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Full-Text Articles in Business

Too Many Peas In A Pod? How Overlaps In Directors’ Local And Global Status Characteristics Influence Board Turnover In Newly Public Firms, Abhijith G. Acharya, Timothy G. Pollock Oct 2021

Too Many Peas In A Pod? How Overlaps In Directors’ Local And Global Status Characteristics Influence Board Turnover In Newly Public Firms, Abhijith G. Acharya, Timothy G. Pollock

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Drawing on status characteristics theory, we explore how boards’ social structures influence board turnover. We theorize that (1) understanding directors’ relative standing and spheres of influence in the local status hierarchy creates deference structures that reduce conflict and enhance stability, thereby reducing board turnover; and (2) shared performance expectations and attraction based on homophily in the global status hierarchy can also reduce conflict and enhance stability, and thus serve as another means of reducing board turnover. Using data on the five years following the initial public offerings (IPOs) of 218 firms that went public between 2001 and 2005, we find …


Is Corporate Social Responsibility An Agency Problem?, Hao Liang, Luc Renneboog Jan 2018

Is Corporate Social Responsibility An Agency Problem?, Hao Liang, Luc Renneboog

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This chapter examines whether CSR investments occur mostly in firms with severe agency problems, which suggests that CSR is an agency issue. We demonstrate that this is not the case: CSR investments and performance are higher when dividends are high, leverage is high, cash flows and cash holdings are low, and when there is a high managerial pay-for-performance sensitivity. All these variables combined represent managerial discipline in terms of corporate investing. We also document that better legal protection of shareholder rights is positively related to CSR performance. This implies that when shareholders are more powerful relative to the management, the …


The Impact Of Csr On Corporate Financial Performance, David K. Ding Sep 2017

The Impact Of Csr On Corporate Financial Performance, David K. Ding

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We provide one of the first analyses of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm performance using only annual financial reports. We document a link between corporate financial performance (CFP) and CSR, although this is not always positive. Specifically, we investigate whether CSR performance can be implied from financial reporting and provide evidence that CSR information implied by financial reports have a significant association with CFP. Furthermore, we provide the first comprehensive study of CSR reporting and link it with CFP in New Zealand.


Powerful Blockholders And Ceo Turnover, Chi Shen Wei, Lei Zhang Aug 2017

Powerful Blockholders And Ceo Turnover, Chi Shen Wei, Lei Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We identify the power of institutional blockholders to influence management using previous occurrences of forced CEO turnover at other firms in the blockholders’ overall portfolio. We create a “powerful blockholder linkage” measure that strongly predicts future forced CEO turnover. These effects are larger when “powerful” blockholders are more motivated to monitor and when they have had valuable monitoring experience. Moreover, firms with powerful blockholders display higher CEO turnover-performance sensitivity, pursue more value-increasing mergers, and have higher firm value. Overall, our results suggest that an identifiable group of powerful blockholders play an important role in corporate governance.


Governance And Post-Repurchase Performance, Gary Caton, Jeremy Goh, Yen Teik Lee, Scott Linn Aug 2016

Governance And Post-Repurchase Performance, Gary Caton, Jeremy Goh, Yen Teik Lee, Scott Linn

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Payout policies based on share repurchase programs provide greater flexibility than do those based on cash dividends. We develop and test an empirical model in which strongly governed companies outperform weakly governed companies after announcing share repurchase programs. Our findings include positive associations between strong governance and both post-announcement adjusted operating performance and abnormal stock returns. The results are robust to sample selection bias, different sample criteria, governance measurement, and various control variables. In addition, governance strength is associated with larger post-announcement changes in CEO incentive compensation and merger and acquisition activity, both of which we argue are consistent with …


Governance Matter: Morningstar Stewardship Grades And Mutual Fund Performance, Jerry X. Cao, Aurobindo Ghosh, Jeremy Goh, Wee Seng Ng Jul 2016

Governance Matter: Morningstar Stewardship Grades And Mutual Fund Performance, Jerry X. Cao, Aurobindo Ghosh, Jeremy Goh, Wee Seng Ng

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Mutual fund investors have the arduous task of disentangling luck from ability of mutual fund managers’ performance. In this paper we investigate the role of mutual fund corporate governance (measured by Morningstar Stewardship grade) in mutual fund performance. We propose an objective data-driven corporate governance score based on principal components of Morningstar Stewardship Grades. Furthermore, we establish corporate governance scores have Granger Causality on long-term risk-adjusted returns. The findings suggest that corporate governance grades of mutual funds carry information content beyond the usual star rating measures for predicting long-term mutual fund performance and provide an effective tool for selecting funds.


Open Market Share Repurchase Programs And Corporate Governance: Company Performance, Gary Caton, Jeremy Goh, Yen Teik Lee, Scott C. Linn Dec 2015

Open Market Share Repurchase Programs And Corporate Governance: Company Performance, Gary Caton, Jeremy Goh, Yen Teik Lee, Scott C. Linn

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Payout policies based on share repurchase programs provide greater flexibility than do those based on cash dividends. We develop and test an empirical model in which strongly-governed companies outperform weakly-governed companies after announcing share repurchase programs. Our findings include positive associations between strong governance and both post-announcement adjusted operating performance and abnormal stock returns. The results are robust to sample selection bias, different sample criteria, governance measurement, and various control variables. In addition, governance strength is associated with larger post-announcement changes in CEO incentive compensation and merger and acquisition activity, both of which we argue are consistent with strongly-governed companies …


Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility In Singapore: Towards More Effective Media Relations, A. Pang, Angela Ka Ying Mak, Joanne M. H. Lee Jan 2015

Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility In Singapore: Towards More Effective Media Relations, A. Pang, Angela Ka Ying Mak, Joanne M. H. Lee

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Organizations face several impediments when it comes to communicating their corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagement to the public via the media. This paper examines practitioners’ and journalists’ perception of CSR communication using the agenda-building model (Qiu Q, Cameron GT, Communicating health disparities: building a supportive media agenda. VDM Verlag, Saarbruecken, 2008) by examining news coverage of how practitioners and journalists understand CSR, what types of CSR stories get covered in the media, and how are CSR stories portrayed in the media. News coverage of Singapore’s mainstream publications, The Straits Times, The Business Times, and The New Paper, were analyzed. The …


Does It Pay To Outclass? Corporate Social Responsibility And Its Impact On Firm Value, C. Ferreira, David K. Ding, U. Wongchoti Oct 2014

Does It Pay To Outclass? Corporate Social Responsibility And Its Impact On Firm Value, C. Ferreira, David K. Ding, U. Wongchoti

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We show that conventional aggregation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) raw scores and its interpreted impact on firm value is less than reliable. Instead, the value impact of CSR activities relies heavily on the industry-specific relative position of the firm. Firms that distinguish themselves over their peers are associated with an increased value. This finding is robust and holds for both responsible and irresponsible behavior. Information concerns and portfolio construction allude to a possible CSR clientele, suggesting the existence of an optimal CSR level. Our peer-effect results are robust to unobserved heterogeneity.


Reading Between The Lines: Financial Reporting, Implied Corporate Social Responsibility And Corporate Financial Performance, C. Ferreira, David K. Ding, U. Wongchoti Feb 2014

Reading Between The Lines: Financial Reporting, Implied Corporate Social Responsibility And Corporate Financial Performance, C. Ferreira, David K. Ding, U. Wongchoti

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

We provide one of the first analyses of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and firm performance using only annual financial reports. We document a link between corporate financial performance (CFP) and CSR, although this is not always positive. Specifically, we investigate whether CSR performance can be implied from financial reporting and provide evidence that CSR information implied by financial reports have a significant association with CFP. Furthermore, we provide the first comprehensive study of CSR reporting and link it with CFP in New Zealand.


Grades Matter In Performance: Morningstar Stewardship Grades And Mutual Fund Performance, Aurobindo Ghosh, Jeremy Goh, Wee Seng Ng Nov 2012

Grades Matter In Performance: Morningstar Stewardship Grades And Mutual Fund Performance, Aurobindo Ghosh, Jeremy Goh, Wee Seng Ng

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Investors in mutual funds have the unenviable task of disentangling two mutually confounding effects. First, to fathom the future performance of the funds based on current evidence, and second, to assess how well the mutual fund managers will steward their investments under uncertain economic conditions. We corroborate the dependence of weighted risk-adjusted returns (viz. the Star Ratings) on corporate governance score (viz. Stewardship Grade) accounting for fund specific characteristics. We document Stewardship scores Granger cause Star Rating. We propose an objective data-driven corporate governance score based on the components of Stewardship Grade. Both the static and dynamic fixed-effects models show …


Performance Sensitivity Of Executive Pay: The Role Of Foreign Investors And Affiliated Directors In Japan, Asli M. Colpan, Toru Yoshikawa Nov 2012

Performance Sensitivity Of Executive Pay: The Role Of Foreign Investors And Affiliated Directors In Japan, Asli M. Colpan, Toru Yoshikawa

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study investigates the effects of corporate governance factors on the firm performance and executive compensation linkage. Specifically, we examine how domestic corporate-appointed directors, bank-appointed directors and foreign ownership moderate the relationship between firm profitability, sales growth, and executive bonus pay in Japanese firms. Using a sample of the largest Japanese manufacturing companies from 1997 to 2007, we find that corporate-appointed directors positively moderate the relationship between firm growth and bonus pay, while foreign shareholders exhibit a positive moderating effect on the relationship between firm profitability and bonus pay. Bank-appointed directors are straddled between their profitability orientation and relational role: …


Convergence Of Corporate Governance: Critical Review And Future Directions, Toru Yoshikawa, Abdul A. Rasheed May 2009

Convergence Of Corporate Governance: Critical Review And Future Directions, Toru Yoshikawa, Abdul A. Rasheed

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Research Question/Issue: Convergence in corporate governance across countries has been a subject of interest and controversy in a variety of disciplines. We attempt to address a number of related research questions: (1) what constitutes convergence? (2) what are the drivers that propel corporations in different nations towards convergence? (3) what are the major impediments that stand in the way of convergence? (4) what empirical evidence do we have to suggest that we are moving towards or away from convergence? and (5) what would be some productive avenues for further research on this topic? Research Findings/Results: Despite the vigorous intellectual position …


Hype My Stock: Do Firms Really Want Biased Research?, Roger Loh May 2009

Hype My Stock: Do Firms Really Want Biased Research?, Roger Loh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Analyst research is alleged to be biased because of conflicts of interest when analysts’ employers underwrite securities for the firms covered. I posit that affiliated analyst optimism should be the strongest for offering firms with a desire to over-inflate stock prices. I hypothesize that a firm’s corporate governance and its CEO incentives are related to the affiliation bias. Using stock recommendations data, I find evidence that the affiliation bias is indeed more pervasive for firms with high CEO wealth sensitivity to stock price (i.e., high CEO delta). The larger affiliation bias for high delta firms remains even after the introduction …