Corporate planning and Corporate Collapse

In this article John Argenti describes what he found during a year's investigation into company failure that he undertook for a recently published book ‘Corporate Collapse’. At first it was difficult to see any pattern but certain conclusions gradually emerged as he discussed the causes and symptoms of failure with more and more people.

Many of the lessons are of particular significance for bankers, shareholders, accountants and others but John Argenti believes there are a number of extremely important lessons for corporate planners as well—especially as ‘defective response to change’ turns out to be one of the prime causes of failure in mature companies.     

企业生命周期、公司治理与公司资本配置效率

现有关于公司治理机制对公司非效率资本配置治理效果的检验大多局限于静态层面,本研究通过构建企业生命周期划分指标,从企业发展进程的动态层面考察我国上市公司资本配置效率的动态演变,并检验公司治理机制在企业不同生命周期中的治理效果.结果表明,我国上市公司过度投资随企业生命周期呈先降后升的趋势变化,且不同阶段差异显著,但投资不足在企业生命周期内几乎不发生变化.公司治理机制对公司资本配置效率的治理效果随企业生命周期发生演变.在过度投资组,董事长与总经理两职合一在成长阶段显著抑制过度投资;大股东持股在衰退阶段加剧过度投资.在投资不足组,管理层持股能够降低公司投资不足;成长阶段中董事长与总经理两职合一、成熟阶段中的独立董事反而加剧投资不足.     

Corporate Governance

The paper first develops an economic analysis of the concept of shareholder value, describes its approach, and discusses some open questions. It emphasizes the relationship between pledgeable income, monitoring, and control rights using a unifying and simple framework. The paper then provides a first and preliminary analysis of the concept of the stakeholder society. It investigates whether the managerial incentives and the control structure described in the first part can be modified so as to promote the stakeholder society. It shows that the implementation of the stakeholder society strikes three rocks: dearth of pledgeable income, deadlocks in decision‐making, and lack of clear mission for management. While it fares better than the stakeholder society on those three grounds, shareholder value generates biased decision‐making; the paper analyzes the costs and benefits of various methods of protecting noncontrolling stakeholders: covenants, exit options, flat claims, enlarged fiduciary duty.     

慈善捐赠、公司治理与股东财富

近些年来,越来越多的企业开始从事慈善捐赠,而企业这种利他主义行为会给股东财富带来何种影响却始终没有得到回答。通过研究2008年汶川地震后中国上市公司的捐赠行为,本文发现慈善捐赠对于股东财富来说是一把双刃剑:不论从短期还是长期来看,累计超额回报率均和捐赠排名正相关,表明了慈善捐赠能够提升股东财富;而对于成长性高的公司而言,其捐款的机会成本较高,企业的捐赠活动降低了股东财富。更为重要的是,慈善捐赠对于股东财富的提升仅体现在大股东非绝对控股和机构持股的公司中,说明只有有效的公司治理机制才能够确保企业做出最大化股东财富的捐赠行为。本文的发现为更好地评价和规范企业慈善捐赠活动提供了一定的经验支持。     

论企业伦理责任在企业社会责任中的核心地位

企业社会责任受到国内外广泛关注已有时日,但企业社会责任定义尚未有共识;企业社会责任实践与企业社会责任观念提出初衷不尽一致的状况依然存在。究其原因,与企业社会责任的核心是什么这个问题一直没有得到应有的重视不无关系。由此,首先界定了企业伦理责任并回答了相关问题;其次,论证了为何企业伦理责任是企业社会责任的核心;最后,讨论了明确提出企业伦理责任及其在企业社会责任中的核心地位对未来研究和实践的重要意义。     

中小股东投票权、公司决策与公司治理——来自一项自然试验的证据

基于深交所的一个自然试验,本文考察中小股东参与公司治理程度的提升是否影响公司盈余行为,并尝试回答以下问题:中小股东参与在公司治理中扮演何种角色?对公司而言,中小股东参与扮演了外部监督角色?还是给管理层带来压力而扭曲了公司行为?研究发现,中小股东参与度高的公司更倾向操纵盈余。我们利用滞后变量回归、PSM以及IV回归控制内生性,结论不变;进一步,当企业存在融资或内部交易需求、信息不对称程度较高、投资者整体教育水平较低时,公司更有可能通过操纵盈余来迎合中小股东。本文研究结论具有明晰的政策含义,即在赋予中小投资者参与公司治理的权利的同时,必须提升投资者保护,否则可能会引致适得其反的效果。     

管理者代理行为、公司过度投资与公司治理——基于企业生命周期视角的实证研究

通过建立企业生命周期新的划分指标,从企业发展的动态层面研究管理者代理行为与公司过度投资之间关系随企业生命周期的演变,并检验公司治理机制随企业生命周期的治理效果。结果表明,我国上市公司管理者代理行为随企业生命周期动态变化,其对公司过度投资的影响随企业生命周期发展不断减弱。不同公司治理机制的治理效果随企业生命周期也发生变化,其中董事长总经理兼任在成长阶段能够有效抑制公司过度投资,而独立董事在成熟阶段及大股东在衰退阶段均显著没有发挥应有的监督作用。成长阶段中的公司监事会能够对代理行为引致的过度投资起到显著的监督作用,而董事长总经理兼任则显著加剧代理行为引致的过度投资,成长阶段中管理层持股、成熟阶段中独立董事与外部机构持股以及衰退阶段中大股东均显著没有起到应有的治理作用。     

公司治理与企业价值的实证研究

本文试图构建一个能够恰当反映和评价中国企业公司治理水平的CGI指标体系及企业价值计量模型,并运用回归分析,检验中国企业公司治理与其价值的相关性。研究结论表明公司治理水平对企业短期绩效的影响相比于对反映企业长期绩效的企业价值的影响更为显著。     

通才还是专才:CEO的能力结构和公司创新

专才和通才,谁更适合做公司领导人?本文从公司创新的角度研究这一问题。公司如果利用长期性的保障合约来激励专用性的人力资本,就要放弃有限期的合约对人力资本的重定价功能,两者难以兼顾。本文从中国本土的制度背景出发,从公司的总经理和董事长的工种、行业和地区跨界经历出发,构建了能力结构指数,并发现通才型领导人显著提升了公司的研发费用、专利申请和专利引用。而且,这一结果在公司业务的地理和行业跨界度提升时更为明显。反之,当公司聘请了本行业相关经历的独立董事或者给予高管更高的股份时,通才效应明显削弱。最后,统计结果在基于领导人能力结构变更的准双重差分实验和采用工具变量的两阶段模型中保持稳定。倾向得分匹配的结果揭示,通用型领导人所在的公司平均多申请20%的专利。综合结论可得,通才领导人基于跨界情境的可复制的成功,更有利于激励创新,这有助于我们理解通用型人才在全球经理人市场中的比例为何稳步上升。     

政治关联、企业绩效与企业行为的研究综述

自Krueger开创性地指出企业家花费时间和金钱与政府官员建立关系能给企业带来利益以来,企业与政治之间的关系一直是经济学家关注的热点问题之一。本文梳理了近年来关于政治关联(political connections)与企业价值之间的主要理论和实证文献。在实证文献综述中,从政治关联对企业价值与企业行为影响的这两个维度出发,按照文献的发展脉络和逻辑关系,阐述了这些文献的概念定义、度量方法、样本选择及主要结论。最后进行了总结并提出进一步研究的展望。     

公司治理学科发展的新阶段--《公司治理学》述评

公司治理是国内外管理、经济、法律等学术界和实业界共同关注的一个世界性课题。2005年,作为中国公司治理研究的开拓者,全国首批文科长江学者特聘教授、国家“985”哲学社会科学重点研究创新基地——南开大学公司治理研究中心首席专家李维安教授主编并由高等教育出版社出版了普通高等教育“十五”国家级规划教材《公司治理学》。该书立足学科前沿,全面系统论述了公司治理学的理论基础、框架体系及运作机制。该书的出版,开创了公司治理学科发展的新阶段,标志着公司治理学在我国工商管理教育体系中学科地位的正式确立。一伴随着证券市场的建设…     

Doing Well by Reporting Good: Reporting Corporate Responsibility and Corporate Performance

This article aimed to examine the impacts of reporting‐type corporate responsibility activities (CRA‐R) on corporate social and financial performance. Academic research has explored how varying attributes of markets, industry sectors and firms might shape corporate social and financial performance, but includes little effort to examine the impacts of different kinds of CRA on corporate performance. We build on debate about the value of firms' reporting activities related to corporate responsibility. Recent literature suggests that CRA‐R is superficial marketing or “greenwashing.” Despite this viewpoint, corporate reporting activities related to responsibility are rising. In order to solve this puzzle, this article explores the impact of CRA‐R on corporate performance. First, drawing from the institutional perspective, we propose that CRA‐R will positively impact corporate social performance (CSP) oriented toward secondary stakeholders. Second, combining the stakeholder–agency perspective and corporate responsibility literature, we motivate the hypotheses that CRA‐R positively influences corporate financial performance (CFP). Empirical testing with a unique dataset of large US corporations selected in the Fortune 500 support the proposed hypotheses. In particular, both corporate social responsibility and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) activities positively influence corporate environmental performance, and financial performance. In particular, GRI reporting is a strong indicator to impact both social and financial performance. Our findings indicate that CRA‐R should not simply reflect shallow motivations, but deliver value to noninvestor stakeholders as well as investors.     

Corporate planning at Dunlop

It has often been said that corporate planning is an art which, like all art perhaps, means all things to all men. As other papers have attempted to do this approaches the concepts of corporate planning in an analytical manner and illuminates a number of approaches which the author considers to be preferable. The problems of corporate planning in Dunlop Limited are then analysed and the author's own experience of corporate planning in that company are utilized describing a practical and comprehensive system.     

Corporate sustainability and risk

This study analyses the relationship between corporate sustainability and corporate risk. Different grades of sustainability are constructed from the inclusion of companies into sustainability indices and the number of years included. The grades are measured against variables of expected and unexpected risk and drivers of a sustainable company’s risk (sustainability risk). Based on the assumption that the level of sustainability impacts upon the dimension of risk, a sample of 167 European companies and different subsamples are assessed on available accounting data. However, the findings do not provide any clear evidence, suggesting that companies, once rated as sustainable, display similar patterns of risk and that a high degree of sustainability may be achieved without adverse impacts on risk and risk-adjusted return.     

Corporate control and underinvestment

This paper reports a study of how the benefits that large shareholders derive from their control of a firm affect the equity issue and investment decisions of the firm. I introduce an explicit agency cost structure based on the benefits of control of the largest shareholder. In a simple extension of the model developed by Myers and Majluf (J Financial Econ 13:187–221, 1984), I show that underinvestment is aggravated when there are benefits of being in control and these benefits are diluted if equity is issued to finance an investment project. Using a large panel of US data, I find that the concerns of large shareholders about the dilution of ownership and control cause firms to issue less equity and to invest less than would otherwise be the case. I also find that it makes no significant difference whether new shares are issued to old shareholders or new shareholders.     

Corporate expatriate career development

Western business expatriates assigned to Hong Kong responded to a mail survey regarding availability and usage of corporate career development activities. Despite the strategic need for expatriation, it was found that corporate development activities had a low availability indicating little interest on the part of parent organizations to assist in the development of expatriate careers. Large-size parent organizations, with substantial interests in international business operations, generally provide more expatriate career development assistance as opposed to small and medium-sized enterprises with fewer resources and little experience to cater to such needs. Experienced expatriate managers generally use more career development activities than less experienced managers, which could pose a problem for the procurement and advancement of new generations of expatriate managers. Implications of these findings for managers and their employers are discussed in detail.