Non-Electoral Executive Turnover and Low-Capacity Democracy in Southern Africa

What do non-electoral turnovers tell us about the relationship between elections, executive turnover, and democratisation? Can they contribute to democratisation? To gain insight into these questions, we consider the experiences of Southern Africa. While transfers of executive authority have become commonplace in Southern Africa, they do not necessarily coincide with elections and rarely involve partisan turnover. Neither the mode nor the form of executive turnover corresponds clearly with prior assessments of democracy. This study examines recent non-electoral turnovers in Zimbabwe (November 2017), South Africa (February 2018), and Botswana (April 2018). This research finds that non-electoral transfers of presidential authority in Southern Africa represent efforts by dominant parties to manage factional conflicts and enhance their ability to benefit from incumbency in competitive elections. While non-electoral turnover in executive authority might promote democracy under some conditions, they do more to sustain dominant party rule and a stagnate level of low-capacity democracy.

How executive turnover influences the quality of corporate social responsibility disclosure? Moderating role of political embeddedness: evidence from China

This study investigated the relationship between executive turnover (ET) and quality of corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) at the firm level. The role of political embeddedness (PE) in the association between ET and CSRD quality in Chinese listed A-share firms is also inspected. We employed 20,850 firm’s/year observations between 2010 and 2016. An inverse relationship was found between ET and CSRD quality as well as PE and CSRD quality. In addition, the study findings disclose that corporate PE moderates the relationship between ET and a firm’s CSRD quality whilst the impact of ET on a company's CSRD quality was found more pronounced for firms with a low level of corporate PE. This examination adds to the literature on CSRD quality under the premise of normative stakeholder theory and leads to the conclusion that the political link of departing executives is an active participant in the exacerbation of CSRD quality in PE firms of China. This implies a reinvigoration of the roles of decision-makers for sustainable CSR assurance.

Blockholders and corporate governance: evidence from China’s split-share-structure reform

Purpose Proper empirical tests of the effect of blockholders’ monitoring incentives on corporate governance are scant in the literature because the relationship between ownership structure and enforcement of corporate governance mechanisms is bidirectional. This study aims to address the endogeneity issue by examining the effect of blockholding on executive turnover–performance sensitivity, using the split-share-structure (SSS) reform in China as an exogenous shock to blockholders’ monitoring incentives. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a logit model for estimating the change in executive turnover–performance sensitivity around the SSS reform. Sub-sample analysis is conducted to examine whether the impact of SSS reform on the turnover-performance sensitivity is stronger for firms with more contestable blockholders who might consider stock liquidity, risk sharing and diversification in their monitoring/trading decisions. Findings Top executive turnover, defined as CEO or board chair turnover, becomes less sensitive to firm operating performance after the reform, mainly for firms with contestable blockholders prior to the reform. Stock liquidity and blockholders’ demand for diversification can explain the impact of contestable blockholding. Moreover, blockholding is sensitive to firm operating performance after the reform but not before it. Originality/value With few exceptions, most studies in the blockholding literature focus on the effect of blockholder monitoring on firm value. Examining an exogenous shock to blockholding, this paper provides a set of new evidence for the impact of blockholding on executive turnover–performance sensitivity. The results call for more evidence of the impact of blockholding on executive turnover from other markets.

CSR Disclosure: Effects of Political Ties, Executive Turnover and Shareholder Equity. Evidence from China

The context of China fosters different contextual factors, which influences the quality of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure in comparison to firms across the rest of the world. Political ties at a corporate level are one of these vital factors. This paper studies the influence of firm-level political ties (PT) and executive turnover (ET) on the quality of CSR disclosure in the context of shareholding status of departing executive in Chinese listed A-share firms. Stakeholder and Agency theories are applied to the dissemination of CSR disclosures in Chinese firms whereby we used 20,578 firm-years interpretations of Chinese registered companies between 2012 and 2019. The results foster a negative link between executive turnover and quality of CSR disclosures. In addition, a negative relationship has been found between political ties and the quality of CSR disclosure. The findings disclose that the shareholding status of departing executive moderate the relationship between the impact of political ties and executive turnover on firms quality of CSR disclosure, whilst the effect of executive turnover on the quality of CSR disclosure was found more pronounced for firms whose departing executive held larger shareholding (SH). This study contributed to the literature on the quality of CSR disclosure while recognizing the negative effect of executive turnover on a firm’s quality of CSR disclosure for politically tied firms with a reinforcing moderating role of the shareholding status of departing executive.

The Economic Consequences of Financial Misreporting: Evidence from Employee Perspective

This study investigates the economic consequences of financial misreporting from the employee perspective. Specifically, we examine two employee reactions: (1) exiting from misreporting firms and (2) reducing holding of employer stock, in both the misreporting period and the post-restatement period. We find an increase in employee turnover and a decrease in employee holding of employer stock in the post-restatement period (restatement effect) and some evidence that employees start to react in the period of misreporting (misreporting effect). We also find some evidence that the misreporting effect varies with employee tenure in the misreporting period and the restatement effect varies with the severity of misreporting in the post-restatement period. We further show that our results are not driven by labor demand, increased likelihood of executive turnover, declining stock prices, internal control weakness disclosure, and poor firm performance.

Governança corporativa: uma análise da relação entre o turnover da administração e o desempenho

A governança corporativa é considerada um mecanismo que possui como objetivo o alinhamento entre as ações dos administradores e os interesses dos acionistas. Pesquisas realizadas no final da década de 1980 e início da década de 1990 identificaram que a relação entre a rotatividade dos executivos (turnover) e o desempenho da entidade pode ser considerada uma métrica para avaliar a eficiência de um sistema de governança corporativa. Essa métrica tem sido estudada em economias desenvolvidas, como Estados Unidos, Dinamarca e Japão, mas pouco abordada em países de economia considerada emergente. Diante disso, este estudo teve como objetivo verificar se o desempenho das empresas brasileiras de capital aberto influencia na probabilidade de turnover dos altos cargos da administração, tendo como foco as companhias listadas na B3 no período de 2012 a 2017. A amostra foi constituída por 87 empresas, e o modelo utilizado foi o de regressão logística. Os resultados apontaram coeficientes negativos e significativos para as variáveis Retorno do Patrimônio líquido, Retorno das ações e Propriedade familiar. Dessa forma, pôde-se concluir que o desempenho das companhias está inversamente relacionado à rotatividade dos executivos e que as empresas familiares apresentam menor rotatividade de seus administradores. Palavras-chave: Turnover. Governança corporativa. Desempenho. Corporate governance: an analysis of the relationship between management turnover and performance Abstract Corporate governance is considered a mechanism that aims to align the actions of the managers with the interests of shareholders. Researches conducted in the late 1980s and early 1990s identified that the relationship between executive turnover and the entity's performance can be considered as a metric to assess the efficiency of a corporate governance system. This metric has been studied in developed economies as the United States, Denmark and Japan, but scarcely addressed in emerging economies. Therefore, this study aimed to verify whether the performance of Brazilian companies influences the probability of turnover of senior management positions, focusing on companies listed on the Brazilian Stock Exchange, from 2012 to 2017. The sample consisted of 87 companies and the analysis was based on logistic regressions. The results showed negative and significant coefficients for the variables Return on Equity, Return on Shares and Family Ownership. Thus, it can be concluded that the performance of companies is inversely related to the turnover of executives, and also that family businesses have lower turnover of their managers. Keywords: Turnover. Corporate governance. Performance.