This thesis explores whether independent directors in the USA and Canada are effective in holding management accountable by: (1) analyzing how the policy of relying on independent directors developed and operates; (2) introducing the main theoretical critiques of independent directors’ monitoring effect; and (3) examining whether empirical studies in the field of management science and financial economics support the policy in both countries of relying on independent directors as corporate monitors. Empirical evidence shows that boards with a majority of independent directors, in some circumstances, were associated with better firm performance (in the post-SOX period) and fulfilled certain board tasks effectively in the United States. Canadian studies, however, have not shown a positive association with improved firm performance. Audit committees composed entirely of independent directors have been effective in ensuring the quality of financial reporting in the United States, but this effect has not been found in Canada. Compensation committees composed fully of independent directors neither constrained the level of executive compensation nor tied CEO pay to firm performance in either country. US firms with an audit committee member who had accounting expertise, rather than financial analysis or supervisory expertise, were associated with a higher quality of financial reporting, while Canadian firms with an audit committee member who has financial expertise, instead of financial literacy, were associated with a similar effect. Studies also showed that independent directors perform better in certain circumstances. Based on empirical evidence, US regulators should consider: (1) changing the current mandatory requirements for an independent board and a completely independent compensation committee to a comply-or-explain requirement; (2) narrowing the qualification of a financial expert to an individual who has accounting expertise; and (3) recruiting independent directors who have two or fewer outside directorships, hold more of the corporation’s shares, have lower cost of acquiring corporate information, and have no social connections with the CEO. In Canada, weak evidence of the monitoring effectiveness of independent directors supports the existing comply-or-explain approach. Canadian regulators may only need to require or recommend that at least one audit committee member has financial expertise, instead of only financial literacy.

Familjeägda företag har oftast en styrelse bestående av ägare och i vissa fall, någon eller några familjemedlemmar till ägaren. Detta kan bidra till att styrelsen inte når sin fulla potential. Ett flertal forskare inom verksamhetsstyrning och familjeföretag argumenterar för vikten av att tillsätta externa ledamöter till familjeföretags styrelser. Detta verkar dock inte vara helt oproblematiskt. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka om det är motiverat för ett litet eller medelstort familjeföretag att tillsätta externa ledamöter i sin styrelse. Den empiriska datan har inhämtats dels från en kvantitativ datainsamling i form av en enkätundersökning, dels från en kvalitativ datainsamling i form av sex djupgående intervjuer med ägare av familjeföretag, interna och externa styrelseledamöter samt en person med mångårig erfarenhet av styrelsearbete. En slutsats från denna studie är att externa ledamöter kan innebära en kompetenshöjning som kan vara nyttig för många företag, dock är det viktigt för en ägare av ett familjeföretag att veta vad denne vill få ut av en extern ledamot. Vidare kan externa ledamöter bidra med en objektivitet och ett breddat nätverk vilket talar för att det skulle vara motiverat att tillsätta externa ledamöter i familjeföretag. Samtidigt har dock externa ledamöter en sämre insyn i företaget jämfört med interna ledamöter, och de är därför inte alltid kapabla att fatta de beslut som är mest gynnsamma för verksamheten. / The family-owned companies usually have a board consisting of owners and, in some cases, one or more family members of the owner. Because of this the board may not reach its full potential. A number of researchers in operations management and family business argues for the importance of adding external directors to the family business boards. This may however not be entirely unproblematic. The purpose of this study was to research whether it is relevant for a small or medium-sized family business to appoint outside directors on its board. The empirical data has been collected from a quantitative data collection in the form of a questionnaire, and from a qualitative data collection in the form of six in-depth interviews with owners of family businesses, internal and external board members and a person with many years of experience from board work. One conclusion from this study is that externally appointed directors can bring competence and experience to the board that may be useful for many companies. However, it is important for an owner of a family business to know what they want to get out of an external board member. Furthermore, external members contribute with objectivity and an expanded network, which suggests that it would be relevant to appoint external directors of the family business. However, external board members often have less insight into the company compared to internal board members, and therefore are not always better equipped to make the decisions that are most favorable to the business.

In March 2003, the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) released new corporate governance guidelines, which included debatable “best practice” recommendations such as the adoption of an independent board and separation of the roles of chairperson and CEO. Given the premise that strong corporate governance enhances shareholder value and, by extension, increases initial public offering (IPO) issuers’ appeal to investors, this thesis assesses the level of conformity by a sample of Australian firms, which made an IPO between 1994 and 1999, with the best practice recommendations. We also examine the relationship between firm outcomes (including IPO underpricing, post-IPO long-run performance, and the likelihood of a SEO) and board governance quality, captured by board composition, board leadership, board size and share ownership of directors. These outcomes are addressed as they are important dimensions of firm performance that may be reasonably assumed to be associated with the quality of corporate governance, and these tests can provide an insight into the preference of investors who arguably are best placed to assess the appropriateness of the recommendations promoted by the ASX. Further, we analyse changes in IPO firms’ board structures from the time of listing to five years later to determine if IPO firms adopt governance structures that are more in line with the best practice recommendations after listing and if the changes are related to IPO firms’ long-run performance. Overall, we find that IPO firms that arguably have the strongest incentive to adopt the “optimal” board structures diverge substantially from ASX’s recommendations both at the time of IPO and five years later. IPO firms’ board structures are found to be unrelated with the level of IPO underpricing and board size, after controlling for the size of the firm, is significant in explaining both long-run aftermarket performance and the probability of a SEO. IPO firms with larger boards and those that increase the board size after listing are found to perform better in the long-run. However, contrary to expectation, smaller boards are associated with a higher likelihood of equity reissuance. Overall, the results lead us to question the role played by the board of directors in signalling firm quality. Our findings also suggest that ASX’s best practice recommendations are likely to distort the market-driven practices already in place.

No description available.

The board of directors holds a key position in corporate governance. The board is responsible for the strategy and development of the firm. The gender composition of the board can affect the quality of this operating procedure by changing the dynamic of the group. This paper aims to investigate if there is any relationship between board gender diversity and the firm’s financial performance, as measured by Tobin’s Q. While most of the previous studies in this field has been conducted on US data, this study adds to a growing number of articles outside of the US by using Swedish data. The study uses panel data over the years 2011-2014 and finds no statistically significant link between gender diversity and a firm’s financial performance. This study adds to the minority of articles that argue that gender diversity does not affect performance. Limitations regarding the methodology is presented and strategies for future research is discussed.

Atuando como principal mecanismo interno para a diminuição dos custos de agência entre acionistas e gestores, entre acionistas controladores e minoritários, o conselho de administração possui um papel fundamental na governança corporativa das empresas. Por esta razão, o objetivo deste estudo é analisar o papel do conselho de administração. Analisamos o caso concreto da maior instituição financeira do país: o caso do Banco do Brasil e busca-se identificar a sua contribuição para a atual política de governança corporativa adotada pela instituição. É importante destacar a relevância do Banco do Brasil no cenário econômico, político e social nacional. Trata-se da maior instituição financeira da America Latina, alcançando recentemente a marca de R$ 755.706 milhões de ativos administrados. Como uma empresa de economia mista, tem como seu principal controlador o governo federal, com participação de 59,2% do capital total, tornando a sua administração, constantemente, alvo de dúvidas e incertezas por parte dos investidores. Veremos que o Banco do Brasil através de sua alta cúpula e principalmente do conselho de administração vêm sinalizando estar engajado em diminuir estas incertezas do mercado e demonstrar mais transparência em suas operações, adotando melhores práticas de governança corporativa em sua gestão. Esta forte preocupação já lhe rendeu resultados, pois em junho de 2006 o BB tornou-se a primeira empresa federal a ser listada no Novo Mercado da Bovespa. / Acting as the main internal mechanism to reduce agency costs between managers and shareholders, between controlling and minority shareholders, the board has a key role in corporate governance of companies. For this reason, the objective of this study is to analyze the role of the board. We analyze the case of the largest financial institution in the country: the case of Bank of Brazil and try to identify their contribution to the current corporate governance policy adopted by the institution. Importantly, the relevance of the Bank of Brazil in the economic, political and social national. It is the largest financial institution in Latin America, recently reached the mark of R $ 755,706 billion of assets under management. As a mixed economy company, has as its main controller the federal government, with participation of 59.2% of total capital, making its administration, constantly subject to doubt and uncertainty among investors. We will see that the Bank of Brazil through its high dome and above the board have indicated to be engaged in reducing these uncertainties in the market and demonstrate greater transparency in its operations by adopting best corporate governance practices in its management. This concern has earned him strong results, because in June 2006, BB became the first federal company to be listed in the New Market from Bovespa.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-08-29T11:13:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 tese_6477_DISSERTAÇÃO PDF - LUCIANA HOLTZ.pdf: 1147456 bytes, checksum: e4685b4cda339cffd9ae631e2c05aad3 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-05-22 / Esta pesquisa foi desenvolvida com o objetivo de investigar os efeitos das características da estrutura e composição do conselho de administração sobre a qualidade das informações contábeis das empresas listadas na BM&FBovespa. Especificamente as características do conselho estudadas foram o tamanho e a independência do conselho de administração, e a separação dos cargos de presidente do conselho e diretor executivo da empresa. As proxies para qualidade da informação contábil foram a relevância da informação contábil e informatividade dos lucros. A amostra abrange empresas não financeiras listadas na BM&FBovespa com liquidez anual superior a 0,001, compreendendo o período de 2008 à 2011. Os dados foram coletados apartir do banco de dados Economática® e diretamente dos informes anuais e formulários de referência das empresas disponíveis no sítio da CVM ou BM&Fbovespa. Para atingir o objetivo proposto a metologia da pesquisa consiste em uma abordagem quantitativa com base em Vafeas(2000), Firth, Fung e Rui (2006) e Habib e Azim (2008). A análise dos dados foi a partir da utilização da técnica de regressão múltipla para a estimação dos modelos de relevância da informação contábil e informatividade dos lucros. Os resultados indicam que no mercado brasileiro, para as empresas que negociam ações na BM&FBovespa, as características de independência do conselho de administração e separação dos cargos de presidente do conselho de administração e diretor executivo influenciam positivamente na qualidade da informação contábil reportada, especificamente sobre relevância do patrimônio líquido. Já a informatividade dos lucros é afetada positivamente pela independência do conselho de administração e negativamente pelos conselhos com tamanhos maiores (acima de 9 membros). Os resultados em geral corroboram com estudos internacionais tais como Vafeas (2000), Firth, Fung e Rui (2006), Ahmed, Hossain e Adams (2006) e Dimitropoulos e Asteriou (2010), especialmente em relação à independência do conselho de administração. É possível verificar que estruturas de governança mais fortes exercem efeitos que melhoram a qualidade das informações contábeis reportadas. / This research was developed with the objective of investigating the effects of the characteristics of structure and composition of the board of directors on the quality of accounting information of the companies listed on the BM&FBovespa. Specifically, the characteristics of the board studied were the size and the independence of the board, and the separation of the roles of the president of the board and the chief executive of the business. The proxies for quality of accounting information were the value relevance of the accounting information and the informativeness of earnings. The sample includes non-financial firms listed on the BM&FBovespa with an annual liquidity higher than 0,001, during the period of 2008 to 2011. The data was collected from the Economática® data base and directly from annual reports and reference forms of firms available on the CVM or BM&FBovespa site. To reach the proposed objective the methodology of research consists in a quantitative approach based on Vafeas (2000), Firth, Fung and Rui (2006) and Habib and Azim (2008). The analysis of the data was based on the technique of multiple regression for the estimation of models of value relevance of accounting information and informativeness of earnings. The results indicate that in the Brazilian market, for firms that negotiate stock on the BM&FBovespa, the characteristics of independence of the board of directors and separation of the roles of president of the board of directors and of chief executive have a positive influence on the quality of the accounting information being reported, specifically on the relevance of the net equity. The informativeness of earnings is positively affected by the independence of the board of directors and negatively by the bigger boards (above nine members). The results in general corroborate with international studies such as Vafeas (2000), Firth, Fung and Rui (2006), Ahmed, Hossain and Adams (2006) and Dimitropoulos and Asteriou (2010), specially relating to the independence of the board of directors. Is possible to check that stronger governance structures exercise effects that improve the quality of accounting information reported.

Atuando como principal mecanismo interno para a diminuição dos custos de agência entre acionistas e gestores, entre acionistas controladores e minoritários, o conselho de administração possui um papel fundamental na governança corporativa das empresas. Por esta razão, o objetivo deste estudo é analisar o papel do conselho de administração. Analisamos o caso concreto da maior instituição financeira do país: o caso do Banco do Brasil e busca-se identificar a sua contribuição para a atual política de governança corporativa adotada pela instituição. É importante destacar a relevância do Banco do Brasil no cenário econômico, político e social nacional. Trata-se da maior instituição financeira da America Latina, alcançando recentemente a marca de R$ 755.706 milhões de ativos administrados. Como uma empresa de economia mista, tem como seu principal controlador o governo federal, com participação de 59,2% do capital total, tornando a sua administração, constantemente, alvo de dúvidas e incertezas por parte dos investidores. Veremos que o Banco do Brasil através de sua alta cúpula e principalmente do conselho de administração vêm sinalizando estar engajado em diminuir estas incertezas do mercado e demonstrar mais transparência em suas operações, adotando melhores práticas de governança corporativa em sua gestão. Esta forte preocupação já lhe rendeu resultados, pois em junho de 2006 o BB tornou-se a primeira empresa federal a ser listada no Novo Mercado da Bovespa. / Acting as the main internal mechanism to reduce agency costs between managers and shareholders, between controlling and minority shareholders, the board has a key role in corporate governance of companies. For this reason, the objective of this study is to analyze the role of the board. We analyze the case of the largest financial institution in the country: the case of Bank of Brazil and try to identify their contribution to the current corporate governance policy adopted by the institution. Importantly, the relevance of the Bank of Brazil in the economic, political and social national. It is the largest financial institution in Latin America, recently reached the mark of R $ 755,706 billion of assets under management. As a mixed economy company, has as its main controller the federal government, with participation of 59.2% of total capital, making its administration, constantly subject to doubt and uncertainty among investors. We will see that the Bank of Brazil through its high dome and above the board have indicated to be engaged in reducing these uncertainties in the market and demonstrate greater transparency in its operations by adopting best corporate governance practices in its management. This concern has earned him strong results, because in June 2006, BB became the first federal company to be listed in the New Market from Bovespa.

Background:           This thesis was written in context of the debate concerning gender equality and female representation on company boards. Gender quota legislation have been implemented by various countries on a national level, and a similar regulation was proposed by the European Commission. Legislation regarding board gender diversity have given rise to the discussion on the actual effects of female director’s on board effectiveness and firm financial performance.   Purpose:                  The aim of the study is to evaluate the relationship between gender diversity on boards and firm financial results. A sample of 100 Swedish companies listed on Nasdaq Stockholm for the time period 2013-2016 is analysed.    Method:                    The study had a quantitative approach and used a panel data methodology. The data analysis was conducted using Ordinary Least Square Regression. Board gender diversity was measured by four variables including the diversity measurements Blau and Shannon indices, and Tobin’s Q was deployed as the market-based measurement of financial performance.   Conclusion: The results of the data analysis indicate that the presence of one or more women has a positive effect on financial performance, which contradicts previous findings. Also, it is found that higher gender diversity on boards influenced firm performance positively, which conformed to the majority of the previous findings.

There are no clear studies that explain whether there is a relationship, but many authors point out advantages of having female participation in boards of directors; Catalyst (1995) states that increasing diversity, there is a plurality of opinions in the boardroom; and Bilimoria (2006) states that women deliver the best strategies and ensure better behavior at meetings. Likewise, Kuczynski (1999), said that a more diverse boardroom can handle problems between members better and it can lead to better decisions, so it is seen as a less risky company, therefore, it is expected that the presence of women improve organizational performance.This study aims to identify the participation of women on the boards of directors of 60 companies in Fortune 500 in 2014 (Fortune, 2014). A qualitative Logit regression was applied in order to establish a relationship between genderdiversity in directive boards and the company’s performance.The participation of women in American companies has increased; however, numbers remain low compared to men because, on average a board of directors has 11 members, and on average 9 are men and 2 are women. There are companies that do not include women in the boardroom. In this research, we conclude that gender is not a significant statistical variable involved in the performance of a company. / No existen estudios claros que expliquen si existe una relación entre el sexo de los directores y su rendimiento; sin embargo, muchos estudios señalan ventajas de contar con participación femenina dentro de los consejos de administración.Catalyst (1995) indica que, al aumentar la diversidad, incrementa la pluralidad en las opiniones del directorio.Por su parte, Bilimoria (2006) expresa que el género femenino entrega mejores estrategias y asegura un mejor comportamiento en las reuniones. A su vez, Kuczynski (1999) afirma que un directorio más diverso puede enfrentar de mejor manera los problemas entre miembros y genera mejores decisiones, por lo que una compañía es vista como menos riesgosa; por ello, una directora debería mejorar el desempeño de la compañía.A partir de ello, este estudio pretende identificar la participación de la mujer en los directorios de una muestra de 60 empresas del ranking Fortune 500 año 2014 (Fortune, 2014), con el fin de establecer una relación entre la diversidadde sexo en los directorios y el rendimiento de una empresa, mediante una regresión cualitativa Logit.La participación de la mujer en los directorios de compañías estadounidenses ha aumentado; no obstante, sigue siendo débil en comparación con la de los hombres: en promedio, el directorio está compuesto por once miembros, de loscuales, aproximadamente, nueve son hombres y dos, mujeres. Hay compañías que no incluyen mujeres en las juntas.En esta investigación, se concluye que el sexo no es una variable estadísticamente significativa que interviene en el rendimiento de una organización. / Não há estudos claros que explicam a existência de uma relação entre o gênero dos diretores e o desempenho empresarial. No entanto, muitos estudos apontam vantagens de ter participação feminina na diretoria. Catalyst (1995) indica quea diversidade aumenta a pluralidade de opiniões. Enquanto isso, Bilimoria (2006) afirma que as mulheres proporcionam melhores estratégias e garantem um melhor comportamento nas reuniões. Por sua vez, Kuczynski (1999) afirmaque uma diretoria mais diversificada pode enfrentar melhor os problemas entre os membros e gerar melhores decisões, de modo que uma empresa é vista como menos arriscada; portanto, uma diretora deve melhorar o desempenho daempresa.Este estudo tem como objetivo identificar a participação das mulheres na diretoria de 60 empresas da Fortune 500, 2014 (Fortune, 2014), a fim de estabelecer uma relação entre a diversidade de gênero na diretoria e o desempenho de uma empresa através da regressão Logit qualitativa.A participação das mulheres na direção de empresas norte-americanas aumentou; no entanto, continua baixa em comparação com a dos homens: em média, o conselho de administração é composto por 11 membros, dos quais 9 são homens e 2 mulheres. Ainda existem empresas que não incluem mulheres nos conselhos. Nesta pesquisa, concluímos que o gênero não é uma variável estatisticamente significativa que afete o desempenho de uma organização.