Directors' remuneration has long attracted a great deal of attention from financial economists and academics due to its strategic role as a remedy to control agency problems. The key issue is the conflict between directors and shareholders on whether the remuneration is designed to maximise shareholders' value or to favour directors, who run the company on behalf of the investors. However, the conflict can never be detected when the disclosure of remuneration is not transparent. The study was conducted in Malaysia which provides a distinctive research setting different from other developing countries because Malaysia has a disclosure exercise that is still far below best practice as well as a unique Malaysian cultural and institutional environment. Thus, the unusual combination of politics (government) dominated by Malays and business dominated by the minority Chinese provides an interesting background to explore the determinants and consequences of directors' remuneration disclosure. This study's novelty stands on the exploration of ownership structure and board diversity in determining directors' remuneration disclosure, as well as the impact of disclosure towards firm value. The first chapter investigates the association between ownership structure and directors' remuneration disclosure. A significant and negative association is noted between family ownership and remuneration disclosure, suggesting that the traditional family control in Malaysia continue to be dominating outweighing the necessity of public disclosure. Moreover, this study encountered a non-linear relationship between government ownership and remuneration disclosure, indicating that the disclosure of directors' remuneration is positive up to a certain level of government ownership but reduces as government ownership increases. Evidently, directors in government-owned companies are being extra vigilant in disclosing their remuneration due to the political and personal security reasons, particularly post the 12th general election of Malaysia in 2008 that witnessed the government lose its two-thirds majority in parliament for the first time after 40 years. The second chapter examines how board diversity influences disclosure. The study found that only age diversity is significantly and negatively associated with directors' remuneration disclosure, supporting the age stereotype that characterised old directors who are wise and wisdom. Hence, the adverse disclosure behaviour can be explained by their ability to credibly withhold voluntary information and strategically disclose mandatory information on remuneration. Contrary to prior studies, this study found that ethnic diversity does not have a significant influence on directors' remuneration disclosure possibly due to the equal number of Malay and non-Malay directors on board throughout the period under review. Interestingly, cultural convergence is also known to be a contributing factor as both ethnics exercise their belief in determining the level of strategic remuneration disclosure. In line with upper echelon theory, the presence of female directors is found to be an insignificant determinant of remuneration disclosure possibly due to their risk-averse personality in the high-risk disclosure area. The third chapter aims to assess the extent to which directors' remuneration disclosure reflects information that is relevant to firm value. By using Tobin's Q, this chapter shows that directors' remuneration disclosure is value relevant in both financial and non-financial sectors among the FTSE30 companies. The finding implies that the market highly values directors' remuneration disclosure as it signals board transparency and provides a window to overall governance quality of an organisation. This chapter proposes that commitment to directors' remuneration disclosure has potential benefits that outweigh the risk of disclosing within the Malaysian context. Furthermore, this chapter explicitly addresses and justifies the potential endogeneity problem that has been ignored by typical accounting studies. Using the two-stage least squares (2SLS) technique to control for the endogeneity of voluntary remuneration disclosure in assessing its impact on firm value, findings from the robustness analysis carried out suggest that the empirical results reported are robust to potential endogeneity problems. Finally, this study provides two practical implications. First, it provides a disclosure incentive for directors to make better remuneration disclosure in the annual report. Despite that there is evidence of hesitancy to disclose due to the political volatility in Malaysia subsequent to the 12th general election in 2008, the market significantly values directors' remuneration disclosure as it signals good governance practice by the company as well as great reputation portrayed by the board members. More specifically, this study encourages disclosure on directors' remuneration as it positively affects firm value, in both financial and non-financial sectors. Secondly, this study offers essential guidelines for companies in determining the board composition. It suggests that a distinctive personality of each director can be a competitive advantage of a firm when it is properly transformed to make it congruent with the firm's objective, in achieving maximum efficiency of decision-making. While age diversity is found to be significantly associated with directors' remuneration disclosure, the remaining board diversity dimensions such as gender, and ethnicity are also significant in a condition when it is critically analysed using the upper echelon theory within the context of Malaysia. Overall, the study indicates the need to incorporate a diversified composition of the top decision-makers in deciding a strategic remuneration disclosure.

It has been widely accepted that profit maximisation the cornerstone of economic analysis. The prevalence of non profit maximising firms such as cooperatives, partnership and the increasing importance in stakeholders' interest has raised my interest in this topic. My thesis looks into the reasons that drive the prevalence of non-profit firms, such as the perception bias of managers, the special law and regulation in certain countries and the emphasis on the stakeholders' interests. I base my analysis mainly on the oligopoly model and provided analysis on how the market is like in non-profit maximising environment compared to profit maximsing environment. I find out that non-profit firm is not necessary less profitable under certain circumstance. First chapter introduces the related literature; second chapter focuses on the influence of managers' perception bias on firms' decision; chapter three applied a two stage model to see how for-profit firms and non-profit firms react under uncertainty and last chapter focus on the governance of cooperative/partnership.

Chief Executive Offier (CEO) characteristics, such as the level of risk aversion, are known to affect corporate financial policies, and therefore are likely to impact corporate liquidity decisions. We examine changes in cash holdings around CEO turnover events, a period in which discrete changes in managerial preferences and abilities are likely to have the most dramatic effect on cash holdings. Our results suggest that cash holdings increase significantly following forced departures. The increase is persistent over the successor's tenure and is robust to controls for the standard firm-level determinants of cash holdings and corporate governance characteristics. We find that higher cash holdings arise mainly through the management of net working capital, as opposed to asset sales or reductions in investment. This suggests that the changes are optimal for shareholders rather than an indication of serious agency problems. This conclusion is supported further by our finding that the marginal value of cash does not decrease following the turnover.

Táto štúdia sa zaoberá súčasným procesom transformácie nemocníc na obchodné spoločnosti v Českej republike a na Slovensku. Podáva teoretický pohľad na sektor zdravotníctva a prakticky porovnáva jednotlivé právne formy nemocničných zariadení.Na príklade nemocníc Plzeňského kraja a Nemocnice s Poliklinikou v Levoči skúma prvé dopady na hospodárenie, riadenie a kontrolu zdravotníckych zariadení.

I | P a g e Abstract This thesis primarily focuses on the construction of a firm-specific index measuring the quality of corporate governance in the most liquid Czech and Croatian companies. The index is made by following OECD recommendations on construction of composite indicators. It allows comparison of best practices implementation on the overall level, and it also provides with a comprehensive analogy in terms of various governance domains performance. These domains are represented by four sub-indices: Board, Conflict of Interest, Shareholders' Rights, and Transparency and Disclosure. Initial assumption, stating that the Czech companies should have higher overall Corporate Governance Index score than the Croatian companies, is approved. Moreover, the Czech companies have stronger performance in three sub-indices: Board, Conflict of Interest, and Transparency and Disclosure, whereas the Croatian companies have negligible advantage solely with regard to the Shareholders' Rights Sub-index.

This thesis investigates corporate governance in Saudi Arabia by examining the perceptions of different stakeholder groups. The study examines the understanding of corporate governance, the current practice, the corporate governance framework and the impact of the social, cultural and economic aspects on the situation on corporate governance in Saudi Arabia. The study uses semi-structured interviews and a questionnaire survey with wide groups of stakeholders and an accountability perspective is adopted to interpret the results. The findings suggest that corporate governance in Saudi Arabia is in its early stages and is characterised by a lack of accountability, a weak legal framework and poor protection of shareholders. The influence of the social, cultural and economic factors is evident and boards of directors are dominated by major shareholders; thus good corporate governance practices have many challenges.

This thesis consists of three empirical studies investigating, from various perspectives, the corporate motivations to join one of the largest voluntary initiatives promoting sustainability: the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC). I employ three different statistical techniques, logistic regression analysis, event history analysis and structural equation modelling. The first study provides evidence from a field experiment on shareholder engagement effectiveness in general and on which tactics are more effective in engaging publicly traded firms. The experiment consists of an invitation letter sent by the Principles for Responsible Investment Clearinghouse, one of the largest worldwide coalition of investors, to encourage companies to sign up the United Nations Global Compact. I use a theoretical model for investor salience in order to understand the impact of the engagement. To the best of my knowledge, this is the first large-scale research on engagement using randomized controlled trials in the academic literature and in practice. The aim of the second study is three fold. First, most academic literature focuses on how the adoption of the UNGC impacts on the implementation of environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) performance; this study addresses how ESG performance shapes the CSR strategy, namely, the UNGC. Next, I explore to what extent the ESG performance of firms adopting the UNGC change over time. Finally, this paper investigates whether the existence of controversies is a determinant for joining the initiative. Results show that, in all cases, ESG performance is significant and positively related to the adoption of the Ten Principles. Furthermore, results show that ESG performance differs across different points in time. Contrary to my expectations, controversies have no influence on UNGC membership. The third and final study examines the effect of the characteristics of the board of directors on the adoption of the UNGC/GRI by US-based firms. I investigate whether and how a CSR oriented board chooses the UNGC/GRI as part of their firms reporting strategy. I also consider the level of environmental and social performance as a mediator for such a decision. Results show that there is a positive and significant relationship between the board and environmental and social performance, and between environmental and social performance and the adoption of voluntary CSR initiatives. This relationship is stronger for social performance and for the GRI. Overall, this thesis provides further evidence about motivations to join the UNGC. The outcomes of this thesis are of relevance for shareholders and investor coalitions, policy makers, and other groups of stakeholders. Theoretically, this thesis adds to the literature on shareholder engagement, strategy and corporate governance.

[pt] Surgido incialmente na Inglaterra e EUA, o movimento de governança corporativa ganhou repercussão considerável na última década em função da pressão crescente de investidores e acionistas minoritários por maior transparência na divulgação de informações. No Brasil, só muito recentemente, o tema vem atraindo a atenção de empresas, estudiosos e investidores como consequência em grande parte da necessidade de profissionalização das companhias com o processo de privatização de estatais e globalização. A partir de uma amostra de 145 empresas brasileiras não financeiras listadas em bolsa em 2002, o estudo busca verificar se existe uma relação estatisticamente significante entre os padrões de governança corporativa observados nas empresas brasileiras e seus respectivos valores de mercado e desempenho, particularmente, através da utilização de uma modelagem estatística de regressão múltipla linear. Os resultados revelam que os modelos propostos são válidos estatisticamente com um nível de confiança de 95% e que a estrutura de governança corporativa influencia desempenho e valor de mercado de forma distinta. / [en] Initially born in United Kingdom and United States, the corporate governance movement received a considerable repercussion during the last decade as a result of the growing demand of investors and minority shareholders for higher levels of transparency. In Brazil, only very recently, this subject started to call the attention of companies, investors and researchers mostly as a consequence of the globalization and privatization process. From a sample containing 145 non financial listed Brazilian companies in 2002, this study aims to verify the existence of a statistically significant relation between the observed Brazilian patterns of corporate governance and the respective firm market values and performance, particularly, using multiple linear regression modeling. The results reveal that the proposed models can be considered statistically valid with a level of confidence of 95% and also that the corporate governance structure affects performance and market value in a distinct way.

M.Com., Facultyof Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, 2011 / Following the release of the King III report on Corporate Governance for South Africa in March 2010, South African companies are expected to embrace the concept of integrated reporting in which they are required to report on their strategies, corporate governance, risk management processes, financial performance and sustainability. More importantly, companies need to show how these components of integrated reporting are linked to one another, so that stakeholders can make informed decisions about their current performance as well as their ability to create and sustain value in the future. The purpose of this report by is to determine whether the level of reporting by South African listed companies has improved subsequent to the release of the King III report. The findings of this study reveal improvements in this regard. However, there is still a need for further improvement in the level of reporting by South African listed companies in order to achieve the objective of integrated reporting.

abstract: 当前，上市公司的盈余管理问题已是我国资本市场中普遍存在的突出问题。一般来说，一些企业为了满足资本市场对于上市、增发等条件的要求,以及为有效推动企业的并购、重组等行为的顺利实现,甚至为了谋求公司管理层的个别利益,往往运用盈余管理等举措实施公司财报及关键指标的粉饰修正，让不知情的股民蒙受一定的损失。普遍分析显示，我国股市中民营企业比其他企业遭遇的问题和压力更多、更大、更突出,因此民营企业从客观上来说拥有更强的盈余管理动机。而从当前我国资本市场的实际情况来看，我国相关专家学者对盈余管理的系统性深入研究，一般都瞄准了上市企业群体或持续亏损企业，对盈余管理的研究不系统、不全面、不深入，这将对我国进一步提升盈余管理监管水平构成一定不利影响。当前，由于我国民企在自身管理及发展动力方面的特殊性,我国民企的管理、盈余管理特点和国外上市公司还存在着很大的不同,进一步深入研究我国民企上市公司自身管理方面的突出特点，以及其对企业盈余管理等方面的深层次影响,有助于监管层对症下药，更有针对性地研究出台全新的监管措施,进一步提升管理水平。这还可以为公司发展的决策层及相关会计信息使用人员提供一定的决策参考, 因此其拥有十分重要的意义。 本文首先认真总结分析了有关上市企业治理结构和盈余管理等方面的历史文献资料，依托当前资本市场上普遍运用的委托代理、内部人控制和契约等理论，系统研究了我国民企上市公司在自身治理结构方面的突出特征以及其对盈余管理方面所构成影响的深层次原理。在此基础上，本文通过2015-2017年我国上市企业数据，基于截面Jones模型对民营企业和非民营企业盈余管理程度进行测算和比较分析，发现民营企业盈余管理程度更高；从四个层面系统研究民企公司自身的治理结构突出特点,设立回归模型论证了民营企业独特的公司治理结构特征对盈余管理程度确实会产生影响；最后,本文进一步利用修正的费尔萨姆一奥尔森估价模型对民营上市公司盈余管理有公司价值的关系进行了验证，发现两者具有显著相关性。 / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Business Administration 2019