Board governance and corporate performance

We examine the link between the monitoring capacity of the board and corporate performance of UK listed firms. We also investigate how firms use the flexibility offered by the voluntary governance regime to make governance choices. We find a strong positive association between the board governance index we construct and firm operating performance. Our results imply that adherence to the board‐related recommendations of the UK Corporate Governance Code strengthens the board's monitoring capacity, potentially helping mitigate agency problems, but that investors do not value it correspondingly. Moreover, in contrast to prior UK findings suggesting efficient adoption of Code recommendations, we find that firms at times use the Code flexibility opportunistically, aiming to decrease the monitoring capacity of the board, which is followed by subsequent underperformance. This finding questions the effectiveness of the voluntary approach to governance regulation followed in the UK and in many countries around the world.     

股权制衡、非国有股东委派董事与公司绩效

从公司治理层面完善国有控股企业的股权制衡是国企混合所有制改革的重点和难点,以往学者仅仅研究了股权制衡与公司绩效之间的关系,很少研究两者关系的作用路径和影响机理.因此,引入非国有股东委派董事这一概念,研究非国有股东委派董事在股权制衡与公司绩效之间发挥的中介效应.结果表明:股权制衡有利于公司绩效的提升,非国有股东委派董事在股权制衡与公司绩效两者之间发挥了中介效应.     

Investments,Credit, and Corporate Financial Distress: Evidence from Central and Eastern Europe

Although they are instrumental for economic development, productivity-enhancing corporate investments may increase the financial vulnerability of companies, especially in an economic and financial crisis. We employ an instrumental probit model with the aim of finding evidence for the investment and credit patterns that led companies into financial distress during the global financial crisis 2009–2010. The company-level micro-data for our study on three Central and East European countries—Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania and two Baltic countries, Latvia and Lithuania—originates from two independent surveys, the Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey conducted in 2008 and the Financial Crisis Survey conducted in 2009/2010. Both were carried out jointly by the EBRD and the World Bank. Our results emphasize a substantial adverse impact from investment intensity and debt financing on company financial soundness during a crisis. On top of that, we discover a strong non-linear pattern in the sensitivity of company distress to its investment-financing nexus.     

The Relevance of Western Corporate Governance in Mitigating Management Misconduct in Thailand

This article provides empirical evidence on the relevance of structures central to Western models of corporate governance in mitigating management misconduct in Thailand. We find no evidence supporting the effectiveness of Western-based corporate governance structures such as board independence, audit committee effectiveness, and separating the roles of CEO and Board Chair in limiting management misconduct. However, we do find evidence supportive of independent directors with more experience and longer tenure, the presence of institutional ownership, and concentrated controlling ownership in limiting management misconduct. This provides some support for the validity of resource dependency theory in an emerging economy setting.     

Corporate social responsibility and Eurozone corporate bonds: The moderating role of country sustainability

In this paper, we empirically examine whether superior performance in corporate social responsibility (CSR) results in lower credit risk, measured by credit ratings and zero-volatility spreads (z-spreads). We are especially interested in how the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) related performance of the corresponding countries moderates this relationship. We find only weak evidence that superior corporate social performance (CSP) results in systematically reduced credit risk. However, we do find strong support for our hypothesis that a country’s ESG performance moderates the CSP–credit risk relationship. Superior CSP is regarded as risk-reducing and rewarded with better ratings and lower z-spreads only if it is recognized by the environment. In addition, we find a reduction of corporate bonds’ z-spreads by approx. 9.64 basis points if the CSP of a company mirrors the ESG performance of the country it is located in.     

Relationship Between Sustainable Development and Financial Performance: International Empirical Research

The aim of this paper is to clarify the relationship between companies' sustainable behavior and their financial performance (FP), which has been studied for several years without reaching a consensus on the effect and the direction of it. Hypotheses are tested for an unbalanced sample of 1960 multinational non‐financial listed companies from 25 countries and one administrative region for the period between 2002 and 2010. Due to the use of an international database and the differences among countries, it is possible to observe divergence between institutional settings. For this reason, a corporate governance system (Anglo‐Saxon, Germanic, Latin and Asian) is used as characteristic of the macro‐environment. Results obtained via the generalized method of moments estimator allow us to support the existence of a positive bidirectional relationship between corporate social responsibility and FP, evidencing the existence of a synergistic circle. The use of market value indicated that investors are able to identify economic, social and environmental practices generating a positive effect on FP. These relationships differ between corporate governance systems, due to the specific characteristics of each system. Findings are robust for each sustainable sub‐index (society, human rights, environmental and board). Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment     

中国绿色发展中企业环境责任立法探讨

经济活动过程和结果的绿色化主要靠企业承担环境责任来实现，但基于企业的营利本质，期望企业自觉承担环境责任并不现实，必须通过立法从内外部保障、强制其承担环境责任。我国环境保护法及企业法中无法容纳大量的企业环境责任条款，因此我国有必要制定专门的《企业环境责任法》，要求企业承担产品从设计、生产直至废弃的环境责任，并建立环境信息披露、税收优惠等企业承担环境责任的激励约束措施。同时我国应修改环境保护法，提高企业污染环境的成本、将企业环境成本内部化。     

Circular economy and the policy: A framework for improving the corporate environmental management in supply chains

The transition to the circular economy (CE) creates value through the closed-loop systems, reverse logistics, product life cycle management, and clean production in terms of corporate environmental management. During this transition process, the organization faces many barriers such as financial, organizational, technology-based, social, policy-related, market-based, and logistics-based barriers. The objectives of this study are to propose a framework highlighting policy-related barriers for a supply chain in the transition to CE and finally discuss potential implications on enhancing corporate environmental performance of a business. Further, this study evaluates the causal relationships between the policy-related barriers using fuzzy Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (DEMATEL) method. The application was conducted in an apparel firm in Turkey. From findings, lack of legislation for efficient CE (C4), lack of mandatory requirements and responsibilities for manufacturers/suppliers for the CE (C17), and lack of government support for environmentally friendly policies (C2) are revealed as the most important barriers, respectively. It is found that lack of attitude and awareness about CE in government institutions (C19) is the most influencing factor, whereas lack of effective recycling policies to achieve quality in waste management (C8) is the most influenced factor. The recommendations were developed for enhancing the corporate environmental performance of businesses through incentives and unique rewards, improving communication among stakeholders, the government's perception of CE and current linear economy, cooperation with nongovernmental organization (NGOs) and civil actions, the vision of government towards circular principles, the circular public procurement, the local governments in circular policymaking, and awareness of bureaucracy and government officials.     

财务治理分层论

随着改革开放以来我国市场经济体制的改革与发展,现代企业财务制度不再是只由企业所有者单方包揽大局,而是由企业所有者、经营者和财务经理等分层对企业进行管理和治理,于是财务分层治理思想应用而生。