高管权力与公司治理效率——基于国有上市公司高管变更的视角

本文基于国有企业的高管变更视角分析了高管权力对公司治理效率的影响.以2004 -2008年的国有上市公司为研究样本,实证发现:(1)总体上高管变更与公司业绩呈负相关,而高管权力的增强会降低其因业绩低劣而被强制性更换的可能性,表明国企高管的权力在高管变更决策中发挥了显著的职位堑壕效应;(2)发生了高管变更的公司其未来业绩有明显的提高,但这一促进效应仅在权力较小的高管被变更后出现,而权力较大的高管被变更后公司业绩并没有得到改进;(3)进一步的研究显示,政府控制层级的提升和制度环境的改善能够抑制国企高管的权力寻租行为.本文的研究结果有助于我们理解国有企业高管权力的经济后果,并为当前有关国企公司治理和高管选聘体制改革的政策导向提供了经验启示.     

基于政治视角的CEO薪酬影响因素实证研究——以中国西北上市公司为例

合理制定CEO薪酬,有利于保护股东利益.本文基于政治视角--CEO是否是政府指定,以西北地区上市公司为研究对象,考虑了可能影响西北上市公司CEO薪酬的不同变量,着重从公司业绩、公司规模、增长机会、第一大股东持股比例、第一大股东是否为国家股、两职分离和CEO是否是政府指定第7个方面描述了影响CEO薪酬的一些因素.研究结果表明:公司业绩、公司规模、增长机会与薪酬之间存在正相关关系;第一大股东持股比例、第一大股东是国家股、两职分离、CEO是政府是指定与薪酬之间存在负相关关系;其中对薪酬具有显著影响的变量为公司业绩、公司规模、两职分离.     

中国上市公司CEO继任特征与公司业绩变化关系的实证研究

选择总资产主营业务利润率、总资产营业利润率、总资产净利润率作为评价公司业绩的指标,以CEO非常规变更、CEO外部继任、CEO是否受控股股东控制、CEO变更公告的时间以及继任CEO的年龄刻画CEO的继任特征,采用OLS与Logist回归方法,实证检验了3个指标在CEO变更期间的变化与CEO继任特征的相关性.研究表明,CEO变更期间的业绩变化与外部继任显著正相关,变更当年的业绩变化与CEO下半年变更显著负相关,公司业绩变化与控股股东对CEO控制倾向正相关,CEO的非常规变更并未带来上市公司业绩的显著提高.     

大股东、法律制度和资本结构决策——来自中国上市公司的经验证据

本文结合中国制度,从理论角度推演大股东、法律制度如何影响资本结构决策,采用中国非金融上市公司截面数据,应用一系列OLS经验检验大股东、法律制度与资本结构决策之间关系.本研究提供的经验证据表明,大股东、法律制度确实影响资本结构决策.具体而言:(1)第一大股东持股比例与债务水平负相关;(2)最终控制人是国有企业的控制股东具有强烈的股权融资偏好,这类公司拥有相对低的债务水平;(3)少数大股东持股集中度与债务水平正相关;(4)第一大股东持股比例和少数大股东持股集中度的交互项与债务水平正相关,表明少数大股东持股集中度的提高能削减第一大股东和债务水平之间的负相关关系;(5)少数大股东持股集中度除以第一大股东持股比例、少数大股东持股集中度减去第一大股东持股比例与债务水平正相关,说明股权制衡能够抑制控制股东机会主义行为,股权制衡的公司具有相对高的债务水平;(6)法律制度对不同期限的债务水平具有不同影响,法律制度环境好的公司具有相对高的短期债务和相对低的长期债务,本文从中国的制度视角对这一现象进行解释;(7)第一大股东与债务水平之间的关系受法律制度环境的影响.     

非国有股东治理与国企高管薪酬激励

如何改善国企高管激励机制是新时期全面深化国企改革成败的关键一环。本文以2008～2015年国有上市公司为样本,通过手工收集年报披露的前十大股东性质、持股比例与委派高管的数据,分别从股权结构和高层治理两个维度衡量非国有股东参与国企治理的程度,在此基础上,研究非国有股东治理如何影响国企高管的激励机制。研究发现:首先,单纯的非国有股东持股对高管薪酬业绩敏感性无显著影响,但非国有股东向国有企业委派高管有利于改善国企高管的薪酬业绩敏感性。其次,非国有股东对高管薪酬业绩敏感性的提升作用在竞争性国有企业和处于较低市场化程度地区的国有企业中更加显著。最后,非国有股东委派高管参与国企治理能有效抑制国企高管的超额薪酬和超额在职消费。以上结论表明,混合所有制改革不能仅停留在资本层面的混合,还需确保非国有股东在国企经营管理中具有一定的影响力,才能更好地发挥民营资本的监督和治理作用。     

民营上市公司高管人员报酬的决定因素研究

高管报酬的确定并非单纯的技术设计,而是与财务、公司治理机制密切相关的整体.以2002年～2004年深、沪两市的224家民营上市公司为样本,采用面板数据处理方式,实证检验企业绩效、治理机制与高管报酬的相关性.实证结果表明,中国民营上市公司的企业绩效与高管报酬正相关,内部股东比例与高管报酬正相关,外部董事比例与高管报酬负相关;民营上市公司的内部股东比例越大反而带来更高的高管报酬水平,二者之间存在互补关系,说明中国民营上市公司中存在大股东对高管层的赎买行为;外部董事的治理机制可以有效地解决高管层的内部人控制问题,降低代理成本,表明董事会在民营上市公司治理中发挥着重要的战略参与作用.     

多元化、公司业绩与总经理变更

总经理变更是公司内部治理的重要手段,其业绩敏感性受到多种因素的影响,以2002年～2007年沪深两市702家A股上市公司的数据为样本,探讨多元化经营对总经理变更绩效敏感性及其业绩改进效应的影响,为公司经营模式对公司治理效率的影响提供经验证据,利用传统的Logistic回归、边际效应分析以及面板数据随机效应回归对多元化和总经理变更的关系进行研究。实证结果表明,多元化降低了总经理变更的业绩敏感性,多元化公司总经理变更的概率与资产收益率代表的多元化公司业绩变化没有显著的关系,即使在公司业绩下降的条件下,股东替换总经理的动机也弱于集中化公司;多元化公司总经理变更后的资产重组行为规模显著弱于集中化公司,带来的业绩改进也小于集中化公司。     

薪酬制度考虑外部监管了吗——来自中国上市公司的证据

本文以中国的上市公司为样本,考察了高管薪酬契约与外部监管的关系,结果发现,外部监管对高管薪酬有显著的影响,但与最优契约论不完全相符.研究发现,高管薪酬与第一大股东持股比例负相关;由于所有者虚位,国有企业的高管薪酬敏感性较高;由于远离管理者,外资控股的公司高管薪酬敏感性较高;独立董事占董事会总人数的比重与高管薪酬正相关而与薪酬敏感性负相关;较高的银行借款/总资产比率对高管薪酬有抑制作用;处于垄断地位的管制行业高管薪酬敏感性较高;高管持股对薪酬的敏感性不影响.最后,在控制了外部监管因素对薪酬敏感性的影响后,高管薪酬与公司下年度的业绩增长显著正相关,表明上市公司的高管薪酬制度基本上具备了激励机制.     

公司治理视角下的多元化经营与公司绩效

以中国沪、深两市上市公司为研究对象,实证分析中国上市公司内、外部治理机制与多元化经营和价值效应之间的关系.结果表明,董事会特别是公司董事长和总经理两职合一以及独立董事比例是影响公司多元化经营决策的重要内部治理机制变量,外部治理机制对公司的多元化经营决策没有显著影响;多元化经营会导致价值溢价,但这种溢价不显著;内部治理机制中的资产负债率、外部治理机制中的审计意见和产品市场竞争程度是影响多元化经营公司业绩的重要因素,第一大股东的实际控制人身份、审计意见和产品市场竞争程度会显著影响专业化经营公司的经营业绩.     

败也业绩,成也业绩?——国企高管变更的实证研究

本文利用2000~2012年A股上市非金融国企的数据,将高管变更后去向细分为晋升、平调和降职,以高管不变为基准,研究了公司业绩及承担社会责任的程度对高管变更的影响。研究发现,总体而言高管降职与公司业绩负相关,晋升与业绩不相关,但与承担的社会责任正相关,即"败因业绩,而成非因业绩"。进一步研究表明,国企高管变更考核中存在一个业绩门槛,在业绩低于门槛值时,业绩越差降职可能性越大,承担社会责任不能降低降职的可能性;在业绩高于门槛值时,业绩更好并不能增加晋升的可能性,此时承担社会责任才成为影响晋升的重要因素。此外,高管平调与公司业绩显著负相关,但平调—业绩相关性要弱于降职—业绩相关性,这表明平调实际是对业绩较差高管的缓和惩罚。     

Defining Spirituality of Work

There is a current surge of writings on spirituality and related topics. For instance, Woodward (1997) has pointed out that since Thomas Moore's publication of Care of the Soul in 1994 there have been nearly 800books published with the word soul in the title. These run all the way from Chicken Soup for theWoman's Soul (Canfield et al., 1996) to A Guide to Liberating YourSoul (Barrett, 1995). Spirituality of work is a big part of this surge. Definitionsof spirituality of work seem to vary widely. Bowman (1998, p. 8) in his `reviewof the phenomenon of spirituality of work' found `Definitions of the term spirituality in the context of the Spirituality of Work troublesome and particularly subjective. Many writers do not even attempt definitions.' The purpose of this article is to review the concept of spirituality of work in its historical and current use and to propose a comprehensive definition.     

WebStress: a web interface to explore a multidatabase bibliographic corpus on occupational stress

A bibliographic study on a multidisciplinary subject, such as occupational stress, requires a multidatabase query facility. Given this, we searched eight databases belonging to different fields (medicine, psychology, etc.) and from different countries. Thus, more than 26000 references on occupational stress were gathered. A bibliographic corpus of this sort is unusable because of the heterogeneous format of the records and the number of duplicate entries. Considering the limitations of commercial programs, we have developed a system, called WebStress, for reformatting the data and removing duplicates. The huge number of references and the research needs of updating and searching have necessitated the addition of several other functions to WebStress. Therefore WebStress comprises a web interface that makes it possible to search the corpus with advanced features (using clustering, a specialized thesaurus on stress and Boolean queries). In addition to the usual bibliographic queries on a specific database such as Medline, WebStress provides bibliometric analysis of the corpus, which might contribute to a detailed analysis on occupational stress in order to highlight the networks of researchers and to find the main topics studied in this area. WebStress is not yet available to researchers in general. It is being further developed, and also permission needs to be obtained from the eight commercial bibliographic databases that it consults.     

The impact of a participatory organizational intervention on job stress in community health care institutions

The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of a short-term participatory intervention in health care institutions in Norway on workers' control, other job characteristics, job stress, subjective health and job satisfaction. Participants (including managers and supervisors) were randomly allocated to intervention groups and to a control group. Actions to solve problems based on the employees' own perceptions of the main problems were seen as the key motivators for organizational improvement and increased control at the task and office level in the work situation. The main stressors identified by the participants in this study were lack of information, communication and respect between professions, as well as the need for professional and personal development. The participatory intervention had a positive, but limited effect on work-related stress, job characteristics, learning climate and management style, and seemed to have started a beneficial change process. There were no negative short-term effects on work-related stress and job demands. Organizational interventions may be a potential training ground for acquiring participatory skills and resources, and if sustained after the intervention period, they can have long-term effects on problem solving, job stress and employee satisfaction.     

Circadian Rhythm and the Business Person

Each human being has an internal timekeeping mechanism. To date, over 100 so-called circadian rhythms have been detected. Perhaps the most significant is body temperature. There is an apparent connection between this rhythm and the efficiency with which we do things in the course of the working day. Within individuals, patterns have been discovered which give credence to the popular notions of a morning or an afternoon person, and so on. Our memory changes from morning to afternoon: short-term memory is stronger in the morning, and long-term memory stronger in the afternoon; in schools, morning students have higher grades than students who have other time-of-day preferences. Therefore, a strong case can be made in support of flexible time schedules. It is reported that productivity went up on the introduction of such a scheme. Employee stress has been seen to decline also. When flextime was offered, parents with small children took advantage of the benefit as well as unmarried employees. The only drawback is ensuring that, with so many individual variations in preferences, the needs of the company are fully met. If such a scheme can be devised, however, the research suggests that productivity and efficiency will increase.     

Is Risk Analysis Scientific?

This article discusses to what extent risk analysis is scientific in view of a set of commonly used definitions and criteria. We consider scientific knowledge to be characterized by its subject matter, its success in developing the best available knowledge in its fields of study, and the epistemic norms and values that guide scientific investigations. We proceed to assess the field of risk analysis according to these criteria. For this purpose, we use a model for risk analysis in which science is used as a base for decision making on risks, which covers the five elements evidence, knowledge base, broad risk evaluation, managerial review and judgment, and the decision; and that relates these elements to the domains experts and decisionmakers, and to the domains fact‐based or value‐based. We conclude that risk analysis is a scientific field of study, when understood as consisting primarily of (i) knowledge about risk‐related phenomena, processes, events, etc., and (ii) concepts, theories, frameworks, approaches, principles, methods and models to understand, assess, characterize, communicate, and manage risk, in general and for specific applications (the instrumental part).     

Social construction of work stress: Australian newsprint media portrayal of stress at work, 1997-98

Public understanding of health issues is influenced by the social and political interests of those who gather the information and by the media which disseminates it. This has implications for lay people's beliefs about work stress and has potentially serious personal implications in terms of recognizing, reacting to, and reporting stress in the workplace (Furnham, 1997). The somewhat ambiguous nature of work stress renders it vulnerable to political, social and economic manipulation. This study explores how the issue of work stress is represented in the Australian newsprint media. Fifty-one work-related articles from all major Australian newspapers from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 1997 were selected if 'stress' appeared in the headline. The articles were examined for dominant ideologies and themes. Attention was given to the language used to describe stress, the intended audience, and the voices represented in the articles. Results showed that work stress is represented in the media as an economically costly epidemic, as an outcome of unfavourable work conditions but with individual remedies, and as primarily situated within the public sector. The main voice represented in the media was that of the unions. The reproduction of work stress as a public sector phenomenon serves the interests of public sector unions, the newspapers, and the managers of private sector workers and is not consistent with available workers' compensation data (which is itself problematic).     

Job insecurity, coping resources and personality dispositions in occupational strain

This paper presents research on the relationships between the work-related stressor of perceived job insecurity and various indicators of occupational strain, taking into account employees' personality dispositions (trait negative and positive affectivity) and coping resources. Respondents were 222 Australian public servants surveyed during organizational restructuring that involved downsizing and threat to job certainty. The research was formulated within an adaptation of Osipow, Doty, and Spokane's (1985) framework of stress-strain-coping that included the possible direct as well as moderating effects of personality dispositions in reporting occupational strain (Parkes, 1990). Findings from hierarchical regression analyses indicate consistent significant independent effects of personality dispositions, coping resources and perceived job insecurity on various indicators of strain. There was also support for the moderating roles of negative affectivity and self-care in the relation between perceived job insecurity and physical strain. Implications for the role of dispositional factors, especially negative affectivity, and the utility of various coping resources in accounting for occupational strain in times of threatened job security are discussed.     

The moderating role of social support in Karasek's job strain model

This paper examines whether social support is a boundary-determining criterion in the job strain model of Karasek (1979). The particular focus is the extent to which different sources of social support, work overload and task control influence job satisfaction, depersonalization and supervisor assessments of work performance. Hypotheses are tested using prospective survey data from 80 clerical staff in a university setting. Results revealed 3-way interactions among levels of support (supervisor, co-worker, non-work), perceived task control and work overload on levels of work performance and employee adjustment (self-report). After controlling for levels of negative affect in all analyses, there was evidence that high levels of supervisor support mitigated against the negative effects of high strain jobs on levels of job satisfaction and reduced reported levels of depersonalization. Moreover, high levels of non-work support and co-worker support also mitigated against the negative effects of high strain jobs on levels of work performance. The results are discussed in terms of the importance of social support networks both at, and beyond, the work context.     

Criteria for selecting a production control philosophy

Logistic objectives constitute a compromise between having short leadtimes and a low volume of work in progress on the one hand and a high resource loading and due date obligation on the other. Miscellaneous production planning approaches offered today provide different combinations of logistic objectives for satisfying a manufacturing strategy. To combine the strength of the various approaches into a unified system, a new approach based on a dynamic and distributed production planning methodology is proposed. To customize the approach, various analyses and specifications have to be made and for that reason some important characteristics and criteria for analysing production control philosophies will be given.     

Inclusion of Dietary Evaluation in Cardiovascular Disease Risk Prediction Models Increases Accuracy and Reduces Bias of the Estimations

In the past few years, the prediction of CVD risk has received special attention; however, some investigators assert that risk models have so far not been very successful. Thus, we examined whether the inclusion of dietary evaluation in a risk prediction model that already contained the classical CVD risk factors increases the accuracy and reduces the bias in estimating future CVD events. The database of the ATTICA study (which included information from 1,514 men and 1,528 women) was used. At baseline, the HellenicSCORE values (based on age, gender, smoking, systolic blood pressure, and total cholesterol) were calculated, while overall assessment of dietary habits was based on the Mediterranean diet score (MDS) that evaluates adherence to this traditional diet. In 2006, a five-year follow-up was performed in 2,101 participants and development of CVD (coronary heart disease, acute coronary syndromes, stroke, or other CVD) was defined according to WHO-ICD-10 criteria. The MDS and the HellenicSCORE were significant predictors of CVD events, even after adjusting for various potential confounders ( p < 0.05). However, estimating bias (i.e., misclassification of cases) of the model that included HellenicSCORE and other potential confounders was 8.7%. The MDS was associated with the estimating bias of the outcome ( p < 0.001) and explained 5.5% of this bias. Other baseline factors associated with bias were increased body mass index, low education status, and increased energy intake/BMR ratio. The inclusion of dietary evaluation, as well as other Sociodemographic and anthropometric characteristics, increases the accuracy and reduces estimating bias of CVD risk prediction models.