Corporate Governance Characteristics (corporate + governance_characteristic)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Corporate Governance and Financial Distress: evidence from Taiwan

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE, Issue 3 2004
Tsun-Siou Lee
Prior empirical evidence supports the wealth expropriation hypothesis that weak corporate governance induced by certain types of ownership structures and board composition tends to result in minority interest expropriation. This in turn reduces corporate value. However, it is still unclear whether corporate financial distress is related to these corporate governance characteristics. To answer this question, we adopt three variables to proxy for corporate governance risk, namely, the percentage of directors occupied by the controlling shareholder, the percentage the controlling shareholders shareholding pledged for bank loans (pledge ratio), and the deviation in control away from the cash flow rights. Binary logistic regressions are then fitted to generate dichotomous prediction models. Taiwanese listed firms, characterised by a high degree of ownership concentration, similar to that in most countries, are used as our empirical samples. The evidence suggests that the three variables mentioned above are positively related to the risk for financial distress in the following year. Generally speaking, firms with weak corporate governance are vulnerable to economic downturns and the probability of falling into financial distress increases. [source]


Determinants of executive compensation in privately held firms

ACCOUNTING & FINANCE, Issue 3 2010
Jesper Banghøj
M52; Compensation and Compensation Methods and Their Effects Abstract We examine what determines executive compensation in privately held firms. Our study is motivated by the fact that most studies in this area rely on data from publicly traded firms. Further, the few studies that are based on data from privately held firms only examine a limited number of determinants of executive compensation. Our findings indicate that the pay-to-performance relation is weak. Board size and ownership concentration are the only corporate governance characteristics that explain variations in executive compensation. Executive characteristics like skills, title and educational attainment all explain variations in executive compensation. Contrary to our expectations, we do not find a stronger pay-to-performance relation in firms with better designed bonus plans. [source]


Innate and discretionary accruals quality and corporate governance

ACCOUNTING & FINANCE, Issue 1 2010
Pamela Kent
M40; M41 Abstract This paper extends previous research on the association between corporate governance mechanisms and accruals quality. We derive measures of the discretionary and innate components of accruals quality and regress them against corporate governance characteristics. For discretionary accruals, we find use of a Big 4 audit firm and a larger audit committee as the primary governance mechanisms associated with higher accruals quality. For innate accruals quality, we find that higher quality is associated with an independent board of directors, a larger, more independent and more active audit committee, and use of a Big 4 audit firm. Our findings suggest a stronger relation between sound governance mechanisms and innate accruals quality than discretionary accruals quality. [source]


Corporate governance and chief executive officer dismissal following poor performance: Australian evidence

ACCOUNTING & FINANCE, Issue 1 2009
James Lau
G30 Abstract This paper investigates the association between corporate performance and the probability of chief executive officer (CEO) dismissal for large corporations in Australia. Consistent with prior US and UK studies, corporate performance is negatively related to the probability of CEO dismissal, using both accounting and market-based performance measures. This paper also investigates whether key corporate governance characteristics affect the likelihood of CEO dismissal, by examining their effect on the strength of the negative association between corporate performance and CEO dismissal. The only significant variable is size of the board. Although its effect is opposite to that hypothesized, this paper provides a plausible explanation. Overall, the results are consistent with shareholder wealth considerations dominating board behaviour in Australia. [source]