Ownership Structure, Board, and Manager Discretion on Performance

Ownership Structure, Board, and Manager Discretion on Performance
Author: Vincent Ongore
Publisher: LAP Lambert Academic Publishing
Total Pages: 196
Release: 2011-02
Genre:
ISBN: 9783844304541

The study investigated the combined effects of ownership structure, board effectiveness and managerial discretion on firm performance using agency theory as an analytical framework. Measures of performance used in the study were Return on Assets, Return on Equity and Dividend Yield. Using Pearson s Product Moment Correlation and Logistic Regression, Step-wise regression and ANOVA to analyze data obtained from companies listed at the Nairobi Stock Exchange, the study found out that Ownership Concentration and Government Ownership have significant negative relationships with firm performance. On the other hand, Foreign Ownership, Diffuse Ownership, Corporation Ownership, and Manager Ownership were found to have significant positive relationships with firm performance. The results of this study have indicted the Board of Directors for not playing any meaningful role in corporate governance in Kenya. On the other hand, the results support the need for managers to bear more responsibility of their mismanagement and also share in the residual income of the firms they manage.

Managerial Discretion and Performance in China

Managerial Discretion and Performance in China
Author: Hagen Wülferth
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 557
Release: 2013-04-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 3642358373

​The theoretical and empirical literature to date has fallen short of reaching a consensus as to whether granting more managerial discretion to managers tends to enhance, not alter or diminish organizational performance (the discretion puzzle). This book aims to build a bridge between these contradictory results by synthesising principal-agent theory, stewardship theory, and managerial discretion theory into a new empirically-validated model. Using a representative sample of 'double-blind' interviews with managers of 467 firms in China and applying partial least squares path modelling (PLS), the study identifies a potential cause of the discretion puzzle: the failure of the extant literature to account for granularity in the way that managers use their discretion. This generates far-reaching implications for theoretical and empirical research as well as practical recommendations for managing managers in multinationals and Chinese companies.

Discussion of Accounting Discretion, Corporate Governance, and Firm Performance

Discussion of Accounting Discretion, Corporate Governance, and Firm Performance
Author: Wayne R. Guay
Publisher:
Total Pages: 13
Release: 2011
Genre:
ISBN:

Bowen, Ragjopal, and Venkatachalam (2008) explore whether managers, on average, use accounting discretion for reporting objectives that are in the interests of shareholders (e.g., signaling, tax minimization, etc.), or alternatively whether managers use discretion opportunistically in the presence of governance structures that allow greater discretion. The authors find that although accounting discretion is positively related to governance structures that allow managers greater discretion in decision-making, there is no evidence that the portion of accounting discretion related to governance structures is negatively associated with firm performance.In this discussion, I emphasize the importance of decision rights allocation within widely held corporations, and how this allocation naturally leads to cross-sectional variation in the degree of discretion afforded managers. In contrast to much of the existing governance literature, I argue that governance structures that allow managers greater discretion in making decisions do not necessarily imply weak/poor governance. For example, it is difficult to see why a firm that allocates the least possible decision-making rights to their board or executives is necessarily the firm with highest quality governance. I also discuss why the observed relation between accounting discretion and firm performance may be uninformative about whether accounting discretion is used for opportunistic purposes. If shareholders/boards thoughtfully select an appropriate amount of overall decision-making discretion to allow managers, it will be difficult to determine whether specific types of discretion are used opportunistically.

Inside the Boardroom

Inside the Boardroom
Author: Richard Leblanc
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 340
Release: 2010-02-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0470739959

Distinguished governance experts offer cures for what ails our boards of directors In light of corporate malfeasance in recent years, the governance of corporations has been receiving great attention from regulators, researchers, shareholders, and directors themselves. Based on Richard Leblanc's in-depth five-year study of 39 boards of directors of both for- and not-for-profit organizations, Building a Better Board goes behind the scenes to reveal the inner workings of boards of directors, including how they make decisions. Recently chosen as one of Canada's "Top 40 Under 40"(TM), Dr Richard Leblanc is an award-winning teacher and researcher, certified management consultant, professional speaker, professor, lawyer and specialist on boards of directors. He can be reached at [email protected]. James Gillies, PhD (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), is Professor Emeritus at the Schulich School of Business, York University, where he serves as Chair of the Canada-Russia Corporate Governance Program.

Corporate Boards That Create Value

Corporate Boards That Create Value
Author: John Carver
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2002-10-10
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 0787964247

This book applies John Carver's highly successful Policy Governance model to corporate boards. Carver and boardroom consultant Caroline Oliver explain the world's only conceptually coherent operating system for boards. This simple yet profound system clarifies roles, empowers directors and senior management alike, and makes accountability feasible to a previously unattainable degree. The authors suggest a redefinition and elevation of the value that boards should create and show how to apply the Policy Governance design to commanding company performance. Corporate Boards That Create Value gives corporate directors and all who care about governance a powerful tool for success.

The Economics of Corporate Governance and Mergers

The Economics of Corporate Governance and Mergers
Author: K. Gugler
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 373
Release: 2008-01-01
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1848443927

This book provides an insightful view of major issues in the economics of corporate governance (CG) and mergers. It presents a systematic update on the developments in the two fields during the last decade, as well as highlighting the neglected topics in CG research, such as the role of boards, CG and public interest and the relation of CG to mergers. Two important conclusions can be drawn from this book: the first is that corporate governance systems that better align shareholders and managers interests lead to better corporate performance; second, there is an important relationship between CG structures and the quality of firm decision-making, one of the most important being the decision to merge or take over another firm. Focusing on some of the often-neglected aspects of corporate governance such as non-profit organizations and public interest, as well as mergers and acquisitions from a CG perspective, this book will be a valuable resource for both academics and postgraduate students of finance, business and economics.

Board Structure, Ownership Structure, and Firm Performance

Board Structure, Ownership Structure, and Firm Performance
Author: Mohamed Belkhir
Publisher:
Total Pages: 23
Release: 2010
Genre:
ISBN:

This paper examines the interrelations among five ownership and board characteristics in a sample of 260 bank and savings-and-loan holding companies. These governance characteristics, designed to reduce agency problems between shareholders and managers, are insider ownership, blockholder ownership, the proportion of outside directors, board leadership structure, and board size. Using two-stage least squares regressions, we present evidence of interdependencies between board and ownership structures. The results suggest that banks substitute between governance mechanisms that align the interests of managers and shareholders. These findings suggest that cross-sectional OLS regressions of bank performance on single governance mechanisms may be misleading. Indeed, we find statistically significant relationships between performance and insider ownership and blockholder ownership when using OLS regressions. However, these statistically significant relationships disappear when the simultaneous equations framework is used. Together, these findings are consistent with optimal use of each governance mechanism by banks.

Handbook on Responsible Leadership and Governance in Global Business

Handbook on Responsible Leadership and Governance in Global Business
Author: Jonathan P. Doh
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 429
Release: 2005
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1845425561

Reading these various non-technical articles is undeniably valuable for any person (teachers, executives, students) who is concerned about the behaviour of major companies managers in the context of globalisation and economy liberalisation. Gestion 2000 A profoundly important book for scholars and leaders alike that makes a vital timely contribution to the behavioral perspectives on leadership and governance. Doh and Stumpf, along with their world-renowned contributors, apply solidly anchored academic wisdom to offer fresh ideas on restoring faith in the integrity of American enterprise. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Yale School of Management, President and CEO, Chief Executive Leadership Institute and author of Leadership and Governance From The Inside Out Ethics, social responsibility, leadership, governance. These terms are heard in the classroom, in the boardroom, and viewed on the front page of newspapers and magazines. Yet serious attention to the relationships among these concepts is lacking. Although commitments to leadership, ethics, and social responsibility are evident, individuals and companies are falling short in combining these duties into policies and cultures that guide behavior and decisions. The missing element is a broad-based and integrated approach to responsible leadership and governance. This volume provides the leading thinking on these issues and includes a discussion of emerging areas that require future attention. The contributors leading scholars in the fields of leadership, governance and social responsibility summarize the state of the literature, identify complementary insights and perspectives, discuss areas of conflict and disagreement, and include a provocative and stimulating agenda for further investigation. They point up practical consequences of these perspectives in light of developments that have exposed the shortcomings in practice. Several contributors focus specifically on the challenges faced by global companies in developing and maintaining leadership and governance practices that are responsive to different national institutional and cultural settings. Thorough coverage and insightful discussion make this an essential reference for scholars and students of leadership, corporate responsibility and professional ethics, as well as for all those directly responsible for establishing the ethical codes and practices of their organizations.

Pay Without Performance

Pay Without Performance
Author: Lucian A. Bebchuk
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 308
Release: 2004
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 9780674020634

The company is under-performing, its share price is trailing, and the CEO gets...a multi-million-dollar raise. This story is familiar, for good reason: as this book clearly demonstrates, structural flaws in corporate governance have produced widespread distortions in executive pay. Pay without Performance presents a disconcerting portrait of managers' influence over their own pay--and of a governance system that must fundamentally change if firms are to be managed in the interest of shareholders. Lucian Bebchuk and Jesse Fried demonstrate that corporate boards have persistently failed to negotiate at arm's length with the executives they are meant to oversee. They give a richly detailed account of how pay practices--from option plans to retirement benefits--have decoupled compensation from performance and have camouflaged both the amount and performance-insensitivity of pay. Executives' unwonted influence over their compensation has hurt shareholders by increasing pay levels and, even more importantly, by leading to practices that dilute and distort managers' incentives. This book identifies basic problems with our current reliance on boards as guardians of shareholder interests. And the solution, the authors argue, is not merely to make these boards more independent of executives as recent reforms attempt to do. Rather, boards should also be made more dependent on shareholders by eliminating the arrangements that entrench directors and insulate them from their shareholders. A powerful critique of executive compensation and corporate governance, Pay without Performance points the way to restoring corporate integrity and improving corporate performance.