Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Business Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Doctoral Dissertations

Theses/Dissertations

Corporate governance

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Business

An Examination Of The Incentives To Issue Spring-Loaded Equity Awards, Kory Davis Maag May 2024

An Examination Of The Incentives To Issue Spring-Loaded Equity Awards, Kory Davis Maag

Doctoral Dissertations

A spring-loaded equity award is an award granted to an employee while the firm possesses non-public, positive information that is released shortly after the equity award is granted. Generally, shareholders oppose these awards, but firms see them as valid rewards for executives. In my study, I examine factors associated with the issuance of spring-loaded awards. I identify potential spring-loaded awards (SLAs) issued to Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) by examining returns shortly following the grant date of equity awards to CEOs. I assign awards to differing levels of potential to be spring-loaded based on these returns. I find that firms are …


The Roles Boards Play In Ceo Succession Planning, Yi Li Rivolta Aug 2014

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 …


Clawback Provisions: How Sharp Are The Claws? An Analysis Of The Deterrence Effectiveness Of Voluntary Clawback Provisions, Allison Kristina Beck May 2012

Clawback Provisions: How Sharp Are The Claws? An Analysis Of The Deterrence Effectiveness Of Voluntary Clawback Provisions, Allison Kristina Beck

Doctoral Dissertations

This paper investigates the effectiveness of voluntary clawback provisions as a deterrent for earnings management behavior. The Dodd-Frank (DF) Bill signed into law July 21, 2010 mandates that the SEC adopt a rule requiring all U.S.-listed companies to implement clawback provisions that recapture excess compensation received by executives on the basis of a faulty financial statement filing with the SEC that later must be restated. Implicitly, the DF regulation assumes that clawbacks will successfully constrain financial misreporting and that a “one-size-fits-all” approach is best. In contrast with prior research that has investigated factors associated with a firm’s decision to adopt …


Designated Directors In The Boardroom: Their Impact On Governance And Performance And Shareholder Wealth Effects, Laura Seery Cole Aug 2011

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 …