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Corporate Performance (corporate + performance)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Business, Economics, Finance and Accounting	90%
Humanities and Social Sciences	9%

Selected Abstracts

Ownership Concentration and Corporate Performance on the Budapest Stock Exchange: do too many cooks spoil the goulash?

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE, Issue 2 2005
John S. Earle
We examine the impact of ownership concentration on firm performance using panel data for firms listed on the Budapest Stock Exchange, where ownership tends to be highly concentrated and frequently involves multiple blocks. Fixed-effects estimates imply that the size of the largest block increases profitability and efficiency strongly and monotonically, but the effects of total blockholdings are much smaller and statistically insignificant. Controlling for the size of the largest block, point estimates of the marginal effects of additional blocks are negative. The results suggest that the marginal costs of concentration may outweigh the benefits when the increased concentration involves "too many cooks". [source]

The Influence of Corporate Governance on Corporate Performance and Value after Changing the CEO: Evidence from Taiwan,

ASIA-PACIFIC JOURNAL OF FINANCIAL STUDIES, Issue 6 2009
Hsu-Huei Huang
Abstract Can corporate performance be improved by changing the CEO? The answer to this question may vary from country to country or from firm to firm. This study proposes that, generally speaking, firms in countries with a better corporate governance environment or firms with better governing mechanisms are more likely to see improvements in performance after a change in their CEOs than those without this environment or these mechanisms. To test this corporate governance hypothesis, we compared corporate performance and value measures of 155 listed companies in Taiwan that had their CEOs replaced between 1996 and 2002. At the national level, we found that in Taiwan corporate performance did not generally improve by merely replacing the CEO. At the firm level, companies with better corporate governance in terms of ownership structure and board structure were found to have better performance and higher corporate value after changing the CEO, and they were also found to have a better net improvement in performance. [source]

Changing Graph Use in Corporate Annual Reports: A Time-Series Analysis

CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNTING RESEARCH, Issue 2 2000
VIVIEN A. BEATTIE
Abstract Graphs in corporate annual reports form part of a powerfully designed annual report package that offers considerable potential for "impression management." The primary purpose of this paper is to determine whether graph use depends on corporate performance. Time-series analysis, not previously used in the financial graphs literature, allows discretionary changes in graph use by companies to be identified and related to changes in individual companies' corporate performance over time. Based on the prior financial graphs and accounting choice literature, we develop two hypotheses that relate changes in graph use to changes in corporate performance. These hypotheses focus on the aggregate and individual company levels. We base our analysis on the corporate annual reports of 137 top UK companies that were in continued existence during the five-year period from 1988 to 1992. At both the aggregate and individual company levels, we find the decision to use key financial variable (KFV) graphs, the primary graphical choice, to be associated positively with corporate performance measures. This finding is consistent with the manipulation hypothesis - that is, that financial graphs in corporate annual reports are used to "manage" favorably the reader's impression of company performance, and hence that there is a reporting bias. [source]

A Framework for Determining the Influence of the Corporate Board of Directors in Accounting Studies

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE, Issue 1 2001
Karen Cravens
Accounting, auditing, and tax professionals constantly evaluate the integrity, competence, and financial performance of clients as factors in practice that influence both client acceptance decisions and the manner in which professional services are rendered. Yet, from an accounting perspective, previous research investigating the corporate board of directors as a governance mechanism has focused only on the representational role of board members. Moreover, many of these studies resulted in conflicting findings according to these attributes. Other disciplines address the particular influence of the board with respect to overall corporate performance, but arrive at little agreement on either the effect of or the most critical of board attributes. This literature review synthesizes the existing research to provide a framework in which to evaluate the effect of the board of directors in accounting settings and, in particular, when conducting future research that employs elements of corporate governance as dependent or independent variables in accounting studies. [source]

Privatisation in Developing Countries: Performance and Ownership Effects

DEVELOPMENT POLICY REVIEW, Issue 3 2008
Narjess Boubakri
Over the last twenty years, privatisation, defined as the transfer of public assets (firms) from the government to private investors, has been on the reform agenda of more than 120 developing countries. The switch of ownership induces major changes in the corporate governance of firms, and in their incentives to restructure and improve efficiency and performance. This article evaluates this experience, focusing on its impact on corporate performance and governance, identifying several issues yet to be resolved. [source]

Strategic Use of Corporate Venturing

ENTREPRENEURSHIP THEORY AND PRACTICE, Issue 2 2007
Jeffrey G. Covin
Corporate venturing (CV) is said to be most productive as a path to superior corporate performance when practiced in a strategic manner. Unfortunately, considerable ambiguity exists concerning what it means in an organizational practice sense to strategically pursue CV. The result is a failure of many companies to fully leverage CV for strategic purposes. Based on a review of the CV literature and findings from a field study of 15 Swedish, U.K., and U.S. corporations, this article describes several models that depict the ways in which CV and business strategy coexist as organizational phenomena. Empirically derived propositions are offered to suggest how some companies are strategically engaged in their CV efforts. [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]

Financial distress, reorganization and corporate performance

ACCOUNTING & FINANCE, Issue 3 2000
James Routledge
Prospects for financially distressed companies in Australia have improved since the introduction of voluntary administration (VA) as an alternative to liquidation. This paper investigates whether companies that reorganise can be distinguished from those that liquidate under VA. In addition, performance of reorganised companies is examined to determine variables that distinguish ,successful' from ,unsuccessful' reorganisations. Significant variables in the logistic regression models developed differ between the analyses. The results of the analyses have implications for policy makers regarding efficiency of the VA procedure, as it appears the reorganisation decision is biased toward permitting inefficient firms to reorganise. [source]

Career success after stigmatizing organizational events

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT, Issue 4 2007
Monika Hamori
This article examines the effect of six types of stigmatizing organizational events on employees' career moves to another employer: criticism of the organization in the media; resignation of key individuals from the organization; downsizing; a drop in net income; lawsuits launched by the Securities and Exchange Commission, competitors, or customers; and lawsuits launched by employees. Stigmatizing events that signal the decline of corporate performance are the most devastating for professional career success. Outsiders, on the other hand, are less sensitive to an organization's involvement in lawsuits launched by public authorities or employees. Stigmatizing events affect the career success of every professional in the organization, irrespective of his or her hierarchical level. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]

Performance measurement in industrial R&D

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT REVIEWS, Issue 2 2000
Inge Kerssens-van Drongelen
Currently, the need for R&D performance measurements that are both practically useful and theoretically sound seems to be generally acknowledged; indeed, the rising cost of R&D, greater emphasis on value management and a trend towards decentralization are escalating the need for ways of evaluating the contribution of R&D to corporate performance. However, although recent research and writing on the subject shows that the challenge of developing such sound measurements has been taken up by many academics and organizations, it is also clear that there is no generally applicable approach. In this review, we consider various approaches for measuring the performance in industrial R&D and identify their key characteristics. We also include a brief summary of the ,history' of performance measurement in R&D, which shows that although there are some new ways of looking at the issue there are many examples from the past that can contribute to our current thinking. The approaches found in the literature and practice are very varied in their application, some being more suitable for the project level, others for the R&D department, and some for the development process or for the organization as a whole. Furthermore, the uses of the approaches tend to be different. For example, some approaches are intended to justify the continuation of investment in R&D to upper management, whilst others are more suited to support learning and self-correction by empowered R&D teams. In this paper these uses, or ,functions', of performance measurement and a taxonomy of typical subjects of measurement in R&D environments are explored. Finally, we conclude the review with a discussion of some limitations of the growing literature on R&D performance measurement. [source]

London Business School Roundtable on Shareholder Activism in the U.K.

JOURNAL OF APPLIED CORPORATE FINANCE, Issue 2 2006
Article first published online: 16 JUN 200
Finance scholars have produced little evidence of the effectiveness of direct attempts by institutional shareholders to improve corporate performance. What studies we have,focused mainly on the activities of U.S. pension funds,show no clear effect on shareholder returns. But a new study of shareholder activism in the U.K. looks promising. The subject of the study is a "Focus Fund," launched in 1998 by the U.K. investment firm Hermes, whose aim is to identify underperforming companies, propose changes to their managements and boards, and,in contrast to the practices of the best-known U.S. shareholder activists,work mainly "behind the scenes" with the companies to bring about those changes. In keeping with the more private nature of U.K. activism, which reflects in part the fewer restrictions on communication between companies and their investors than in the U S., the study's method of investigation is also notably different from the methods used in studies of U.S. investors. Four academics were allowed to examine Hermes' records of its "engagements" with companies, including letters, recordings and transcripts of telephone conversations, and the staff's personal notes and recollections. Using this information, the researchers show that the Fund has been remarkably successful in bringing about three kinds of proposed changes: replacements of CEOs and Chairmen; changes in investment and financial policies (mainly increased payouts and more disciplined capital spending); and restructurings (typically leading to greater corporate focus). Of equal importance, the study also shows that the market reaction to the announcement of such changes has been significantly positive, and that the cumulative effect of these positive reactions accounts for as much as 90% of the Fund's impressive "alpha," or market out-performance, over its eight-year life. The first public presentation of these findings took place on February 9 at the inaugural event of the London Business School's Center for the Study of Corporate Governance. In our account of the event, an overview of the study's findings by two of its authors is followed by an "insider's" view of the Hermes' success story (presented by the Chief Executive of the Fund from 2002,2004) and a panel discussion of the general import of the findings featuring four distinguished practitioners. [source]

A note on equity ownership and corporate value in Greece

MANAGERIAL AND DECISION ECONOMICS, Issue 8 2004
G.A. Karathanassis
This study attempts to investigate whether corporate performance is affected by the ownership structure, using data from companies quoted on the Athens Stock Exchange for the period 1996,1998. Given such an objective, the basic hypothesis examined, is that corporate performance as measured by Tobin's Q ratio is a function of ownership and other control variables. Our econometric approach relies on the use of a combination of time series and cross section data (panel-data analysis), a procedure that avoids many statistical problems. After examining the role of each identifiable shareholder, we find a positive relationship between institutional investors and corporate performance. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Customers' values, beliefs on sustainable corporate performance, and buying behavior

PSYCHOLOGY & MARKETING, Issue 6 2007
Christy M. Collins
Sustainable corporate performance (SCP) requires balancing a corporation's economic, social, and environmental performance. This research explores values, beliefs about the importance of SCP, and buying behaviors of supermarket customers from within a stakeholder framework. Beliefs about the importance of SCP (both social and environmental, but not economic) were found to be related to values. Also, it was found that customers' environmentally responsible buying behaviors were related to their beliefs about the importance of environmental SCP. However their socially responsible buying was not related to their beliefs about the importance of social SCP. Responsible buying behavior may be facilitated by providing reliable information about environmental and social aspects of products. Marketing professionals have a central role to play in moving towards a greater level of corporate transparency and sustainability. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [source]

The Limits of Discipline: Ownership and Hard Budget Constraints in the Transition Economies

THE ECONOMICS OF TRANSITION, Issue 3 2000
Roman Frydman
The existing literature on soft budget constraints suggests that firms may be subsidized for political reasons or because of the creditors' desire to recover a part of the sunk cost invested in an earlier period. In all these models hard budget constraints are viewed as being, in principle, capable of inducing the necessary restructuring behaviour on the level of the firm. This paper argues that the imposition of financial discipline is not sufficient to remedy ownership and governance-related deficiencies of corporate performance. Using evidence from the post-communist transition economies, the paper shows that a policy of hard budget constraints cannot induce successful revenue restructuring, which requires entrepreneurial incentives inherent in certain ownership types (most notably, outside investors). The paper also shows that the policy of hard budget constraints falters when state firms, because of inferior revenue performance and less willingness to meet payment obligations, continue to pose a higher credit risk than privatized firms. The brunt of state firms' lower creditworthiness falls on state creditors. But the ,softness' of these creditors, while harmful in many ways, is not necessarily irrational, if it prevents the demise of firms that are in principle capable of successful restructuring through ownership changes. [source]

MUTUAL VERSUS PROPRIETARY OWNERSHIP: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY FROM THE UK UNIT TRUST INDUSTRY WITH A COMPANY-PRODUCT MEASURE

ANNALS OF PUBLIC AND COOPERATIVE ECONOMICS, Issue 2 2010
Yoshikatsu Shinozawa
ABSTRACT,:,In the debate of the relative merits of differing ownership forms, most empirical studies examine either corporate performance or the product characteristics of the financial products that are available in the financial services industry. Based on the UK unit trust industry, this paper assesses which ownership form, mutual or proprietary is more efficient in managing unit trust operations and providing high return generating unit trusts. Using a combined corporate performance and product range performance metric, this study reveals no significant differences between the two ownership forms in terms of the corporate-product performance score. The results indicate that the owner-customer fused role in the mutual organization must be considered in the mutual versus proprietary ownership debate. [source]

The Influence of Corporate Governance on Corporate Performance and Value after Changing the CEO: Evidence from Taiwan,

Sustainability and stakeholder management: the need for new corporate performance evaluation and reporting systems

BUSINESS STRATEGY AND THE ENVIRONMENT, Issue 5 2006
Francesco Perrini
Abstract Corporate sustainability, that is the capacity of a firm to continue operating over a long period of time, depends on the sustainability of its stakeholder relationships. This new stakeholder view of the firm goes beyond previous work on the triple bottom line and balanced scorecard. Companies need appropriate systems to measure and control their own behaviour in order to assess whether they are responding to stakeholder concerns in an effective way and to communicate the results achieved. These sustainability accounting systems should have the purpose of broadening and integrating the traditional financial approaches to corporate performance measurement, taking stakeholder needs into due account. This article presents the sustainability evaluation and reporting system (SERS), an integrated methodology aimed at monitoring and tracking from a qualitative and quantitative viewpoint the overall corporate performance according to a stakeholder framework, in line with small and medium-sized enterprises' managerial requirements. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source]