Yes / Despite the importance of firms' strategy in corporate sustainability (CS), insufficient research has focused on the role of business strategy in the relationship between CS and firm performance. Focusing on generic business strategy, this study examines when and under what conditions CS relates to firm performance. The main argument is that the effects of CS on firm performance are contingent on the firm's business strategy. The findings present that CS strengths are positively related to firm performance when firms pursue a differentiation strategy. Meanwhile, CS concerns are negatively associated with firm performance when firms operate with a differentiation strategy. Empirical evidence is obtained from a sample of U.S. firms and fixed effects panel regression models, which controls for unobservable time-invariant factors that are correlated with covariates. This study contributes to the literature on CS and firm performance by suggesting business strategy as an important moderating condition in the CS-firm performance link.

Yes / In today’s rapidly changing business landscape, organizations increasingly invest in different technologies to enhance their innovation capabilities. Among the technological investment, a notable development is the applications of big data analytics (BDA), which plays a pivotal role in supporting firms’ decision-making processes. Big data technologies are important factors that could help both exploratory and exploitative innovation, which could affect the efforts to combat climate change and ease the shift to green energy. However, studies that comprehensively examine BDA’s impact on innovation capability and technological cycle remain scarce. This study therefore investigates the impact of BDA on innovation capability, technological cycle, and firm performance. It develops a conceptual model, validated using CB-SEM, through responses from 356 firms. It is found that both innovation capability and firm performance are significantly influenced by big data technology. This study highlights that BDA helps to address the pressing challenges of climate change mitigation and the transition to cleaner and more sustainable energy sources. However, our results are based on managerial perceptions in a single country. To enhance generalizability, future studies could employ a more objective approach and explore different contexts. Multidimensional constructs, moderating factors, and rival models could also be considered in future studies.

This thesis investigated if there was an association between board member turnover and gender, alongside the investigation of potential gender-related differences during periods of declining firm performance. The performance variables examined included ROA, EBIT, and Stock Returns. The study encompassed a sample of 291 firms listed on Nasdaq Stockholm Large, Mid, and Small Cap between the years 2020 and 2022 yielding 600 firm-year observations. The thesis used a Poisson regression model to test the hypotheses. We found that the additions of female board members are more likely to follow female departures, and that the association was driven by the independent female board member subsample. Furthermore, the thesis did not uncover any significant statistical evidence indicating differential treatment between women and men when firm performance deteriorates, in the form of an increased likelihood of board turnover for women. Instead, we found that non-independent male board turnover was significantly negatively related to stock returns.

Globalization, geopolitics, and socio-economic uncertainties increase supply chain vulnerabilities. Climate changes, natural disasters, and man-made accidents have increased the tension of disturbances. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted many supply chains worldwide, putting the agri-food supply chain at a higher risk than ever. Agri-food supply chains face severe and complex challenges due to industry-specific characteristics, such as perishability, short shelf life, long lead time production, and weather dependence. Consumer awareness of having healthy, traceable, and environmentally friendly food products has become an increasing concern, making sustainable development also a vital factor in the agri-food industry. To ensure sustainable development, firms must improve supply chain resilience by discovering, nurturing, and developing resilience capability and competitive advantage. Resilience describes the ability to respond quickly to disruptions and help the supply chain recover. Recently, digital technologies have developed rapidly, supported by the Industrial Revolution 4.0, which plays a crucial role in a company's operations. Digital technologies help promote core resilience competencies such as visibility, collaboration, and agility through typical technologies such as blockchain, artificial intelligence, fifth-generation technology, big data analytics, additive manufacturing, tracking, tracing technologies, etc. This study uses a theoretical framework from dynamic capabilities and extant literature reviews to determine the research gap in the agri-food industry. The study uses mixed methods: a qualitative research method to examine and uncover the role of supply chain resilience in responding to disruptions in the agri-food industry, and a second study used a quantitative method to examine the influence of digital technologies on resilience in the agri-food supply chain. This study confirms the critical role of resilience in the agri-food supply chain and the significance of digital technologies in improving supply chain resilience and firm performance. The study also suggests that a firm should proactively build its resilience capability rather than learn from past disruptions. The findings are useful for academics and practitioners alike, in the acknowledgment of the significant effects of digital technologies on supply chain resilience in the agri-food industry. Some technologies are not agri-food specific but have a place in the industry, while others are tailor made for farming applications. Parties in the agri-food industry must take advantage of Industrial Revolution 4.0 and digital technologies to flourish in the agri-food industry. / Business Administration/Interdisciplinary

The recent financial crisis has raised serious questions about the effectiveness of corporate governance (CG) in monitoring management and protecting investors’ interests. There is concern that ‘poor’ CG was, to a certain extent, a major cause of the current financial crisis. This thesis, therefore, investigates the crucial policy question of whether the quality of CG has any effect on financial performance, information asymmetry and on block shareholders’ investment decisions. This is achieved and presented in the form of three essays on CG practices in UK with a particular focus on the periods before and during the 2007/2008 financial crisis. The first essay aims to investigate the impact of firm-level CG on block shareholders’ investment decisions for a large sample of UK non-financial firms over the period 2005 to 2009. Using a panel data analysis, the results revealed the importance of CG for block shareholders’ investment decisions. Furthermore, the study results indicated that only institutional block shareholders consider CG to be important criteria for their investment decisions. Moreover, when the effect of CG on block shareholdings in both periods before and during crisis was examined, a significant difference in results appeared: an insignificant positive relationship in the pre-crisis period turned out to be significant during crisis. The result thus indicates that block shareholders viewed CG as particularly important during the crisis period. The second essay aims to examine the effect of CG on firm performance before and during the financial crisis. It also investigates the mediating effect of agency costs on the association between CG and firm performance. The results revealed that CG affects firm performance only in the period before the crisis, but no significant effect was found during the crisis period. Moreover, agency cost was proved to fully mediate the relationship between CG and performance in the pre-crisis period. The results point to an important issue, which is the need to re-evaluate CG not only in stable periods but also during turbulent times, and to evaluate its ability to perform effectively in such different conditions. The third essay investigates the effect of both CG and block ownership on information asymmetry. Further, the effects of CG in lessening the positive association between block ownership and information asymmetry is considered. The results revealed that CG affects information asymmetry only in the pre-crisis. In addition, block ownership was shown to have a significant and positive effect on information asymmetry during crisis periods suggesting that block shareholders benefit from their information advantage during crisis period which in turn worsens the information asymmetry problem. This suggests that block shareholders engage more in their private benefits rather than in efficient monitoring. The results also proved that CG is insignificant during turbulent period in lessening the negative effect of block ownership.

During the past decades, CEO and board compensation has increased substantially. Top management compensation and firm performance has been an extensively researched subject, and a large amount of previous studies have examined the relation of top management pay and firm performance. However, the findings and discussions have been contradictory and inconsistent. The purpose of this thesis is to examine if there is a relationship between the top management variable compensation and firm performance. We aim to explore this subject in further depth by focusing on the Swedish context and by studying if contextual issues, in terms of different industries, have an impact on this relation. In order to examine this relation multiple regression analysis were performed. The empirical evidence displays that on a general level, incentive systems of the top management have no significant effect on firm performance. We also conclude that the relation of variable pay and performance is contingent on industry. We therefore argue that the context in which the firm operates has an impact on the investigated relation in this thesis. Furthermore, the Swedish context and the Swedish governance model can be considered as one of the main explanations of the attained result.

本研究以2001年至2005年為研究期間，從股權結構及董事會監督功能分別探討公股角色對投資標的公司經營績效之影響。本文之研究結果顯示：(1)股權結構變數中，公股投資標的公司之經營績效較無公股投資之公司為佳。(2)公股持股比率愈高，公股投資標的公司之經營績效則愈差。(3)董事會組成變數中，由公股代表出任董監之公股投資標的公司之經營績效較未派任公股代表之公司為佳。(4)當公股代表的席次比率愈高時，公股之投資標的公司之經營績效愈差。(5)公股持股比率偏離公股代表席次比率之程度愈高，公股投資標的公司之經營績效愈差。 / This research from 2001 to 2005 as research period, aim to explore the role of government ownership in the relationship between board composition and firm performance in the enterprises with government ownership. The empirical results document that from ownership structure variables, the effect of government shareholding on firm performance is found to be positive. Furthermore, firm performance decreases with an increased size of government shareholding. From board composition variables, the effect of the board with the government shareholding represents on firm performance is found to be positive. Furthermore, firm performance is worse with an increased size of government shareholding represents in the corporate board composition. Finally, when the government shareholding and the government shareholding represents’ seat ratio deviation degree is bigger, the firm performance would be worse.

This study aims to investigate the relative contribution of tangible and intangible resources, and capabilities on firm performance based on the measures of market share, sales turnover and profitability and explore the complex interaction and foundation of different resource sets and capabilities in the process of performance creation within the context of resource-based theory. In order to address these objectives, a mixed-methods research approach incorporating both qualitative and quantitative components was utilised. Hence, a sequential explanatory design is employed, commencing with qualitative methods including in-depth interviews along with the literature review to define and organise resources and capabilities in a coherent system that will form the basis of survey instrument, leading to quantitative methods which empirically test a series of hypotheses regarding the contribution of resources and capabilities on firm performance. Whilst qualitative data analysis indicated organisational culture, reputational assets, human capital, business processes and networking capabilities as the most important determinants of firm performance, the survey that was conducted on a total of 243 questionnaires obtained from 951 firms revealed that intangible resources and capabilities contributed more greatly to firm performance compared to tangible resources. However, in contrast to the proposition of resource-based theory that views capabilities as the most important skills that underpin the development and deployment of both tangible and intangible resources, capabilities offered rather limited additional explanatory power to the prediction of firm performance only with respect to profitability against the combined effects of tangible and intangible resources. All findings were explained especially within the context of Turkish business environment that shows typical emerging market characteristics. Moreover, some noteworthy results were elaborated based on the developed and emerging market differences. Overall, the study raises some questions with respect to resource contributions on firm performance and offers a fruitful avenue for further research.

Executive pay research has traditionally focused on salary, severance payments and longterm incentives. A systematic rigorous empirical examination of short-term annual bonuses is lacking. To address this omission, this research empirically examines the relationship between short-term bonuses and firm performance (TSR and EPS), in the UK. It also considers the association between form of bonus payment (i.e. cash/shares), and type of performance target (i.e. hard/soft and simple/complex) with bonus and performance. Furthermore, firm size and particular corporate governance factors are included (i.e. NED ratio on remuneration committee, CEO presence on nominations committee, CEO/Chair duality, tenure, and power) to examine their relationship with bonus value. From a sample of 299 firms listed in the FTSE-350 (1,542 executives including 300 CEOs), this study uses two competing theories (i.e. agency and power theory) to provide a fuller explanation of the subtleties of the pay-performance relation. The main findings support the agency view, since bonus is positively and significantly associated with financial performance. As with previous studies on executive bonus pay this association remains weak. By implication, power theory is not supported. However, other findings indicate: (1) although firm size may change, the proportion of bonus pay relative to salary does not vary. This suggests that large and small firms pay out proportionally similar bonuses; (2) cash bonuses are not positively related with the total value of bonus pay, suggesting that they are not any more open to abuse than other methods of compensation, as agency theory would predict; (3) cash bonuses encourage short-term achievement, as predicted by power theory; (4) consistent with agency theory, share-based bonuses are positively related to bonus pay and performance (weak association), suggesting that share-based bonuses (rather than cash bonuses) may be more effective at aligning pay with performance; (5) in line with agency theory, transparency (i.e. hard (external/published) and simple bonus conditions) is positively associated with performance, providing support for the alignment between principals' and agents' interests; (6) detailed bonus scheme characteristics are generally insensitive to performance and are becoming increasingly softer (i.e. more internal/unspecified targets) and complex (i.e. multiple targets). On the power view, these may create opportunities for executives to mask weak performance and extract greater rents; (7) governance factors are insignificant, suggesting that efforts to improve this area may be wasted, since they mainly leave pay-performance sensitivities unaffected. However, based on power theory, weak governance may foster the rise of powerful executives and widen the pay-performance gap. Therefore, it is suggested that close monitoring of executive pay must continue and shareholders should remain vigilant.

A pesquisa trata da relação entre as transações com partes relacionadas (RPT\'s) e o desempenho nas companhias do Novo Mercado. Teve como objetivo identificar se esta relação pode ser afetada pelos mecanismos de governança corporativa, especificamente de supervisão e monitoramento por elas adotados voluntariamente. Foram consideradas as hipóteses dicotômicas apresentadas por Gordon, Henry e Palia (2004), denominadas de \"conflitos de interesse\" e \" transações eficientes\". Na tentativa de mensurar estas relações, adotou-se o modelo de análise de dados em painel por permitir a incorporação de informações temporais e reduzir o problema do viés de variáveis omitidas. Evidências sugerem que há relação entre as transações com partes relacionadas operacionais e o desempenho das companhias estudadas. No entanto, os resultados a respeito do efeito de moderação dos mecanismos de supervisão e monitoramento na utilização de tais contratos foram inconclusivos. / The study deals with the relationship between related party transactions (RPT\'s) and firm performance in the Brazilian \"Novo Mercado\", and its goal is to identify whether this relationship can be affected by mechanisms of corporate governance. Audit committee was used to measure corporate governance mechanisms. The two assumptions made by Gordon, Henry and Palia (2004), called \"conflicts of interest\" and \"efficient transactions\" were considered in this study. In an attempt to measure these relationships, it was adopted the model of panel data analysis to reduce the problem of omitted variable bias. The empirical results provide evidence that there is a relationship between related party transactions and firm performance. However, the results regarding the moderating effect of the mechanisms of supervision and use of such contracts have been inconclusive.