An exploration of female underrepresentation on executive boards in the Dutch hotel industry through an ethical lens

PurposeThis paper elucidates female underrepresentation on executive boards in the Dutch hotel industry through a “feminist” stakeholder perspective, which persists despite public opinion and government initiatives to resolve this enigma. It contributes to this discussion by examining Rhenish governance structures through a “feminist” stakeholder-focused rationale, complementing prevailing Anglo-Saxon shareholder-focused governance research.Design/methodology/approachEleven in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with hotel executive board representatives and five with sublevel management representatives. Saturation was achieved by interviewing all females on Dutch hotel corporate boards regarding their career experiences compared with those of female general managers and male counterparts.FindingsThis paper finds a prevailing “masculinist” perspective of an idealized shareholder-orientated executive and a “feminist” perspective of a humanized stakeholder-orientated executive expressed within the interviews. While the former sacrifices family for their career, the latter balances their family with their career. The former fosters presupposed gender norms, with females commonly sacrificing their careers while males sacrifice their families. Notably, most executives predominantly supported the humanized stakeholder-orientated executive, while recognizing that micro-, meso- and macro-structural barriers remain.Originality/valueThis paper addresses a lacuna in the ethical literature in exploring female executive representation in Rhenish stakeholder-focused governance structures, as opposed to Anglo-Saxon shareholder-focused ones. It found a “masculinist” perspective of an idealized shareholder-focused executive archetype and a “feminist” perspective of a humanized stakeholder-focused executive archetype. Notably, contrary to perceived business norms, several interviewees rejected the former as it is incompatible with family and work, instead seeking the latter which balances between family and work.

Assessing the Effect of Board Gender Diversity on CSR Reporting Through Moderating Role of Political Connections in Chinese Listed Firms

This study departs from existing work on board gender diversity (BGD) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting by analyzing and explaining the mechanism by which gender-diverse boards in politically embedded firms (PEFs) affect firms’ CSR reporting choices in a unique institutional setting of Chinese listed firms from 2010 to 2018. The following main results are obtained. First, having female directors and executives with political connections (PCs) on corporate boards improves the CSR reporting of firms. Firms with PCs have a greater possibility to issue CSR reports than their non-connected counterparts. Second, firms that have both gender diversity and PCs on their boards of directors are more likely to engage in CSR reporting. There is an indication that the presence of PCs on boards can strengthen the effect of female directors on firms’ CSR reporting. Third, the presence of female directors on corporate boards has a stronger relationship with CSR reporting in PEFs than in non-PEFs. The study concludes that both BGD and PCs on corporate boards positively influence the diffusion of CSR-related practices in the Chinese business environment.

GENDER, BOARD, AND WORKING CAPITAL

This paper examines the effects of gender board diversity on working capital. The study uses a sample of S&P1500 firms, resulting in 9,157 firm-year observations from 2005 to 2019. Our findings show that greater gender diversity on corporate boards is associated with lower liquidity ratios, including lower non-cash ones. The results are robust to a battery of gender board diversity definitions and to a 2SLS analysis which employs the gender ratio in the county’s population in which the firm is headquartered as an instrumental variable. Based on additional tests of the effects of gender board diversity on managerial efficiency ratios, we conclude that the results are driven by superior monitoring associated with gender diversity on the board.

COVID-19 and Corporate Governance Performance: Beyond the Financial Metrics

Corporate governance and, more broadly, the performance of corporate boards have traditionally been measured using financial metrics. These financial metrics such as Return on Investment (ROI), Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE), Earnings and Profitability Ratio (E and P) are ex post measure of organizations performance arising from corporate board activities. These financial metrics are largely one-dimensional measure of corporate performance and do not fully account for the other dimensions of organization responsibilities. The COVID-19 and the changing organizational dynamics have made the case for corporate board’s performance to be assessed beyond the usual financial metrics. In this study, we provide a framework that accounts for the various dimensions of organization activities: finance, social and environmental, the Triple-Bottom (TBL) approach. A TBL-compliance metric was constructed, which tracked the performance of selected manufacturing firms in Nigeria using a content analytical technique. The result showed that the majority of the firms performed remarkably well in areas of profitability and economic value creation but less satisfactorily in areas of social and environmental sustainability. On aggregate, the sampled firms committed less than 1% of their profit after tax on corporate social responsibility, while less than 5% of the sampled firms scored above average on the TBL-adoption matrix.

The Aggregation–Learning Trade-off

Organizational decision making that leverages the collective wisdom and knowledge of multiple individuals is ubiquitous in management practice, occurring in settings such as top management teams, corporate boards, and the teams and groups that pervade modern organizations. Decision-making structures employed by organizations shape the effectiveness of knowledge aggregation. We argue that decision-making structures play a second crucial role in that they shape the learning of individuals that participate in organizational decision making. In organizational decision making, individuals do not engage in learning by doing but, rather, in what we call learning by participating, which is distinct in that individuals learn by receiving feedback not on their own choices but, rather, on the choice made by the organization. We examine how learning by participating influences the efficacy of aggregation and learning across alternative decision-making structures and group sizes. Our central insight is that learning by participating leads to an aggregation–learning trade-off in which structures that are effective in aggregating information can be ineffective in fostering individual learning. We discuss implications for research on organizations in the areas of learning, microfoundations, teams, and crowds.

Internal-Control Willingness and Managerial Overconfidence

Internal control is a branch of accounting subject, and accounting control and risk management are the core of enterprise internal control. Previous studies have shown that high-quality internal control inhibits or regulates managerial overconfidence (MOC). However, it is believed that the influential factors of internal-control quality (ICQ) are normally objective factors, such as corporate characteristics, financial status, and governance structure. Corresponding to another type of constituent element, that is, the subjective factor, which we called internal-control willingness, has not been explored. In this study, we defined internal-control willingness as the degrees of the subjective initiative of the internal-control construction and execution activities of enterprises. In addition, we proposed a method to measure internal-control willingness based on text analysis and principal component analysis using Python, and then, we tested its impact on ICQ and MOC. Our findings are as follows: (A) internal-control willingness has a positive impact on ICQ, and (B) internal-control willingness lowers MOC. Our study introduces subjective initiative factors into the field of internal control and also extends the understanding of internal-control theory. Based on empirical conclusions, we suggested that regulatory authorities and corporate boards improve incentive mechanisms to jointly strengthen the internal-control willingness of all employees, so as to help enterprise managers operate rationally.

Corn Belt as an Enterprise-Naming Custom in the United States

Enterprises, be they for-profit businesses or not-for-profit organizations, require names to differentiate themselves from other entities. Over a span of more than a hundred years entrepreneurs, corporate boards, and organizational founders have chosen to use Corn Belt or some spelling variant to identify their enterprises, perhaps believing that naming after this admired agricultural region will bless their enterprise with its longevity, productivity, and favorable image. This essay looks at the beginnings of Corn Belt as a vernacular term for an agricultural region, picks up the earliest uses of Corn Belt as an inspiration for enterprise names, tracks Corn Belt enterprises through time at one of the core locations of the naming practice, and presents the enterprises that in 2020 greeted the public with Corn Belt in their names.