Business Commons^™

Three Essays On Corporate Debt Contracting And Innovation, Olaleye Morohunfolu

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

This dissertation comprises three essays investigating topics in Corporate Debt Contracting and Innovation. The first essay examines the relation between Passive Institutional Ownership (IO) and debt covenants. Using Russell 1000/2000 annual index reconstitution as a source of exogenous variation in passive IO, I find that passive IO leads to reduced covenants in the bond market. Specifically, I find that passive IO leads to reduced (a) Investment, (b) Dividend restriction, and (c) Subsequent financing restriction. However, I observe weaker results for loan covenants, implying that loans, usually collateralized, are less sensitive to changes in passive ownership. The overall effect of passive …

Managerial Entrenchment And Financial Reporting Comparability, Qifeng Wu

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study examines whether managerial entrenchment has an association with firms' financial statement comparability. I find that managerial entrenchment has a significant negative association with financial statement comparability, providing a new notion about the management influence on financial reporting quality. Moreover, by using the business segment as a proxy for business complexity, I find that the variation of accounting comparability with its peer firms mainly stems from managers' investment choice. This finding supports FASB's assertion that financial statement comparability is a reporting quality that should be enhanced among firms with similar economic events. Lastly, I test if managerial entrenchment mitigates …

Growth Options And Corporate Goodness, Linh Thompson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

I find evidence to support the negative impact of growth options on corporate social responsibility (CSR). I propose that attention-constrained managers reduce corporate goodness to focus on growth opportunities. The effect is more pronounced for well-governed firms, for financially-constrained firms, and for capital-intensive social dimensions. Firms reduce their research and development (R&D) and capital expenditures, and experience lower annual buy-and-hold abnormal returns (BHAR) subsequent to significant increases in their social performance. I also report value implications of CSR investments. The empirical evidence suggests that managerial choices to divert attention from growth projects toward CSR hurt shareholders.

Corporate Governance Implementation In The Nigerian Banking Industry, David Nkata Bassey

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The increasing level of fraud, the collapse of banks, and the loss of confidence in the Nigerian banking industry have been attributed to poor corporate governance. The problem of this study was effective implementation of corporate governance in Nigeria where multiple regulations are in place. The purpose of this qualitative single case study was to understand how corporate governance is implemented in the Nigerian banking industry in the face of a multiplicity of regulations. The research question investigated how Nigerian bank managers implement corporate governance regulations in the face of a multiplicity of regulations. The conceptual framework was grounded in …

Creating An Ethical Organizational Environment In Banking, Svenja Nitsche

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

An ethical organizational environment ensures a trustworthy organization. This case study explored strategies that banking managers in the United Arab Emirates used to create an ethical organizational environment, one that emphasized the inclusion of ethical values, moral principles, and commitment to society. The target population included senior managers who created and implemented strategies to ensure employees adopted the ethical values in pursuit of an ethical environment. Ethical climate theory provided the conceptual framework for this study. Interviews with 5 managers and company documentation contributed the data for this research. Data were analyzed following inductive investigation and case description. Connecting corporate …

Shareholder Advocacy In Corporate Elections: Case Studies In Proxy Voting Websites For Retail Investors, Robin Miller

International Development, Community and Environment (IDCE)

One of the key rights shareholders retain is the right to vote on issues affecting the companies in which they invest. This voting right is seen as one of the primary means of exercising diligent corporate governance (Cole 2003, Fairfax 2009). Only 28 percent of individual investors vote in corporate elections compared with 91 percent of institutional investors. Informed voting decisions at corporate elections can be very information intensive, and theories of rational apathy and the free rider problem may explain a lack of participation from individual investors.

Many shareholders cannot attend annual corporate meetings, so they …

The Role Of Corporate Governance In Preventing Bank Failures In Zimbabwe., Bernard Chidziva

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

The 2008-2009 global financial crisis resulting in some banks collapsing has raised questions about the corporate governance of financial institutions. Some bank managers lack an understanding of the role of corporate governance in preventing bank failures. In this multiple case study, data were collected through interviews and triangulated with annual reports to explore the strategies some bank managers need to improve their understanding of the role of corporate governance in preventing bank failures in Zimbabwe. The 7 study participants were purposefully recruited from a larger population of 19 bank managers responsible for corporate governance and compliance operating in Zimbabwe between …

Three Essays On Bailout Banks During 2007-2009 Financial Crisis, Daphne Shu Nu Wang

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

In the wake of this financial crisis 2007-2009, the government injected approximately $604 billion into financial sector to increase liquidity and improve capital base for the bailout banks, which in order to restore market confidence and to prevent bank runs and possible contagion effects.

The main purpose of this dissertation is to assess the appropriateness and effects of the bailout program between 2008 and 2009. Chapter 1 introduces the causes and the effects of the recent financial crisis. Chapter 2 explains the bailout program-Capital Purchase Program (CPP) in details and discusses the sample section method used in this dissertation. There …

Correlations Between Corporate Governance, Financial Performance, And Market Value, Mohamed Saleh Darweesh

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Corporate governance can play a significant role in financial market stability and economic development. Corporate governance scholars have provided controversial results with respect to the relationships between corporate governance and both corporate financial performance and market value. Based on agency theory and institutional theory, the purpose of this correlational study was to investigate the relationship between corporate governance mechanisms, financial performance, and market value in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's 116 firms from 2010 to 2014. Financial performance was measured by return on assets and return on equity, while market value was measured by Tobin's q. Corporate governance mechanisms involved in …

The Roles Boards Play In Ceo Succession Planning, Yi Li Rivolta

Doctoral Dissertations

A lack of CEO succession planning increases business risk as disruption is more likely during a CEO transition. One difficulty of examining the importance of CEO succession planning is that the planning process is difficult to observe and evaluate. The main purposes of this dissertation are two-fold. First is to investigate whether CEO succession planning matters by comparing disruption costs in firms with planned departure and those with unexpected CEO departures due to death and illness. The second purpose is to investigate whether inside or outside directors improve organizational resiliency using the context of sudden CEO departures when CEO succession …

The Determinants And Consequences Of Ceo Cheap Stock In Ipos, Michael Dennis Stuart

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The term "cheap stock" describes undervalued stock options granted to CEOs and other key employees prior to initial public offerings (IPOs). Pre-IPO firms have incentives to issue cheap stock as compensation because it results in lower compensation expense on the income statement and in large cash windfalls to CEOs subsequent to the IPO. Because cheap stock results in an overstatement of earnings, the Securities and Exchange Commission frequently challenges the valuations of these grants, which makes cheap stock a key accounting issue in many IPOs. Using a sample of firms that completed IPOs between 2004 and 2007, I investigate the …

The Impact Of Ceo Duality On Firm Financial And Market Performance During The Period Of 2008 Through 2010 : A Period Of Financial Crisis, Samuel Eugene Ferrara

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

ABSTRACT

Executive Compensation, Firm Performance And Liquidity Under Imperfect Corporate Governance, Yongli Luo

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

This dissertation examines the relationship between executive compensation, firm performance and liquidity under imperfect corporate governance institution by using a novel Chinese dataset over 2001-2010. The first essay examines the determinants of Chinese executive compensation from the agency-based theoretical framework. I find that there is a positive relationship between Chinese executive compensation and firm performance. The weak corporate governance in China exhibits strong liquidity and control effects after the split-share structure reform. It seems that CEO duality, the establishment of compensation committee, and the involvement of state ownership in Chinese public firms may lead executive compensation to a relation-based rather …

Two Essays On Corporate Governance, Yuwei Wang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation includes two related chapters that investigate corporate governance. In the first chapter, we examine the effectiveness of board monitoring on CEOs. It is widely believed that outsider boards are better monitors. In fact, regulations now require that the board of directors of publicly traded firms be composed of a majority of independent directors (or outsiders). However, this paper documents that an insider-dominated board can monitor the CEO just as well as an outsider board can when the firm's CEO is hired from outside. The results suggest that what matters is not so much as the structure of the …

Essays On The Effect Of Excess Compensation And Governance Changes On Firm Value, Mustafa A. Dah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays on the effect of excess compensation and corporate governance changes on the firm’s performance. The first paper utilizes a cost minimization stochastic frontier approach to investigate the efficiency of director total compensation. Our findings suggest that board members are over compensated. We show that, on average, the director actual compensation level is above the efficient compensation level by around 63%. Our results suggest that an increase in director excess compensation decreases the likelihood of CEO turnover, reduces the turnover-performance sensitivity, and increases managerial entrenchment. Thus, the surplus in director compensation is directly associated with …

Two Essays On Behavioral Finance, Quang Viet Vu

Theses and Dissertations in Business Administration

The first essay is entitled: "CEO Overconfidence, Corporate Governance Practices and Firm Innovation". In this study, I examine if overconfident CEOs overinvest or underinvest in innovative projects. I also investigate if overconfident CEOs pursue innovative projects to benefit personal interests or the interest of shareholders. By focusing on the effect of corporate governance in monitoring the behavior of overconfident CEOs, my results show that there is a negative relation between CEO overconfidence and firm innovation among firms with poor governance. In these cases, the finding is consistent with the implication that overconfident CEO are entrenched and invest inadequately …

Designated Directors In The Boardroom: Their Impact On Governance And Performance And Shareholder Wealth Effects, Laura Seery Cole

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines the appointment of designated directors on boards of directors. Designated director appointments are uncontested board appointments by activist investors, whereby normal nominating and voting election procedures are circumvented. Instances such as these, where directors are appointed rather than elected, are a form of shareholder access to the proxy. In this dissertation, new evidence is provided that is relevant to the proxy access debate by investigating the hypothesis that firms with appointed designated directors have different firm and governance characteristics than firms with elected directors. In particular, the following questions are asked: what are the shareholder wealth effects …

Three Essays On Opacity, Corporate Governance, And Credit Ratings, Yiwen Gu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the first essay, utilizing a more recent and expanded 20-year sample 1991-2010 of dual-rated bonds issued, I confirm Morgan's (2002) finding that banks are relatively more opaque than nonbanks. The likelihood of a rating split is higher, and the magnitude of the rating gap is larger, for banks than nonnbanks. Moreover, rating agency disagreements are more significant for banks with relatively higher loan and trading securities holdings and maintain lower capital, and for banks engaged in mortgage securitization. Importantly, I find that rating agency disagreements reflect market proxies of information uncertainty. Further, opacity makes external financing more costly. Equity …

Investigate The Wealth Effect Of Investment Banks And Fairness Opinions They Provide In Corporate Mergers And Acquisitions, Weishen Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The dissertation studies the value of both investment banks' services on the whole and fairness opinions specifically, which the banks provide to the acquiring firms. In the first chapter, I examine how investment banks and acquiring firms' governance quality interact to affect shareholders' wealth in corporate mergers and acquisitions. Although the wealth impact of investment banks in mergers and acquisitions is widely studied in the literature, existing studies do not consider the interaction between governance quality and investment banks. I examine how investment banks and governance quality of acquiring firms interact to affect the wealth of acquiring firms' shareholders. I …

What Drives Firms To Diversity?, Rong Guo

Finance Dissertations

WHAT DRIVES FIRMS TO DIVERSITY? By RONG GUO Committee Chair: Dr. Omesh Kini Major Department: Finance This paper examines whether corporate governance structures, serving as proxies for agency costs, can explain firms’ decision to diversify. Specifically, it has been hypothesized that firms with worse corporate governance structures are more likely to diversify. The extant literature usually compares the governance characteristics of multi-segment firms to those of single segment firms to address this issue. However, different governance characteristics may simply reflect differences in firm characteristics of diversified firms and focused firms. Furthermore, industry factors may affect both the propensity of firms …

Ceo Succession Processes And Agency Costs, Zeynep Ayca Altintig

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In the 'passing the baton' succession process, the incumbent CEO/Chairman relinquishes the CEO title, but retains the Chairman title to facilitate monitoring the new CEO during a probationary period. The new CEO eventually wins the Chairman title if he is successful during the probationary period. We argue that this type of succession process can lead to managerial conformism and conservatism because reputation concerns give the retiring CEO incentives to pressure the new CEO to continue existing policies and to avoid making major changes that could substantially improve performance or increase firm value. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find no changes …