Determinants of Companies’ Board Composition in Emerging Markets

This paper examines the determinants of female board representation for a sample of Brazilian listed companies for the year of 2018. Using count data models, we find that greater firm size, performance and board size lead to higher woman representation on companies’ boards. Also, that private control is associated with a lower number of women on boards. Most studies related to board composition focus on independent directors and are conducted in a developed countries’ setting. This work contributes to the extant literature in understanding what drives woman representation on corporate boards in an emerging market context and also would help to support the definition and implementation of gender diversity policies by showing possible impacts.

The Demsetz’s Evolutionary Theory of Property Rights as Applied to Rural Land of China: A Supplement

The main objective of this article is to contribute to the literature on land issues, especially with regard to the evolutionary theory of China’s rural land property rights. This article applies the Demsetz’s evolutionary theory of property rights as a framework into an analysis of the evolutionary process of property rights in rural land of China. It is found that externality, compactness, productivity, and organizational complexity—four principles in Demsetz’s framework—are at the core of understanding the evolution of property rights from collective control of land to family based control of land in China. However, the framework is incomplete due to being unlikely to notice the role of land titling so that a property rights game is developed in this article to extend the evolutionary theory of property rights. Importantly, it suggests the necessity of “split-rights” from family based control land to private control land in China. To sum up, this paper refreshes the dominant framework of analysis on the evolution of property rights in mainstream economics, and makes it discern when collective ownership does not evolve into pure privatization, finally, instead of into private control of land, as is currently applied to rural area in China.

(Dis)satisfied with your choices? How to align online consumer’s self-awareness, time pressure and self-consciousness

Purpose The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, this study applies social presence theory to explore the influences of public self-awareness on consumers’ choice inconsistency and post-choice satisfaction. Second, the authors investigate how time pressure moderates the effects of self-awareness on choice inconsistency and post-choice satisfaction so that online sellers can better align their marketing strategies. Design/methodology/approach This research consists of two studies. Study 1 conducted a 3 (self-awareness: public/private/control) × 2 (time pressure: high/none) experiment, and 311 online participants were recruited to explore the influence of public self-awareness and time pressure. Study 2 used a 3 (self-awareness: public/private/control) × 2 (time pressure: high/no) × 2 (self-consciousness: high/low) quasi-experiments, and the authors used 652 online participants to examine the effect of self-awareness, time pressure and public self-consciousness on choice inconsistency and post-choice satisfaction. Findings The results indicate that publicly self-aware consumers under high time pressure show greater inconsistency than those under no time pressure. Also, people with higher public self-consciousness exhibited higher choice inconsistency and post-choice satisfaction in public self-awareness situations than those in private self-awareness and control conditions. Research limitations/implications To generalize the results, this study should be replicated using more heterogeneous populations in diverse regions and cultures, as well as other product categories. Practical implications This study explores the implications of evoking self-awareness during online consumption and the online purchase process by observing the moderating effect of self-consciousness and time pressure. The findings provide insights to marketing practitioners who seek to increase their companies’ competitive advantage and profits through effective online manipulations of consumers’ self-awareness. Originality/value Extant research does not address how time pressure affects the relationships among public self-awareness, choice inconsistency and post-choice satisfaction. In addition, prior research only focused on public self-awareness in customer consumption. This study bridges these gaps and has implications for e-commerce, consumer behavior and relationship marketing research fields.

Supervising third-party control bodies for certification: the case of organic farming in Italy

The organic food certification system in Italy, based on the EU legislation, relies on private control bodies (CBs) that are supervised by national authorities. The aim of this paper is to investigate whether it is possible to test for differences in controls outcome based on CBs’ behavior. To this extent, we use a multinomial logit model estimated on data corresponding to the results of the inspections in the year 2015 in Italy. The model controls for two fixed effects represented by the type of operator and a contextual variable, i.e., the region where a firm is located. Significant variability in CBs behavior could induce adverse selection in the choice of the CB by organic operators. In this vein, we discuss some implications in terms of policies and consequences for supervision in the conclusions.

The efect of size on the relationship between control structure and voluntary disclosure in Brazilian companies

This study aims to analyze the influence of size on the relationship between the control structure on the voluntary disclosure policy of the listed companies in B3. To achieve this goal, we created a dependent variable, called "voluntary disclosure level", which corresponds to 38 indicators of information collected manually from the companies' statements and websites. Afterwards, we estimated a balanced panel data regression model with a threshold effect for size in order to identify the relationship between the variables. The results indicated that smaller companies, with a more concentrated control structure, tended to present a higher level of voluntary disclosure. However, for larger companies, the greater the concentration of the control structure, the less evidence of this information. These inferences lead to believe that the largest Brazilian corporations, with more concentrated control, may not be interested in disclosing voluntary information because most of their shareholders enjoy private control benefits.

The Darkest Hour: Private Information Control and the End of Democratic Science

The evaluation of scientific research is based on data protected by secrecy and intellectual property (e.g., Elsevier Scopus or Clarivate Web of Sci- ence). The peer review process is essentially anonymous. While science has progressed thanks to public dialogue, the current evaluation system is centered on private control of information. This represents a fundamental shift from democratic to authoritarian science. Open Science may con- front this change only if it is accepted as the heir, in the digital age, of the values and principles that public and democratic science has traditionally fostered in the age of printing, thus becoming the guardian of a democrat- ic society.

Do Excess Control Rights Benefit Creditors? Evidence from Dual-Class Firms

Excess control rights by inside shareholders have been documented to hurt minority shareholders. This paper shows that such governance feature may benefit creditors. Using a sample of U.S. dual-class firms, I show that these firms take less operational and financial risk than similar single-class firms, consistent with insiders’ emphasis on long-term survival to access ongoing private control benefits. Such risk avoidance translates into lower borrowing costs for dual-class firms. Further, lenders are able to use specific covenants to prevent potential expropriations by insiders. The overall relationship between excess control rights and firm value may be less negative than previously thought.

Making Media Safe for Corporate Power

This chapter contends that a corporate libertarian vision of media policy established the discursive terrain in which conservative media thrived in the United States after World War II. The corporate libertarian approach conceives of news media as a commodity—as opposed to a public resource—best left under private control and ownership. This vision became a hegemonic common sense that came to dominate US media policy discourses beginning in the late 1940s—thanks in part to a propagandistic influence campaign executed by corporate interests. This led to insufficient resources invested in a democratic news system. Such a policy orientation created conditions for a commercial media system driven by a competition to meet consumer demand. It also created a space for right-wing media activists to mobilize and cultivate conservative publics through outlets propped up by patronage networks and ideologically motivated venture capital.

13. Freehold Covenants

People who wish to develop their land, or build upon it, must obtain planning permission, applications for which are made public and those who may be affected by the action may make representations. The law governing this area is a highly complex one and involves the public control of land use. Private control of land use involves landowners seeking to regulate how land is used within a particular locality. This chapter deals with covenants made between freeholders and how successors in title to the original parties to the covenant can either acquire the benefit of a covenant or take subject to the burden of it. It first discusses the privity of contract before turning to the transmission of covenants, common law, equity, and restrictive covenants, and also considers remedies available in case a breach of covenant arises, discharge of covenants, and positive covenants.