待的还有距离，但中国独立董事大多已不再是“花瓶”。自2001年中国证监会颁布《关于在上市公司建立独立董事制度的指导意见》的12年来，我国独立董事群体迅速壮大，成为上市公司董事会中不可或缺的中坚力量。     

如何使独立董事独立

根据我国证监会《关于在上市公司建立独立董事制度的指导意见》(以下简称《指导意见》)中的相关规定,独立董事可由上市公司董事会、监事会、单独或者合并持有上市公司已发行股份1%以上的股东提名产生.     

Exploring the incremental merger value from multimarket and technology arguments

We address the question through which channels mergers create incremental value to merging firms and consider various product market and technological arguments. Based on the pairwise stable allocation concept, we estimate firms’ pair-specific (incremental) merger value functions. Our results show that technological arguments contribute to the majority of added merger value. We also find that market power arguments across multiple markets contribute to explaining incremental post-merger value. In contrast, multimarket strategic effects do not add merger value. Our estimated match values are aligned with the merging firms’ post-merger stock market performance.     

Search Costs and Investment in Quality

In this paper we analyze how lower search costs affect firms' incentives to invest in quality. We identify two conflicting effects. On the one hand, lower search costs increase incentives to invest in quality by eroding the market share of low quality firms and increasing the market share of high quality firms. On the other hand, by intensifying price competition, lower search costs adversely affect high quality firms more than low quality firms. The net effect of a change in the search cost on quality is shown to depend on the initial quality distribution. There is a critical value such that, if the proportion of high quality firms is initially below this value, lower search costs increase this proportion, whereas if the initial quality is above this value, lower search cost decreases the proportion of high quality firms. We show that our results are consistent with a ‘superstar effect.’     

Cannibalization and option value effects of secondary markets: Evidence from the US concert industry

We examine how reducing search frictions in secondary markets affects the value appropriated by firms in primary markets. We characterize two effects on primary‐market firms caused by intermediaries entering secondary markets: the “cannibalization” and “option value” effects. Separation between primary and secondary markets can drive which of the two effects dominates. Firms selling valuable and scarce products are more likely to have separate primary and secondary markets, and will therefore appropriate more value when secondary markets thicken. Firms selling products that are not valuable and scarce will be hurt. Further, we hypothesize that firms have incentives to engineer scarcity by limiting supply when secondary markets thicken to separate primary and secondary markets. We find support for these hypotheses in the U.S. concert ticket industry. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Big Data for Creating and Capturing Value in the Digitalized Environment: Unpacking the Effects of Volume,Variety, and Veracity on Firm Performance*

Despite significant academic and managerial interest in big data, there is a dearth of research on how big data impacts the long‐term firm performance. Reasons for this gap include a lack of objective indices to measure big data availability and its impact, and the tendency of studies to ignore the costs associated with collecting and analyzing big data, assuming that big data automatically delivers benefits to firms. Focusing on how firms create and capture value from big data about customers, we use the resource‐based view and three dimensions of big data (i.e., volume, variety, and veracity) to understand when the benefits outweigh the costs. Relying on the number of downloads of mobile device applications, we find that volume of big data has a negative effect on firm performance. This result suggests that the “bigness” of big data alone does not ensure value creation for a firm, and could even constitute a “dark side” of big data. Because big data variety—measured as the number of types of information taken per each application—moderates the negative effects of big data volume, simultaneous high values of volume and variety allow firms to create value that positively affects their performance. In addition, high levels of veracity (i.e., a high percentage of employees devoted to big data analysis), are linked to firms benefiting from big data via value capture. These findings shed light on the circumstances in which big data can be beneficial for firms, contributing to a better theoretical understanding of the opportunities and challenges and providing useful indications to managers.     

Strategic interaction in alliances

Research summary: This article studies strategic interactions between firms that form alliances to exploit synergistic benefits. Firms cooperate to create value, but they can also compete to capture value. Fundamental questions rarely addressed by strategy scholars relate to how the configuration of control over resources influences firms' strategies, the potential for termination, and the emergence of cooperation and trust. The formal results reveal crucial aspects of the interorganizational rent‐generating process and yield testable implications. With greater synergistic benefits, firms invest more, but they also compete more intensively to capture more value. With symmetric control, more value gets created, which limits the potential for termination, but also exacerbates the competition for value; from a relational perspective, this form of control augments the calculative rationale of cooperation and trust . Managerial summary: When forming an alliance to exploit synergies, firms engage in a complicated strategic interaction that is part cooperation and part competition. What happens when partner firms cooperate and invest to create value while competing and using costly adversarial tactics to capture value? The analysis reveals that with greater synergistic benefits, firms invest more in value creation, but the fear of opportunism pushes them to waste more resources on value capture tactics. The balance between value creation and value capture, and the possibility that the alliance is terminated depend on the configuration of control over resources. The analysis further reveals under what conditions there can be trust between the partners, such that they focus on value creation and avoid wasting resources in the competition for value . Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Productive efficiency and firm exit in the food sector

This work examines the effects of productive efficiency on the survival of firms in the Greek food sector. Technical and scale efficiency scores are computed within a data envelopment analysis (DEA) framework and are used as explanatory variables in a parametric (Weibull) survival model. High technical efficiency increases the median survival time and lowers the hazard rate of exit. As the scale efficiency of a firm operating either at increasing or decreasing returns to scale approaches one (1), its theoretically maximum value, the expected median survival time, is maximized for all types of exits. Developments in biotechnology, the evolution of alternative food supply networks, innovations in the food sector and competition policy are likely to affect technical and scale efficiency of food manufacturing firms. Results unraveling the effects of technical and scale efficiency on the survival of firms in the food sector are of particular relevance to food policy makers.     

Project Suspensions and Failures in New Product Development: Returns for Entrepreneurial Firms in Co‐Development Alliances

Entrepreneurial biotech and large pharmaceutical firms often form alliances to co‐develop new products. Yet, new product development (NPD) is fraught with challenges that often result in project suspensions and failures. Considering this, how can firms increase the chances that their co‐development alliances will create value? To answer this question, the authors build on insights from signaling theory to argue that prior project suspensions provide positive signals leading to an increase in value creation, while project failures have the opposite effect. In addition, drawing on insights from temporal construal theory, this research predicts that the strength of these effects is contingent on the stage along the exploration–exploitation continuum at which the alliance is formed. The authors undertook event study analyses of 248 alliances formed by 104 biotechnology firms from the United States and Europe listed on eight stock exchanges over an 8‐year period between 1996 and 2003. The results confirm that prior NPD project suspensions have a stronger value creation effect (or prior failures have a weaker value destruction effect) in the case of exploration alliances in the upstream of NPD processes than in the case of moderate‐scale exploitation alliances in the downstream of NPD. This study is among the first to examine how both prior NPD project suspensions and failures of firms affect the abnormal returns achieved from co‐development alliances. This research therefore contributes to the innovation literature by honing a better understanding of setbacks and failures in NPD. Moreover, the findings contribute to the literature on strategic alliances by identifying new conditions under which firms can create or preserve value. This research also contributes to signaling theory by providing evidence of the moderation effect caused by the signaling environment. Finally, this study contributes to the entrepreneurial literature on value creation for entrepreneurial firms in alliances following adverse events.     

The effects of leveraged buyouts on corporate growth and diversification in large firms

This study investigates the effects of LBOs on corporate growth and diversification in large U.S. firms which underwent leveraged buyouts during the 1980s. Based on the analysis, this study found that revenue and employee growth are significantly lower in LBO firms than in control firms that remained public. Strategically, we find that LBO firms decreased the size of both their periphery and core businesses more than public control firms and that LBO firms divested a significantly higher volume of periphery and core businesses than control firms. These postbuyout differences between LBO and public firms are consistent with the argument that LBO firms provide managers with incentives to downsize and prune lines of business, resulting in reduction in overall firm size and diversifcation.     

Well Known or Well Liked? The Effects of Corporate Reputation on Firm Value at the Onset of a Corporate Crisis

Research summary : We study how two dimensions of reputation (i.e., generalized favorability and being known) and attribution of crisis responsibility affect firm value at the onset of a crisis. Analyzing 126 corporate crises befalling publicly listed firms in China from 2008 to 2014, we find that generalized favorability serves as a buffer, while being known can be a burden, in influencing firm value. We also find that the buffering effect of generalized favorability is stronger when the attribution of crisis responsibility is low (vs. high). In addition, there is a negative interaction effect between the two dimensions of reputation such that the buffering effect of generalized favorability weakens when firms are better known. We discuss our contributions to research on corporate reputation and crisis management. Managerial summary : Corporate reputation is an intangible asset, especially at the onset of a corporate crisis. This research sheds light on the “double‐edged sword” of corporate reputation by examining the effects of two reputation dimensions (i.e., being liked and being known) on firm value. Our results suggest that well‐liked firms can leverage their generalized favorability among stakeholders to assuage firm value loss, whereas well‐known firms may have to better communicate with stakeholders to overcome the burden of stakeholders' attention that escalates firm value loss. To better cope with the onset of a crisis, firms should therefore enhance their generalized favorability and simultaneously avert stakeholders' excessive attention. In addition, well‐liked firms can further buffer against the loss in firm value by reducing the perceived intentionality of a crisis. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Social networking relationships,firm‐specific managerial experience and firm performance in a transition economy: A comparative analysis of family owned and nonfamily firms

The effect of social networking relationships, firm‐specific managerial experience, and their interactions on performance between family owned and nonfamily firms are studied. Using data from 106 organizations in Ghana, the findings show that family owned firms benefit more from networking relationships with bureaucratic officials than do nonfamily firms. However, nonfamily firms benefit more from networking relationships with community leaders and firm‐specific managerial experience than do family owned firms. Networking relationships with politicians impede performance for nonfamily firms. Nonfamily firms are better able than family owned firms to use their firm‐specific managerial experience to manage the resources and capabilities obtained from networking relationships with community leaders to create value. Moreover, firm‐specific managerial experience attenuates the detrimental effects of networking with politicians for both types of firms. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.