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.     

Marrying personality and job resources and their effect on engagement via critical psychological states

This study examined the process by which individuals become engaged with their jobs by integrating seminal engagement theory. More specifically, we suggest that an individual factor (i.e. autotelic personality) and two contextual factors (i.e. feedback environment, job autonomy) interact to predict work engagement through three critical psychological states – namely availability, meaningfulness, and safety. This moderated mediation framework was tested using a cross section of the US population (n = 284); data were collected at two points in time with 3 months in between. Availability and meaningfulness mediated the relationship between autotelic personality and work engagement. Autotelic personality’s indirect effect on work engagement through meaningfulness and safety was conditional such that the nature of feedback environment’s effect depended on job autonomy level. Theory and practice implications are discussed.     

IT cost benchmarking: Drawing the right conclusions

The use of managerial control ratios for benchmarking IT costs is widely accepted. This installment of Accounting Matters informs CIOs about IT managerial control ratios and the assumptions underlying the use of these ratios in IT cost benchmarking. Incorrect use of these ratios and violation of the assumptions can lead to faulty inferences and costly mistakes. This article proposes a technique for benchmarking IT costs to draw the right conclusions from the data.     

Key Managerial Accounting Skills for Lodging Industry Managers: The Third Phase of a Repeated Cross-Sectional Study

This study is the third phase of a repeated cross-sectional study that explores the current rankings of important accounting skills to lodging managers and the changes in the importance of accounting skills to lodging managers over time. In this study, as with two prior studies, financial executives were asked to rate the importance of a list of managerial accounting skills used by hotel general managers. The top three managerial accounting skills were the operating budget, the income statement, and analysis of variances. This study can provide a better sense of the perception of importance of accounting skills utilized by lodging managers. It will be useful for hospitality educators in designing the curriculum for managerial accounting courses to meet the expectations of the current hospitality industry.     

Differences in managerial discretion across countries: how nation‐level institutions affect the degree to which ceos matter

The concept of managerial discretion provides a theoretical fulcrum for resolving the debate about whether chief executive officers (CEOs) have much influence over company outcomes. In this paper, we operationalize and further develop the construct of managerial discretion at the national level. In an empirical examination of 15 countries, we find that certain informal and formal national institutions—individualism, tolerance of uncertainty, cultural looseness, dispersed firm ownership, a common‐law legal origin, and employer flexibility—are associated with the degree of managerial discretion available to CEOs of public firms in a country. In turn, we show that country‐level managerial discretion is associated with how much impact CEOs have on the performance of their firms. We also find that discretion mediates the relationship between national institutions and CEO effects on firm performance. Finally, we discuss two inductively derived institutional themes: autonomy orientation and risk orientation. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

社会主义与统一多民族国家的国家建设(1947-1965)

在民族区域自治制度的奠基过程中,通过社会主义宗旨所要求的贯彻群众路线、培养少数民族干部,成功促进了中央政府和各族人民群众的直接沟通;通过让各族人民群众翻身当家做主、改善民生福祉等社会主义性质的政治举措,形塑起各族人民群众对党和国家发自内心的认同;通过民族平等之制度前提、社会主义经济制度等制度性组织模式,以及相关具体实践途径,实现了中国各族人民大团结;在社会主义国家单一制、人民共和、中国共产党领导的制度基础之上,民族区域自治成功地将国家内部的不同民族凝聚成为具备有机整体结构的"中国人民",呈现为一种促进沟通、赢得认同、实现团结、巩固统一的统一多民族国家的国家建设过程。因此,民族区域自治成功实现清末以来统一多民族国家之国家建设质的飞跃的制度要义,恰在于社会主义这一国家根本制度。     

Effects of Ownership Structure on Capital Structure of Indian Listed Firms: Role of Business Groups vis-à-vis Stand-Alone Firms

The objective of this study was to explore the relationship between promoter ownership and capital structure of firms’ using a sample of Indian publicly listed firms for the period from 2006 to 2013. We find that the relationship between promoter ownership and leverage is inversely U-shaped in group-affiliated firms, whereas in stand-alone firms there is a U-shaped relationship. We argue that a substantial presence of family owners and the selection of managers from within the family play some role for such relationship in group-affiliated firms. On the other hand, the argument for observed relationship in stand-alone firms follows from alignment hypothesis, entrenchment hypothesis, managerial risk aversion hypothesis, and active monitoring hypothesis.     

Subsidiary autonomy and performance in Japanese multinationals in Europe

Notwithstanding the growing body of research on headquarters–subsidiary relationships, the conditions under which subsidiary autonomy leads to enhanced subsidiary performance is still a subject of debate. This study adopts a contingency approach and investigates the effects of external uncertainties and intra-MNE coordination on the performance benefits of subsidiary autonomy. The empirical analysis is based upon cross-sectional data collected from 88 European subsidiaries of Japanese MNEs. Our findings show that subsidiary autonomy has a greater impact upon performance (a) under conditions of technological uncertainty; and (b) when expatriate involvement is high, as the subsidiary can reap the full benefits of entrepreneurial capabilities and enjoy resource interdependencies through interactions with the parent simultaneously. MNC executives should aim for an appropriate balance between subsidiary autonomy and these internal and external factors so that the subsidiaries achieve superior performance.     

Going green,going clean: Lean‐green sustainability strategy and firm growth

Despite the widespread recognition of the paybacks of “going green” and “going clean,” limited research has focused on the impact of lean‐green strategy on firm growth. In this study, we contribute to strategy and environmental sustainability literatures by investigating the possibility that the influence on lean‐green strategy and firm growth is driven by different levels of industry competition, managerial power, and family ties. Using panel data from 732 firms in four major industrialized economies (the United States, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom), we found that lean‐green strategy positively relates to firm growth and this relationship is amplified at higher levels of competition, managerial power, and family ties. Theoretical and practical implications of the study are also discussed.     

Pains and gains of environmental management system certification for the sustainable development of manufacturing companies: Heterogeneous effects of industry peer learning

Environmental sustainability is a growing global concern. Environmental management systems (EMS) could be an effective strategic tool to help firms deal with their sustainable development. However, whether EMS certification pays off financially and how it takes effect can be debated. Thus far, these questions remain largely under‐researched. In particular, the effects of EMS certification on financial performance are inconclusive, and the reasons explaining the effects are underdeveloped. This study aims to enrich the current research by exploring the mediating and moderating roles from the perspective of cost‐efficiency trade‐offs to reveal how EMS certification affects financial performance. Applying a PROCESS procedure analysis and causal mediation analysis to a sample of 1,751 Chinese listed manufacturing firms from 2008 to 2016, this study shows that the effect of EMS certification on firms' financial performance is insignificant because their operating costs burden increases while their marketing efficiency and managerial efficiency improve. For the first time, this study demonstrates the moderating role of industry peer learning, as the mediating effects decrease with the growth of industry peer learning.