The results obtained from this research indicates that there is no statistical relation between the chosen financial variables and the total compensation to the CEO, except sales. CEO compensation is a highly debated subject in Sweden. The debate concerns whether or not CEOs are paid too much in relation to their results. This research investigates what decides the CEO compensation. Can the CEO compensation be explained by the financial variables ROA, ROE, Sales, Tobin’s q, and the size of the largest shareholder? In this paper companies listed on the Swedish Stock Exchange OMX Stockholm large and mid cap during the years 2003 to 2008 are analyzed by empirically and theoretically adapted models.

To be able to understand future firm performance it is important to recognize and correctly evaluate what constitutes a signal. This study investigates if provisions contain signalling value regarding future firm performance. The study is conducted on firms listed on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm from 2001 to 2010, constituting a sample of 2173 firm years. All the provision data has been manually collected from each of the firm’s annual reports. By using both univariate and multivariate analyses, the study provides new evidence regarding the association between provisions and firm performance. The findings indicate that firms who recognise restructuring provisions experience a performance improvement. The performance improvement is tied to the size of the restructuring provision i.e. the signal. Warranty and litigation provisions show no indications of having any relation to future firm performance. Thus, large restructuring provisions contain a signal of performance improvement, whereas warranty and litigation provisions do not. The thesis contributes to existing literature by providing new insight of how provisions functions as signals of firm performance

Capital structure and companies’ performance are important to corporate finance. Therefore, firms take different strategies to adjust capital structure to get a better firm performance. However still the studies mostly conducted in one country setting or neglect the angle from listed companies across countries. This thesis encompasses 2 developed countries (Germany and Sweden) and a developing country (China) to test the impact from capital structure to firm performance of period 2003-2012 with more than 1200 listed companies in Germany and Sweden and more than 1000 listed companies in China. The result shows capital structure has a significant negative effect to firm performance in China, whereas, significant positive effect in 2 European countries before financial crisis happened in 2008. I also find institutional factors and economic crisis will affect this relationship too.

Strategic human resource practices are suggested for its importance to help firms obtain substantive competitive advantage these years. However, workforce differentiation perspectives brought a new paradigm shift of strategic human resource management to have a narrow focus on strategic talent management. While a number of previous studies have suggested the importance of strategic talent management, few have given the clear definition, critical strategic talent management practices and provide empirical evidences. This study developed the strategic talent management practices and examined the influence of strategic talent management system on talents¡¦ capabilities and firm performance. In addition, the mediation effects of talents¡¦ capabilities are also be examined in this study. The data were collected from the 62 medium to large companies across industries in Taiwan. The study results summarize as follows. 1. Firstly, this study identified and developed the five subsystems of strategic job identification, competence training, performance evaluation, development, compensation and benefits with their related practices in strategic talent management system. The preliminary study results provide the reliability and validity evidences to support strategic talent management practices measurement scales as a stable and valid measurement tool. 2. Secondly, this study supported the positive relationship between strategic talent management system and firm performance. The results imply that the intensive use of strategic talent management system leads to positive firm performance. 3. Thirdly, this study supported the positive relationship between strategic talent management system and talents¡¦ capabilities, including behavioral, knowledge, skills and work style capabilities. The results imply that organization can take advantage of investing strategic talent management system to develop the critical talents¡¦ behavioral, knowledge, skills, and work style capabilities. 4. Fourthly, this study partially supported the positive relationship between talents¡¦ capabilities and firm performance. The results imply that talents¡¦ behavioral, knowledge, and work style capabilities have positive influence on firm performance. Organizations should develop talents¡¦ behavioral, knowledge, and work style capabilities to achieve the organizational strategic goals and obtain the competitive advantage. However, the hypothesized relationship between talents¡¦ skill capability and firm performance was not supported in this study. 5. Finally, this study partially supported the mediation effects of talents¡¦ capabilities between the relationship of strategic talent management system and firm performance. The results imply that the mediation effects of talents¡¦ behavioral and knowledge capabilities have significant influence on the relationship of strategic talent management system and firm performance while the mediation effects of talent¡¦s skills and work style capabilities did not meet the significant level in this study. The results still partially supported the mechanism of talents¡¦ capabilities working between strategic talent management system and firm performance. All results implications and suggestions are discussed in detail in the context.

A widely held belief is that resource constraints and industry conditions pose severe threats to the performance of entrepreneurial firms. While previous research links resources controlled by these firms to different performance outcomes, extant research on organizational performance often assumes away contextual differences in the allocation of scarce resources by firms to develop and leverage different organizational capabilities. Further, no research has explored the performance implications of resource use, especially for new ventures. The purpose of this study is to bring capabilities to the foreground in the examination of organizational performance for new ventures following an initial public offering (IPO). Building from resource-based theory and contingency theory, I examine the indirect (through capability formation and use) effects that occur within the ‘black box’ between resources and performance for a sample of entrepreneurial firms undertaking an IPO. New theory is offered to explain the formation and performance outcomes of two configurations of organizational capabilities: market-managing capabilities and market-creating capabilities. Human capital is considered, bringing agency into theory explaining capability formation and use. Further, I consider how underlying routines allow resources to be managed for greater value across different industries—conditions that make resources valuable in some contexts and not in others. I find that resource endowments at IPO affect the formation and use of organizational capabilities and that this relationship varies across different industry contexts. Further, I find support for the indirect effect of resources on performance outcomes through capability formation and use. More specifically, I find that adjustments to the configuration of organizational capabilities affect performance prospects over time. Results confirm that capability configurations compete for scarce resources, necessitating tradeoffs in allocation decisions between them. I also find that industry conditions moderate this relationship. By employing an integrative, multidisciplinary approach, this dissertation extends research on the performance effects of resource endowments and capability formation and use for entrepreneurial firms. Further, it contributes to growing research on IPO firms in strategic management and entrepreneurship, especially theoretical and empirical research examining the different firm and industry conditions that affect organizational performance during the period following a firm’s transition into the public arena.

This dissertation consists of three essays in corporate governance. The first essay, titled ¡§Control or Invest: Complex Interests of Managerial Stockholdings¡¨ examines the structural relation between managerial ownership and firm performance. By using simultaneous equation models and considering the complex interests of management, our results show that complicated mutual effects exist between managerial ownership and firm performance. In diffused ownership structure (0-13%), better firm performance may induce management to hold more stockholding, indicating possible investment purpose that is not addressed in previous studies. Management with mid-range of stockholdings (13%-50%), have positive effect on firm performance but not vice versa, which agrees with the ¡§convergence-of-interest hypothesis¡¨. For highly concentrated ownership structure (>50%), negative mutual effect exists, which agrees with the ¡§entrenchment hypothesis¡¨, giving notice to protect minority shareholders. The second essay, titled ¡§The Discrepancy of R&D Expenditure, Ownership Structure and Performance between Electronic and Non-electronic Industries¡¨ addresses on the mutual effects among R&D expenditure, ownership structure and firm performance in electronic industry. The characteristics of high research expenditure, high performance, and stock-based compensation plan of electronic industry may exaggerate the mutual effects between these three factors than companies in non-electronic industry. The empirical evidence first shows that better firm performance will result in higher managerial equity in both electronic and non-electronic industries. Another finding is that electronic industry has higher and more stable research expenditure, no matter firm¡¦s performance; while non-electronic industry spends more in research only when the firm is doing well. The third essay, ¡§The Adjustment and Determination of Ownership Change¡¨, is used to examine the equilibrium hypothesis regarding managerial ownership variation. The equilibrium hypothesis assumes that managers will continuously re-optimize their ownership to maximize firm¡¦s value. In this essay, instead of studying the cross-sectional relationship between managerial ownership and firm performance, we use a dynamic setting to examine how managers adjust their ownership over time and what factors will determine the within firm variation. It is shown that there is small within firm variation in managerial ownership with strong mean-reversion adjustment the entire sample. The results also show that firm characteristics like debt ratio, R&D expenditure and operating income do not relate significantly to within firm variation, but firm performance and institutional parameters like the reselection of board members, stock turnover and ownership level do. This thesis contributes to provide investment purpose as an alternative explanation for insiders¡¦ stockholding, in addition to the expropriation activities that is major concern in prior studies. The change analysis further provides more understanding of within firm variation vertically that is still vague in the literature (HHP, 1999). These new findings add knowledge to managerial ownership in emerging market like Taiwan. The managerial implication is that investors may not fully depend on manager¡¦s self-discipline to solve agency problem. Outside supervision, including independent board member and supervisor, institutional investors and corporate governance evaluation, could be emphasized to reinforce corporate governance.

Earnings management can be used to respond to a variable economics environment to improve firm performance under efficient contracting perspective but earnings management can also be abused to hurt a firm¡¦s performance under opportunistic behavioral perspective. Investors, therefore, have difficulty to understand and know about the purpose of earnings management, especially for firms in Taiwan that are very likely to engage in earnings management due to poor governance. Although numerous literatures have shed light on managers¡¦ incentives on earnings management and the effects of earnings management on firm performance, little attention has been devoted to disentangle the relation among corporate governance, earnings management and firm performance. The purpose of this dissertation is to unravel manager¡¦s intension on earnings management and to clarify whether proper governance can alleviate the abuse of earnings management and, therefore, enhance firm performance. Without distilling the effect of corporate governance on earnings management, the empirical results indicate that there is an inverse relation between earnings management and firm performance, implying that managers are more likely to exploit the latitude of earnings management to mislead investors and gain opportunistic profit. This dissertation further examines the relation between earnings management and the features of corporate governance including ownership structure and board characteristics. These results show that stronger corporate governance can effectively reduce the abuse of earnings management. Furthermore, this dissertation provides the evidence that the relation between earnings management and firm performance is improved when the use of earnings management is monitored under proper governance.

<p>The results obtained from this research indicates that there is no statistical relation between the chosen financial variables and the total compensation to the CEO, except sales.</p><p>CEO compensation is a highly debated subject in Sweden. The debate concerns whether or not CEOs are paid too much in relation to their results. This research investigates what decides the CEO compensation. Can the CEO compensation be explained by the financial variables ROA, ROE, Sales, Tobin’s q, and the size of the largest shareholder?</p><p>In this paper companies listed on the Swedish Stock Exchange OMX Stockholm large and mid cap during the years 2003 to 2008 are analyzed by empirically and theoretically adapted models.</p>

This study examines the existence of pay-performance sensitivity in total compensation and bonus during the financial crisis, using data between 2007-2010 from Swedish 196 listed firms. We perform panel data regression analysis of CEO compensation on financial performance measured as stock returns. Our results indicate that there is, although not significant, a weak positive relationship between CEO compensation and firm performance during 2007-2010. However during 2009-2010 in a market state defined as post-crisis we find weak negative pay-performance sensitivity at a significance level of 10 %. Nevertheless, as regards to the bonus paid to executives there was a significantly positive relationship relative bonus % and firm performance. These results contribute to our understanding of the pay-performance sensitivity in times of financial disturbance, highly relevant to the existing debate considering CEO compensation.

Οι επιδοτήσεις κεφαλαίου αποτελούν ένα ευρέως διαδεδομένο όργανο περιφερειακής και βιομηχανικής πολιτικής στην Ε.Ε και συχνά αναγκαίο εργαλείο, είτε για την αντιμετώπιση οικονομικών και κοινωνικών προβλημάτων, είτε για την επίτευξη σημαντικών στόχων της Κοινότητας, όπως η οικονομική και κοινωνική συνοχή μεταξύ των κρατών μελών και η σύγκλιση μεταξύ των περιφερειών που έχουν αναπτυχθεί με άνισο τρόπο. Ένας σημαντικός αριθμός πρόσφατων ερευνών μελέτησε τις επιδράσεις των επιδοτήσεων κεφαλαίου στην απόδοση, στην παραγωγικότητα και στη πιθανότητα επιβίωσης των εταιρειών, οι οποίες παρείχαν στοιχεία θετικών επιδράσεων. Η παρούσα μελέτη εξετάζει τις επιδράσεις των κεφαλαιακών επιδοτήσεων σε τέσσερις διαστάσεις της εταιρικής επίδοσης, στην κερδοφορία, στην αποτελεσματικότητα, στη μόχλευση και στην δανειακή επιβάρυνση. Βασίστηκε σε μια πάνελ βάση εταιρειών, του τομέα της μεταποίησης και των υπηρεσιών της Περιφέρειας Κρήτης, για το διάστημα 2005-2007 και έδειξε ότι οι επιδοτήσεις κεφαλαίου επηρέασαν ελαφρώς, μόνο την ανάπτυξη των εταιρειών της Περιφέρειας Κρήτης, ενώ δεν έδειξαν κάποια επίδραση στην επίδοση των εταιρειών, των κλάδων της μεταποίησης και υπηρεσιών. / The capital subsidization is a widespread instrument of regional and industrial policy in the EU and sometimes necessary tool, either to solve economic and social problems or to achieve important objectives of the Community, such as economic and social cohesion between Member States and convergence between regions that have been developed unequally. A significant number of recent surveys have examined the effects of subsidies on capital efficiency, productivity and the probability of the survival of the companies, which provided strong evidence of positive effects. This present study examines the effects of capital subsidization on four dimensions of the financial performance of firms, that is profitability, efficiency, capital structure and the growth. It has been based on a panel database of companies in the manufacturing and services sector of the Region of Crete for the period 2005-2007 and showed that the capital subsidies affect slightly, only the development of the Region of Crete, while showed no effect on performance of the companies of manufacturing and services sector.