Governance and Performance of Agri-Food Exporting SMEs

Moroccan SME's are involved in local development and are currently the subject of several studies. Furthermore, Moroccan SMEs are crucial to the country's economic growth since they produce value, create employment, and play an important role in local development. The goal is to identify the factors that influence its export performance. This performance can be influenced by the governance system, which is defined as a set of mechanisms that have the effect of limiting managers' powers and influencing their decisions. In this light, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate, using a sample of food SME's in Agadir city, that a good governance system improves export performance and accelerates the process of SME internationalization. Based on the findings of this study, we can infer that SMEs with effective internal governance mechanisms, such as an internal control and consultation body and strong hierarchical control, may improve their export performance and, as a result, their internationalization potential.

Innovation, Collaboration and New Zealand Public Sector ICT Middle Managers

<p>The case study explores the relationship New Zealand public sector information and communication technology (ICT) middle managers have with innovation and collaboration in relation to an all-of-government ICT strategy. Middle managers are key to implementing ICT strategy, innovation is a stated expectation and collaboration is a critical enabler. The study identified that awareness of the ICT strategy amongst middle managers was lower than desirable, although slightly higher from core public sector managers mandated to follow the strategy. There was not a consistent sense of what innovation is, although managers indicate they are engaging in innovations to quite a high degree. There is a very limited range of stakeholders collaborated with; primarily other agencies, consultants and vendors. This may inhibit potential for innovation that could come from wider engagement. Agencies are exhibiting a narrow view of collaboration and appear reluctant to share resources. Middle managers engage in collaboration and networking within their sector, and appreciate assistance provided by the Government Chief Information Officer, however they also note there is little support provided to collaborate. They would like more forums, facilitators, tools, and policies that support collaboration and systems thinking. The most significant factor empowering middle managers to innovate was the support of their senior manager; however lack of senior manager support was also noted as a significant issue. Primary barriers to innovation were workload and budget, leadership thinking, internal governance mechanisms and risk aversion.</p>

Innovation, Collaboration and New Zealand Public Sector ICT Middle Managers

<p>The case study explores the relationship New Zealand public sector information and communication technology (ICT) middle managers have with innovation and collaboration in relation to an all-of-government ICT strategy. Middle managers are key to implementing ICT strategy, innovation is a stated expectation and collaboration is a critical enabler. The study identified that awareness of the ICT strategy amongst middle managers was lower than desirable, although slightly higher from core public sector managers mandated to follow the strategy. There was not a consistent sense of what innovation is, although managers indicate they are engaging in innovations to quite a high degree. There is a very limited range of stakeholders collaborated with; primarily other agencies, consultants and vendors. This may inhibit potential for innovation that could come from wider engagement. Agencies are exhibiting a narrow view of collaboration and appear reluctant to share resources. Middle managers engage in collaboration and networking within their sector, and appreciate assistance provided by the Government Chief Information Officer, however they also note there is little support provided to collaborate. They would like more forums, facilitators, tools, and policies that support collaboration and systems thinking. The most significant factor empowering middle managers to innovate was the support of their senior manager; however lack of senior manager support was also noted as a significant issue. Primary barriers to innovation were workload and budget, leadership thinking, internal governance mechanisms and risk aversion.</p>

Does Analyst Coverage Affect Workplace Safety?

We find firms’ work-related injury rates are negatively associated with the level of analyst coverage. This result is also robust at the establishment level at which we find local analysts have a more profound impact than distant analysts. Cross-sectionally, our results are exacerbated in firms with weak internal governance mechanisms and in industries with low union representation. Finally, management is more likely to discuss safety issues during earnings conference calls in the presence of more analysts. Overall, our results suggest analysts play an effective external monitoring role and have a subtle yet important impact on employee welfare. This paper was accepted by Brian Bushee, accounting.

Accounting and internal Mechanisms of Corporate Governance during the inter-war-period in France

This article focuses on the role of accounting in governance arrangements. The French context is marked by the inexistence of external governance mechanisms and by the total lack of effectiveness of independent auditing. Therefore, the objective of this article is to shed light on the internal governance mechanisms implemented by the leading French aluminium producer during the inter-war period and the role played by accounting in this implementation. On the basis of the archives of the Compagnie Alais, Froges et Camargue (AFC) between 1921 and 1939, it appears that in a context marked by very strong external growth, management strengthened financial reporting systems and internal control procedures. In addition, the directors used the financial statements as early as 1923 to determine the financial effort of the AFC group and to measure the flows intended to finance the group’s material and financial investments. Accounting is unquestionably at the heart of AFC’s internal governance mechanisms.

Executive Network Centrality and Corporate Reporting

This paper investigates the association of corporate reporting and executive network centrality, which measures an executive’s relative position in a massive network consisting of outside corporate leaders. I find that high-centrality chief executive officers (CEOs) and chief financial officers (CFOs) are generally more likely to engage in financial misreporting than low-centrality CEOs and CFOs. I also find that the influence of CFO network centrality is greater than that of CEOs in financial misreporting. Further analyses show that the monitoring effect of internal governance mechanisms on high-centrality executives is very limited and that the discipline of the managerial labor market is weaker for high-centrality CFOs as well. My results hold for a subsample subject to exogenous shocks to CFO connectedness and are robust to a series of alternative specifications including using CFO fixed effects. Taken together, my findings suggest that corporate reporting can be influenced by executives’ social network position, with high-centrality CFOs using their social power to make adverse corporate reporting decisions to gain personal benefits. This paper was accepted by Brian Bushee, accounting.

How does internal governance affect banks’ financial stability? Empirical evidence from Egypt

This paper investigates whether internal governance mechanisms were associated with the financial stability of Egyptian banks over the period 2010–2019. To this end, a GMM regression analysis was employed using 252 firm-year observations. The results, in general, indicate that the level of banks’ financial stability is positively associated with board size, board meetings, and board gender. In contrast, the results show that board education and the ownership of shares by directors are negatively associated with banks’ financial stability. More interestingly, our results demonstrate that higher financial stability is significantly associated with lower board independence, the presence of CEO duality, and fewer audit committee meetings. These striking results can be attributed to the argument that the presence of independent directors on the board may reduce the CEO’s willingness to share information with board members, causing a high level of uncertainty in the decision-making process, which ultimately leads to a reduction in the financial stability of their bank.

The effectiveness of the internal corporate governance mechanism and the ownership of the government and agencies

This paper examines the impact of the government and its agencies’ ownership on the effectiveness of one the main internal governance mechanisms, namely; board of directors, for a sample of 140 energy and petrochemical Saudi listed firms over 2012-2019. The Saudi Arabia provides an interesting context due to the domination of government-linked corporations’ ownership. This setting arranges for the impact of such ownership on the board of directors’ monitoring and advisory roles. The board of directors’ effectiveness is measured as an interaction term of the board size and meetings of the board of directors. The study finds that government-linked energy and petrochemical corporations’ ownerships are inversely related to the board of directors’ effectiveness. This result is sensitive to the measurement of the board of directors’ effectiveness as each variable consisting of the board of directors’ effectiveness was examined individually. The study also finds that government-linked corporations’ ownership had a strong negative impact on the board size. In contrast, the proposed model does not provide any evidence supporting the relationship of the government-linked corporations’ ownerships with board meetings. Overall, the evidence supports the substitution hypothesis on the relationship of government-linked corporations and board of directors’ effectiveness.