Domestic political connections and international expansion: It's not only ‘who you know’ that matters

Former politicians on the board of directors bring to the firm domestic political connections and political knowledge. Previous research has mainly highlighted the role of contacts, without fully recognizing the role of political knowledge accumulated at home. By focusing on the effect of domestic political connections on foreign direct investment, we show that domestic political knowledge also shapes foreign expansion. We argue that contacts provided by former politicians may not be useful for foreign expansion whilst their political knowledge can be of help in countries with discretionary governments and with similar institutional environments to the one of the home country.     

Institutional context as a moderator of the relationship between board structure and acquirer returns

The objective of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of the supervisory role of the board of directors in the context of mergers and acquisitions (M&As). We focus our study on the European case, for which there is no previous exhaustive evidence on this topic. Using information on 985 mergers and acquisitions carried out over the period 2003–2016 by companies in the major European countries, we analyze the influence of supervisory capacity of the board (small size, higher proportion of outsiders and separated Chairperson-CEO positions) on acquirer returns, differentiating between Anglo-Saxon and continental European contexts. Our results confirm that the effectiveness of corporate governance practices depends strongly on their fit with the broader institutional context. Specifically, we find that a smaller size of the board of directors and the separation of the positions of Chairperson and CEO lead to higher acquirer returns in European Anglo-Saxon countries. By contrast, we do not find evidence that any proxy of supervisory capacity of the board significantly improves acquirer returns in the rest of countries.     

Board directors with foreign experience and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China

This study examines the impact of board directors with foreign experience (BDFEs) on stock price crash risk. We find that BDFEs help reduce crash risk. This association is robust to a series of robustness checks, including a firm fixed effects model, controlling for possibly omitted variables, and instrumental variable estimations. Moreover, we find that the negative association between BDFEs and crash risk is more pronounced for firms with more agency problems, weaker corporate governance, and less overall transparency. Our findings suggest that the characteristics of board directors matter in determining stock price crash risk.     

Managerial Equity Ownership and the Demand for Outside Directors

This paper examines the linkage between the use of outside directors and managerial ownership. We conjecture there are two linkages: the standard incentive‐alignment demand for monitoring when managers own little stock and an entrenchment‐amelioration demand when managerial stock ownership is high. As a consequence, we predict the association between managerial ownership and board composition will be nonlinear (U‐shaped if the entrenchment effect is sufficiently pronounced). Using UK data, we find that both quadratic and logarithmic models outperform the simple linear relationship assumed in prior research and that the substitution between managerial ownership and board composition is stronger than hitherto supposed.     

一纸灵魂的处方，一曲生命的悲歌——再读《红处方》

女作家毕淑敏在创作中始终关注着女性及其生存状况，《红处方》亦是如此，它被一些批评家看作是毕淑敏的女权主义开山之作，事实并非如此。在《红处方》中，强大的女性话语场背后透露出的是女性自我意识的缺失，但与之对应的是作者向读者进行着更为深切的生命体验展示及发自灵魂深处的人性拷问，为现实生活中的人们开了一纸灵魂的处方，具有深广的社会意义，对这一事实的认识是理解《红处方》的重中之重。     

《笨花》与《棉花垛》乡土叙述的比较——兼及对《铁凝的<笨花>批判》的批判

《笨花》因为和作者早年的《棉花垛》有相似之处而受人非议。《笨花》以乡土叙述的方式描绘了河北农村的风土人情,但是《笨花》中还混杂了多种西方话语,即宗教、女性话语和民族解放话语,这些与乡土社会本应是相抵牾的。然而作者为了塑造乡土社会的和谐风貌,通过对各种话语的挪移,而使它们与乡土叙述的冲突彻底消解,造成了文本张力的缺失。     

独立董事、战略审计与公司绩效

关于独立董事与公司绩效呈现弱相关关系的一个假说性解释是:独立董事对于作为关键绩效驱动因素的公司战略管理过程参与不足。独立董事积极参与公司战略管理的功能定位是战略监督与评价,而战略审计作为正式的战略监督与评价程序,是独立董事深入公司战略管理过程以提高其绩效贡献的有效途径。本文认为,在我国推行独立董事战略审计制度,必须解决独立董事人数与比例、审计委员会设置、独立董事来源与结构以及激励与权益保护等相关问题。     

独立董事能否为收购公司股东创造财富——来自中国上市公司并购的证据

国外的实证研究结果表明，独立董事在并购中能给收购公司的股东创造财富。我们依据Harford研究方法，对我国的独立董事进行进一步的划分，并利用沪深A股285家上市公司的并购数据进行实证研究。研究结果表明：在我国设立独立董事并不能有效地为收购公司股东创造财富；但有一些证据显示，在关联方并购交易中，独立董事为收购公司股东创造了财富，尽管统计结果并不显著；在并购交易过程中，收购公司管理层的股权激励效果并不理想。     

健美操训练对女大学生心理素质的影响

对浙江师大、湖州师院两校205名女大学生参加健美操锻炼情况展开调查，探讨训练后对他们的心理素质的影响，结果表明：通过参加健美操锻炼，学生的自信心、表现欲、意志品质等方面都有较显著增强，这说明健美操锻炼是较好地提高女大学生心理素质的一种手段。