Gender Diversity in Corporate Governance and Top Management

This article examines whether and how the participation of women in the firm’s board of directors and senior management enhances financial performance. We use the Fama and French (1992, 1993) valuation framework to take the level of risk into consideration, when comparing firm performances, whereas previous studies used either raw stock returns or accounting ratios. Our results indicate that firms operating in complex environments do generate positive and significant abnormal returns when they have a high proportion of women officers. Although the participation of women as directors does not seem to make a difference in this regard, firms with a high proportion of women in both their management and governance systems generate enough value to keep up with normal stock-market returns. These findings tend to support the policies currently being discussed or implemented in some countries and organizations to foster the advancement of women in business.     

全球数字经济治理挑战及中国的参与路径

数字经济增长及其治理已经演化为一个全球性问题,正在重塑国际地缘政治格局。数字资源禀赋差异、国家间数字战略竞争、发达经济体对数字规则的实质垄断等,给全球数字经济治理带来了巨大挑战。中国已是全球数字经济的主要参与者,但在治理领域缺少制度性话语权,被排除在发达经济体主导的规则制定体系之外。未来,中国在坚持以WTO为核心,以规则为基础,透明、非歧视、开放和包容的多边贸易体制的前提下,还可以"一带一路"倡议、对外援助体系和自由贸易区战略为抓手,凝聚沿线经济体和发展中经济体的强大合力,在全球数字经济治理中发挥重要影响力。     

Global Insights on TMT Gender Diversity in Controversial Industries: A Legitimacy Perspective

Journal of Business Ethics - Firms in controversial industries such as tobacco, alcohol, gambling, weapon, and nuclear power suffer organizational legitimacy problems. These firms, therefore, adopt...     

基于机构投资者参与公司治理结构的研究

由于机构投资者能够有效地解决上市公司治理机制中个人投资者监督成本内化和收益外化的"搭便车"的现象,从而决定了机构投资者本身就是一种解决企业监控难题的制度。不同性质的机构投资者在证券市场中的功能定位、市场空间和实际作用的不同,完全可以考虑以机构投资者的多元化对企业内部控制和外部控制所能产生的市场互补和功能整合效应,来充分发挥机构投资者在公司治理中的作用。     

试论我国机构投资者参与上市公司治理

随着我国机构投资者的兴起 ,如何有效地参与到上市公司治理之中 ,成为一个非常迫切的问题。分析机构投资者和上市公司治理的现状、参与公司治理的外部环境及内在动因和决策支持模型 ,并对引导机构投资者积极参与公司治理的具体措施等方面进行探讨     

The Multinational Corporation and Global Governance: Modelling Global Public Policy Networks

Globalization has increased the economic power of the multinational corporation (MNC), engendering calls for greater corporate social responsibility (CSR) from these companies. However, the current mechanisms of global governance are inadequate to codify and enforce recognized CSR standards. One method by which companies can impact positively on global governance is through the mechanism of Global Public Policy Networks (GPPN). These networks build on the individual strength of MNCs, domestic governments, and non-governmental organizations to create expected standards of behaviour in such areas as labour rights, environmental standards, and working conditions. This article models GPPN in the issue area of CSR. The potential benefits of GPPN include better overall coordination among industry and government in establishing what social expectations the modern MNC will be expected to fill. David Detomasi is an assistant professor of international business at the School of Business, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario Canada. His research areas include corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, and business and society.     

Global Governance: CSR and the Role of the UN Global Compact

The article discusses the role of the UN Global Compact (UNGC) in the emerging global corporate social responsibility infrastructure. It evaluates the debate around the effectiveness and legitimacy of the UNGC alongside the arguments of its supporters and critics and thereby introduces the Thematic Symposium contributions. The article further identifies three theoretical perspectives that are used by scholars to discuss the performance of the UNGC: economic, socio-historical, and normative. It proposes that these perspectives can serve as generic distinctions with direct relevance for the evaluation of the UNGC. Once the perspective is chosen, it drives towards a certain purpose which implies assumptions and design features with regard to the UNGC. Finally, the article offers a future research agenda, emphasising the research needed on the UNGC in four areas: the identification of processes and influence mechanisms; legitimacy and effectiveness; local networks and regional development; and the interface of the UNGC and responsible leadership.     

全球卫生治理重塑中的世界卫生组织

作为全球卫生治理机构,世界卫生组织的首要事务是防控疾病的流行,减少死亡的发生。世界卫生组织在新型冠状病毒防控中发挥了重要作用,为抑制病毒传染和流行,降低发病率和死亡率作出了显著贡献。新冠疫情也使世界卫生组织再次遭受诸如领导和协调能力下降、卫生资金供给不足、治理自主权不足、分配医疗资源不均衡等质疑。各国尤其是大国应通力合作,针对世界卫生组织固有的缺陷进行优化改革,从制度和规则上杜绝政治因素干扰,解决财政困境以提升公共卫生事件应对能力,平衡资源分配以缩小地位差异。中国在全球卫生治理体系中的地位不断上升,但与当前中国的经济地位还不匹配。在世界卫生组织的优化和改革中,中国应发挥更大的作用。     

The United Nations Global Compact: Engaging Implicit and Explicit CSR for Global Governance

In the past few decades, a growth in ethical consumerism has led brands to increasingly develop conscientiousness and depict ethical image at a corporate level. However, most of the research studying business ethics in the field of corporate brand management is either conceptual or has been empirically conducted in relation to goods/products contexts. This is surprising because corporate brands are more relevant in services contexts, because of the distinct nature of services (i.e., intangible, heterogeneous, and inseparable) and the key role that employees have in the services sector (i.e., they can build or break the brand when interacting with customers). Accordingly, this article aims at empirically examining the effects of customer perceived ethicality in the context of corporate services brands. Based on data collected for eight service categories using a panel of 2179 customers, the hypothesized structural model is tested using path analysis. The results show that, in addition to a direct effect, customer perceived ethicality has a positive and indirect effect on customer loyalty, through the mediators of customer affective commitment and customer perceived quality. Further, employee empathy positively influences the impact of customer perceived ethicality on customer affective commitment, and customer loyalty positively impacts customer positive word-of-mouth. The first implication of these results is that corporate brand strategy needs to be aligned with human resources policies and practices if brands want to turn ethical strategies into employee behavior. Second, corporate brands should build more authentic communications grounded in their ethical beliefs and supported by evidence from actual employees.     

机构投资者参与公司治理的理性决策分析

近年来,机构投资者迅速崛起,越来越多的人们关注机构投资者的发展与成熟程度对公司治理结构的影响。本文借鉴日、美在机构投资者与公司治理关系方面的经验与教训,构建成本收益比较分析模型分析了机构投资者的集中投资与分散投资的决策问题,利用股数效应模型分析了机构投资者对于集中投资的单个公司是否应积极参与公司治理的问题,并对如何提高机构投资者参与公司治理的效率提出了对策建议。     

Global Sustainability Governance and the UN Global Compact: A Rejoinder to Critics

This article takes the critique by Sethi and Schepers (J Bus Ethics, 2013, in this thematic symposium) as a starting point for discussing the United Nations (UNs) Global Compact. While acknowledging the relevance of some of their arguments, we emphasize that a number of their claims remain arguable and are partly misleading. We start by discussing the limits of their proposed framework to classify voluntary initiatives for corporate sustainability and responsibility. Next, we show how a greater appreciation of the historical and political context of the UN Global Compact puts several of their claims into perspective. Finally, we demonstrate that the alleged promise–performance gap rests on a selected and one-sided reading of the initiative. We close by pointing to some challenges that the initiative needs to address in the future.     

Gender Diversity in the Boardroom and Firm Financial Performance

The monitoring role performed by the board of directors is an important corporate governance control mechanism, especially in countries where external mechanisms are less well developed. The gender composition of the board can affect the quality of this monitoring role and thus the financial performance of the firm. This is part of the “business case” for female participation on boards, though arguments may also be framed in terms of ethical considerations. While the issue of board gender diversity has attracted growing research interest in recent years, most empirical results are based on U.S. data. This article adds to a growing number of non-U.S. studies by investigating the link between the gender diversity of the board and firm financial performance in Spain, a country which historically has had minimal female participation in the workforce, but which has now introduced legislation to improve equality of opportunities. We investigate the topic using panel data analysis and find that gender diversity – as measured by the percentage of women on the board and by the Blau and Shannon indices – has a positive effect on firm value and that the opposite causal relationship is not significant. Our study suggests that investors in Spain do not penalise firms which increase their female board membership and that greater gender diversity may generate economic gains.     

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: The Failure of the Self-Regulatory Model of Corporate Governance in the Global Business Environment

The American regulatory model of corporate governance rests on the theory of self-regulation as␣the most effective and efficient means to achieve corporate self-restraint in the marketplace. However, that model fails to achieve regular compliance with baseline ethical and legal behaviors as evidenced by a century of repeated corporate debacles, the most recent being Enron, WorldCom, and Refco. Seemingly impervious to its domestic failure, Congress imprinted the same self-regulation paradigm on legislation restraining global business behavior, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. This anti-bribery initiative prohibits unethical and illegal payments made to foreign public officials in an effort to eradicate bribery as a rational-choice global market entry strategy. However, this paper illustrates, using newly complied statistics from 1977 to 2008, that the FCPA has not had a dramatic impact on U.S. global corporate behavior despite its recent high profile coverage and the tough regulatory rhetoric about corporate compliance. The paper also extends the prior Cragg and Woof FCPA efficiency study and provides current empirical evidence to resolve several unanswered questions raised by that earlier study.     

Hidden Connections: The Link Between Board Gender Diversity and Corporate Social Performance

This study examines whether and how female board directors may affect corporate social performance (CSP) by drawing on social role theory and feminist ethics literature. The empirical analysis, based on a sample of 126 firms drawn from the S&P500 group of companies over a 5-year period, suggests that board gender diversity (BGD) significantly affects CSP. However, this impact depends on the social performance metric under investigation. In particular, more gender diverse boards exert stronger influence on CSP metrics focusing on ‘negative’ business practices, such as the ‘concerns’ dimension of the Kinder Lydenberg Domini, Inc. (KLD) ratings. This is because such CSP ratings have the potential to induce higher levels of ‘empathic caring’, which strongly appeals to female directors. Hence, this study reveals further hidden connections in the BGD–CSP link which have important implications for managers, nongovernmental organisations and socially responsible investors.     

Gender and Ethnic Diversity on Boards and Corporate Responsibility: The Case of the Arts Sector

This study provides insights on sector-specific characteristics, challenges and issues that affect corporate responsibility (CR) in relation to ethnicity and gender on arts boards. Using stakeholder theory, the study explores how arts board composition (e.g. gender and ethnicity) sets the scene for dynamics that affect CR. Data analysis is based on interviews with 92 board members and stakeholders sitting on 66 arts boards in Australia. Results suggest that the dynamism of gender and ethnic diversity on arts boards makes them responsive to CR; however, their presence does not always lead to CR. For diverse boards to lead to CR, our findings indicate the significance of board member attributes of passion, skill and capability of developing networks, irrespective of gender and ethnicity. The article advances understanding of the implications and relevance of ethnic and gender diversity on non-profit boards and contributes to an important yet under-researched body of literature.     

全球化面临挑战但不会逆转——兼论中国在全球经济治理中的角色

在过去的一年多里,针对全球化的质疑越来越多而且越来越激烈.全球化是否因此发生逆转？针对这个问题,结合全球化发展历程,本文利用世界银行数据,对全球化进行分析发现,全球化并没有逆转.然而,全球化正面临全球收入差距扩大、贫困问题依然突出、全球贸易统计方法落后、老龄化日益明显、网络安全监管缺位、全球金融体系社会基础薄弱等严峻挑战.唯有全球化持续,我们才有可能共同解决这些问题,让全世界共享全球化的成果.当全球化走在十字路口的时候,作为仅次于美国的经济总量最大的国家,中国将在全球化中扮演何种角色以及采取何种举措,都会引起世界的关注.结合中国的绝对经济与相对经济规模、中国对能源的掌控能力、中国出口规模与附加值获取的匹配度、中国人民币的国际认可度以及中国的创新指数等指标分析,本文认为在未来很长一段时期内,中国都将着眼于成为全球经济治理的参与者.为推动全球化的顺利进行,中国要在加强国家治理的基础上,积极参与区域治理与全球治理;通过国际市场开发和国内市场开发的良性互动,夯实中国参与全球化的经济基础;依托中国特色新型智库,及时与全世界分享中国参与全球经济治理的智慧.