Independent Directors’ Characteristics and Performance: Evidence from China

Author(s):  
Jing Liao ◽  
Martin R. Young ◽  
Qian Sun
2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mustafa A. Dah ◽  
Mohammad I. Jizi

ABSTRACT The recent decade of scandals, financial crisis, and loss in moral values questioned the soundness of firms' governance structure and held them more accountable to their societies. This put corporate boards under increased pressure to acknowledge their monitoring needs and respond to societal obligations. This paper offers a deepened understanding of the CSR-firm welfare relationship by suggesting its reliance on the participation of independent directors on corporate boards. Our findings show that higher board independence increases social disclosures. We also show that the effect of social disclosure on the firm's risk and performance is favorably affected by the participation of independent directors on corporate boards. Accordingly, we demonstrate that board independence not only facilitates firms' CSR reporting, but also positively influences the CSR-firm performance association. Board independence enhances the efficacy of CSR reporting by elevating the reliability of the disclosed information and amplifying its signaling power regarding the firm's future prospects. Our empirical evidence supports the U.K. corporate governance code main principles encouraging higher board independence for effective discharge of responsibilities.


CEO compensation and performance evaluation has become a highly contention issue in the business world. Several factors appear to be behind the image problem but the uppermost is the dramatic increase in CEO reward in recent decade. Wage efficiency theory argues higher compensation would increase the performance but on the evaluation of CEO performance many issues are faced in selecting performance measurement indicators. The purpose of this paper is to extend discussions in evaluating the CEO performance in research domain. Based on agency theory, the model of this research is developed. The cross-sectional data was collected by questionnaires. By applying regression model, this study revealed that independent directors and female directors on the use of non-financial measures in CEO performance evaluation, are found to be positively associated with the use of non-financial measures which reinforce the findings of prior studies in regarding their influence on the use of non-financial measures in CEO and corporate performance evaluation. The ratio of female directors on the BOD is significantly and positively associated with the use of non-financial measures in the evaluation of CEO performance. This study contributes economically, socially and politically.


2019 ◽  
Vol 139 ◽  
pp. 01022
Author(s):  
G.I. Sheveleva

Corporate governance in the Russian power companies is developing slowly, and its importance for increasing their investment appeal remains underestimated. In order to identify the main problems hindering such development, the assessment of corporate practices of these companies was carried out. It was performed mainly as per the criteria of the guidelines of Russia’s Bank on compliance with the principles of the Corporate Governance Code, as well as those not included in its guidelines. The results obtained were compared to those of the TopCompetence Corporate Governance Center, the Platforma Center for Social Engineering, the Center for Strategic Studies at the MGIMO University, the Corporate Governance Index of the Independent Directors Association and the HSE University. We benchmarked PJSC LUKOIL that ranks among the world's top 10 companies in terms of the total shareholder return as estimated by the Boston Consulting Group. On the basis of a generalization of all the obtained findings we delineated the topical issues of the development of corporate governance. These issues were mainly concerned with the Boards of Directors and were grouped according to the stages of their nomination, election, current operations and performance evaluation. The emphasis was put on the issues related to the adoption of new managerial technologies.


2012 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 85-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hu Dan Semba ◽  
Haiyan Zheng

This paper investigates the relationship between control rights, cash flow rights, and firm performance across a sample of 276 China’s private listed companies (CPC) from 2003 to 2008. This paper finds that the performance of firms with pyramid ownership structures (POS) is lower than that of firms with direct controlling ownership structures (DOS). The separation of control rights and cash flow rights, which is the main characteristic of POS, is negatively related to the firm performance. Furthermore, in order to reduce the negative influence of control rights, this paper proposes the following countermeasures: cash flow rights should be increased because it has a positive effect on the firm performance; the supervisory powers of shareholders meeting (SM) should be strengthened because it helps improve firm performance and overrule invalid decisions taken by independent directors in China. This is proved by the findings that show a positive correlation between the attendance rate at shareholders’ meetings and firm performance; moreover, there is no positive relationship between independent directors and firm performance.


2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 239-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cesar Freire

The study focused on analyzing the duality CEO-Chairman and its relation on the effectiveness of the board control. A sample of 347 companies with annual sales volume greater than five million US dollars was selected; a questionnaire was provided in order to measure the effectiveness of the board control. To measure the duality CEO-Chairman secondary information was used, and verification was made about the existence of the duality. The effectiveness of the board was measured by an index obtained through the use of confirmatory factorial analysis. Statistical tests were performed, such as Student’s t-test for mean difference, Chi-square to measure the dependence and regression by simultaneous equations to answer the questions. As a result, it was found out that the duality CEO-Chairman is connected in a significant way with the performance of independent directors and risk supervision of the board. The results regarding the duality relationship CEO-Chairman and performance of independent directors are shown to be inverse, while with risk supervision it becomes direct. The obtained results theoretically contribute to the knowledge regarding the practices of good corporate governance.


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