TMT functional complementarity and post-IPO performance: Evidence from the U.S. biotechnology industry

Drawing insights from the resource dependence and the upper echelons theories, this study examines how top management team (TMT) IPO reconfiguration – the managerial change between immediately before and after an initial public offering (IPO), affects firm performance in the post-IPO years. We investigate this through the lens of TMT functional complementarity - the degree of differing functional knowledge held by the firm's TMT in the pre-and post-IPO stage. We argue that TMT functional complementarity positively affects firm post-IPO performance. Further, this relationship is positively moderated by executive managerial discretion, measured by CEO duality and TMT insider board membership. We test our model using a sample of 250 US biotechnology firms that went public from 1991 to 2019, and the empirical results largely support our hypotheses. This study contributes to the literature of upper echelons, technology-based ventures, and IPO firms.     

路演中董事长面部表情与IPO后公司业绩变脸

投资者是否可以利用“软”信息来识别公司的真实价值?社会心理学理论认为人在提供虚假信息(如撒谎)的时候会流露出负面情绪,进而反映到面部表情上。论文以2009年至2014年在创业板上市的公司为样本,分析公司上市后的业绩变脸幅度与其董事长在IPO路演讲话时的负面情绪水平之间的关系。为了提高结论的可靠性,本研究首先基于实验室实验方法设计欺骗行为实验,检验了Facereader软件测量面部表情给出的负面情绪值与欺骗行为之间的相关性。本研究指出可以利用董事长在IPO路演讲话的面部表情来识别公司的真实价值,该结论为保护投资者利益提供了一条新的途径。     

新股上市后盈利能力下滑及募集资金使用分析

首先从盈利与成长能力的角度考察中国A股公司首次公开发行(IPO)前及发行后的长期基本面特性,以及IPO市场基本面的动态变化.发现A股公司的长期盈利能力在IPO之后显著下降.在对A股IPO募集资金使用情况进行长期的追踪与分析后,发现IPO募集资金投入不足和投向变更可能是造成A股IPO长期盈利能力下滑的重要原因.     

Labour Market Flexibility,Human Resource Management and Corporate Performance

Labour market flexibility is often portrayed as a key to the competitive success of the UK and US economies. We surveyed several hundred firms in the UK, and using the resulting data (on over 200 manufacturing firms) this paper investigates the relationships between firms’ use of flexible work practices, human resource systems and industrial relations on the one hand, and corporate performance on the other hand. The results suggest that ‘low‐road’ practices – short‐term contracts, a lack of employer commitment to job security, low levels of training and low levels of human resource sophistication – are negatively correlated with corporate performance. In contrast, it is found that ‘high‐road’ work practices –‘high commitment’ organizations or ‘transformed’ workplaces – are positively correlated with good corporate performance. It is also found that human resource management practices are more likely to contribute to competitive success where they are introduced as a comprehensive package, or ‘bundle’ of practices. Significant interaction effects between human resource systems, trade unions and flexible work practices add further support to the bundling hypothesis.     

The Primary Importance of Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethicality in Corporate Reputation: An Empirical Study

We examine three assumptions commonly held in the corporate reputation literature: (1) reputation ratings of owners and investors are generally representative of all stakeholders; (2) stakeholders will generally provide a higher reputation rating to firms that emphasize corporate social responsibility versus firms that do not; and (3) profitability is the primary criterion of importance to all stakeholders when rating a firm's reputation. Using an exploratory in‐class exercise, our findings suggest that: (1) there are significant differences among stakeholder groups in their reputation ratings; (2) firms that emphasize corporate social responsibility are not rated more highly across all stakeholder groups; and (3) for all stakeholder groups, the ethicality criterion explained more of the variance in firms' reputation ratings than the profitability criterion.     

The double-edged sword of CEO/chairperson duality in corporatized state-owned firms: evidence from top management turnover in China

This study examines how board leadership structure (CEO duality) affects the corporate governance of corporatized state-owned firms where the state shareholders use these firms to serve both profit and non-profit objectives. We propose that CEO duality will generate a positive (negative) significant impact on the firms’ corporate governance when state owners tend to monitor their CEOs on the basis of profit (non-profit) considerations. We test our hypotheses by examining the relations between CEO duality and CEO turnover in Chinese listed companies that are ultimately controlled by central or local governments. We find that CEO duality is negatively related to turnover in marginal profit-making firms where turnover would be value-enhancing. This suggests that CEO duality is detrimental to these firms’ corporate governance because it entrenches relatively poorly performing CEOs. Duality is also negatively related to turnover in high-profitability firms where turnover would be non-value-enhancing. This suggests that CEO duality might positively contribute to the corporate governance of these firms by reducing the occurrence of non-value enhancing turnover. Overall, our study suggests that CEO duality is a double-edged sword in corporatized state-owned firms.     

Evaluating the Evaluators: Should Investors Trust Corporate Governance Metrics Ratings?

Companies are under increasing pressure to have their corporate governance rated by an independent corporate governance metrics firm, such as Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) or Governance Metrics International (GMI). These rating firms claim to be able to determine how effective and responsive a company’s board is. Institutional investors have begun using these board governance ratings when deciding which firms to include in their stock portfolios. This paper considers whether investors, many of whom claim to be socially responsible, should be relying upon board governance metrics. We find that these metrics are not good indicators of either the quality of a firm’s earnings or of its ethics.     

Connecting the Dots: Do Financial Analysts Help Corporate Boards Improve Corporate Social Responsibility?

This paper presents an examination of the joint impact of board structural elements at firm level and financial analysts as market-level corporate governance (CG) on corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance. Our study contributes to the CG–CSR literature by adopting the bundling approach, a perspective that has recently attracted researchers’ attention as an answer to any heterogeneity and fragmentation in existing findings. It is based on an extensive sample consisting of 7,739 firm-year observations of US firms for the 2006–2015 period. The findings suggest that financial analysts complement the corporate board with more independence, gender diversity and a specialized CSR committee to realize a certain level of CSR performance of a firm. The findings also indicate that analysts substitute for those internal governance factors that are associated with weaker boards – larger sizes and dual-role CEOs. We also draw implications for research and practice from our findings.     

Corporate Political Activity and Firm Performance: The Moderating Effects of International and Product Diversification

Prior research has found that corporate political activity (CPA) can both positively and negatively impact firm performance. Combining agency theory with the resource-based view, we examine the relationship between domestic lobbying (a key form of CPA) and firm performance by explicating the moderating effects of international and product diversification. We argue that expansion into international and product markets increases a firm's resources and reduces agency costs in domestic lobbying. Our results, based on a sample of 737 firms, show that lobbying is positively associated with performance for firms that are diversified in both international markets and along product-lines; whereas lobbying is counter-productive for purely domestic and undiversified firms. Our results contribute to the literature on the firm performance implications of corporate political activity by highlighting the roles of international and product diversification.     

The face of wrongdoing? An expectancy violations perspective on CEO facial characteristics and media coverage of misconducting firms

We examine the extent to which CEO facial characteristics matter in media coverage of firms implicated in corporate wrongdoing. We build on literature discussing that leaders’ faces may convey subjective behavioral expectations and that outsiders often over-rely on facial cues when making social judgments. We situate these insights in the context of corporate wrongdoing, where information incompleteness may be particularly high, potentially prompting outsiders to draw on CEO facial characteristics in forming their social judgments. Drawing on Expectancy Violations Theory, we hypothesize that firms led by CEOs expected to be more trustworthy, as inferred from their lower facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR), will draw greater attention and more negative opinions from the media in the wake of corporate wrongdoing. Results of an experiment (Study 1) where CEO fWHR was digitally manipulated support this counterintuitive logic, while findings based on an archival study of corporate wrongdoing of US firms from 2003 to 2016 (Study 2) partly generalize the rationale in the field setting. Our findings suggest that subjective expectations inferred from CEO faces may serve as part of a complex and underexamined source of variation in media coverage of misconducting firms. We discuss implications for theory and practice.     

Is philanthropy being used by corporate wrongdoers to buy good will?

While an increasing number of philosophers and community activists argue in favor of corporate philanthropy, the practice is not without its critics. A number of firms that have restated suspect earnings also appear on lists of top corporate givers or are ranked among most ethical firms, prompting the suspicion that companies are using philanthropy as a kind of moral window-dressing. This paper explores whether restating firms are (1) using philanthropy to divert public attention away from suspect financial results; or (2) making donations to buy good will or a better reputation after they have been required to restate suspect earnings. Our results paint a mixed picture of the morality of corporate philanthropy. Firms forced to restate suspect earnings do seem to be using philanthropy either to divert attention away from their lackluster earnings or to elicit good will from the large community after such restatements. However, the reverse is not true. Just because a firm is a top giver, it does not follow that it is more likely to be a restater of earnings. Nor did we find evidence that firms ranked as very ethical are more likely to be restaters than non-restaters. Firms engage in philanthropy for a variety of reasons. We should not uncritically praise them for their giving, but neither should we regard with a cynical eye all corporate reputations for goodness or all corporation donations.     

Exploring Strategy Implementation Consistency Over Time: The Moderating Effects of Industry Velocity and Firm Performance

In this paper we empirically investigate the temporal development of a firm’s strategy implementation consistency (SIC), i.e. the alignment between firms’ resource allocation decisions (RAD) and their articulated corporate concept (Noda and Bower, 1996; Burgelman and Grove, 1996; Love et al., 2002; Mintzberg, 1978). Doing so, we test whether (1) SIC is more likely to increase or decline over time, (2) whether firms competing in (low) high-velocity environments in fact show different temporal patterns in SIC, and (3) whether overperforming firms succeed in conserving their level of SIC. For our analysis we draw on 6238 RAD of 20 publicly listed firms with European origin over a period of 4–6 years. Applying maximum likelihood ordered logit estimation, our results indicate that the likelihood of an alignment of RAD and a firm’s corporate concept decreases over time. In line with scholars’ perception of high-velocity environments, we find that the firms in our sample competing under such conditions show no clear trend in SIC. These firms tend to “zig-zag” over time – swaying off and pulling back to their strategic course independent of the timing of the announcement of a corporate concept. We also find that overperforming firms are unsuccessful in preserving their SIC at the same level over time. Based on the empirical findings the paper discusses implications for theory and derives suggestions for corporate level managers on how to balance SIC and strategic flexibility.     

Leveraging employees as spokespeople in your HR strategy: How company-related employee posts on social media can help firms to attract new talent

In a similar way as consumers use social media to spread word-of-mouth about brands and firms, employees perform similar activities when posting company-related content on social media. Such posts can be of significant importance for future employees who use them as supposedly unbiased information of firm attractiveness. Hence better understanding such activity is a crucial element of many HR managers. In this study we rely on signaling theory to explore the relationships between corporate brand strength, corporate social media activity and company-related posts by employees on social media channels. To analyze those relationships, we apply variance-based structural equation modeling (PLS SEM) based on data from a survey among scholars who published in A-journals. Our results show that corporate brand strength alone is not sufficient to mobilize employees to upload company-related posts. However, corporate brand strength influences corporate social media activity, which, in turn, impacts company-related posts by employees on social media. We highlight the crucial role of employees as spokespeople and influencers for firms, especially vis-à-vis applicants and prospective employees.     

融资融券对上市公司治理影响的研究

以融资融券机制推出为背景, 运用我国内地A股市场上市公司为样本, 研究了融资融券对上市公司治理水平的影响.回归结果显示, 成为融资融券标的后, 上市公司高管离职与高管薪酬对于公司绩效的黏性均有提高, 表明融资融券可以作为外部公司治理机制.机制检验显示融资融券是通过促进公司信息释放而提升公司治理水平的.进一步分析显示, 当公司面临行业竞争压力较小或面临财务约束时, 融资融券对于公司治理的促进作用更加明显.最后, 将融资和融券分开分析, 发现融资机制和融券机制均对公司治理有提升作用.证明了融资融券机制可以提高资本市场对企业的监督, 促进企业信息释放, 从而提高上市公司治理水平.     

The substitution of governance mechanisms in the evolution of family firms

This paper examines how family firms substitute corporate governance with family governance and self-governance at different stages of their development. We argue that the types of agency problems that family firms face as they pass from one generation to the next determine the extent to which these mechanisms can be used as substitutes for one another. Our empirical investigation provides evidence that in the early stages of a family firm's life cycle, instruments of self-governance lessen the need for mechanisms of corporate governance, whereas in the later stages, instruments of family governance can substitute for mechanisms of corporate governance.     

Unintended agency: Impression management support as a trigger of institutional change in corporate governance

In this paper we describe an emergent process of institutional change in which institutional entrepreneurs are unintentional contributors to the change process. Our theory suggests how change in the predominant institutional logic of corporate governance at public U.S. companies resulted not from deliberate attempts by corporate leaders to change the criteria by which governance is evaluated, but from the cumulative efforts of top executives to provide “impression management support” (IM support) for individual leaders of other firms. We first discuss how IM support has spread among corporate leaders through generalized social exchange. Then we suggest how individual leaders, in seeking to persuade journalists about the quality of corporate leadership at particular other firms, tend to invoke evaluative criteria that deviate from the prevailing institutional logic of governance. We further suggest how the rhetoric of IM support instigated a cascading social influence process that has contributed to changing perceptions about corporate governance among a broad range of other corporate stakeholders. We discuss the implications of our model for sociological perspectives on corporate governance and the corporate elite. Finally, we consider how the occasional negative commentary by corporate leaders about their peers, in combination with IM support, helps to sustain the credibility of the social system in which leaders, journalists, and other information intermediaries operate.     

“Good” corporate governance and the quality of internal auditing departments in Italian listed firms. An exploratory investigation in Italian listed firms

One of the most important issue relating to corporate governance reports refers to their ability to provide users with a complete set of information regarding the effective ability of an entity to achieve oversight objectives by the compliance to corporate governance practices required by a specific law or industry code. In addition, other features, such as the quality of the internal auditing function or the sensitivity of top management to issues relating to corporate internal controls and risk management, can also be taken into account when formulating a judgment on the quality of corporate governance practices. Is there an association between the compliance to codes and internal controls effectiveness? We propose to assess the quality of corporate governance through a proxy that considers several characteristics of internal audit departments and combines them to determine an Internal Audit Departments global quality index—IAD Index. To define IAD global quality we consider the effectiveness of an internal audit function analysing its operational aspects. The IAD Index is based on several signalling elements that previous literature assumed as proxies for quality of IADs which are grouped into four pillars: a formal quality index; a static quality index; an activity-related quality index; and a performance-linked quality index. We then test the IAD index on a sample of Italian listed firms and conclude that there are significant associations (positive and negative) between the degree of compliance to some corporate governance regulations for listed firms and the IAD Index for the sample being considered.     

Corporate Financial Distress and Turnaround Strategies: An Empirical Analysis

Extant research on corporate turnaround from financial distress has prescribed a range of strategies to effect corporate recovery. However, no large sample study has examined the general applicability and effectiveness of these strategies. We set out to test the effectiveness of strategies and identify the underlying factors of effectiveness – the impact of timing, intensity and implementation of strategies on corporate recovery. We examine a sample of 166 potentially bankrupt UK firms drawn from 1985 to 1993 and track their turnaround strategies for a period of three years from distress. These strategies include operational, asset, managerial and financial restructuring. Our results show recovery and non-recovery firms adopt very similar sets of strategies, and managers of non-recovery firms restructure more intensively than recovery firms Nevertheless, non-recovery firms seem far less effective in strategy implementation than their recovery counterparts. Whereas recovery firms adopt growth-oriented and external-market focused strategies, non-recovery firms engage in fire-fighting strategies.     

Asian Family Firms through Corporate Governance and Institutions: A Systematic Review of the Literature and Agenda for Future Research

Although the corporate governance model of Asian family firms has recently gained increased attention, it remains unclear how these firms’ corporate governance mechanisms (and their effectiveness) differ from those of family firms in the western world. Drawing upon a comparative institutional perspective, this paper systematically reviews 148 published articles in peer‐reviewed journals from 1980 to 2015. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of institutional complementarities that constitute informal governance mechanisms adopted by Asian family firms by considering a wider set of institutional factors (i.e. political environment, cultural values and social norms) embedded in the Asian context. The main findings suggest that: (i) given the lack of market‐supporting institutions and the presence of strong political control over Asian economies, family firms tend to cultivate political connections to respond to the failure of legal systems; (ii) Asian family firms still rely heavily on personal networks (e.g. guanxi) to reduce uncertainty, strengthen business ties, and gain access to external resources; and (iii) cultural values and social norms (e.g. ‘face’ saving, reputational concerns and adult child adoption) lead to functionally equivalent corporate governance mechanisms in Asian family firms. The downstream effects of such mechanisms are also discussed, and future research avenues are identified.