在企業中擔任領導者的CEO，對於公司決策之執行具有重大影響力，對於擁有不同權力型態之CEO，在公司面臨外部資金需求時，是否因其自身的條件因素，而影響其作出不同的融資決策。本研究之CEO權力乃參考Finkelstein(1992)與Grabke-Rundell and Gomez-Mejia(2002)之定義，將CEO權力分類為專家知識權力、聲望權力、結構權力與所有權權力四種型態，以2006至2015年的台灣上市公司為樣本，探討CEO之權力型態如何影響公司外部融資偏好。研究結果顯示，具備不同權力之CEO會因其權力指標不同而作出不同的融資決策，高聲望權力與高所有權之CEO傾向權益融資為主，高專家知識權力與高結構權力的CEO則選擇優先採取負債融資之方式。 / CEO plays a key role in forming a variety of business strategies. This study investigates the relation between CEO power type and preference on financing instruments when company needs external funds. Based on Finkelstein(1992), Grabke-Rundell and Gomez-Mejia’s(2002), the CEO power is classified as four types: expert knowledge power, reputation power, structure power and ownership power. In addressing how CEO power type influences her/his preference on financing instruments, this sample consists of all listed companies in Taiwan for the period for 2006 to 2015. The empirical result indicated that CEO power type does matter in choosing financing instrument. CEO with high reputation power or high ownership power prefers equity financing while those with high expert knowledge power or high structure power prefer liability financing.

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This dissertation consists of two essays on the impact of managerial entrenchment and ethical corporate citizenship on capital structure decisions of the firm. The first essay examines the impact of managerial entrenchment on financial flexibility and capital structure decisions of firms. Agency conflicts and asymmetric information between managers and shareholders of firms exacerbate managerial entrenchment, which is operationalized using the entrenchment index. The excess cash ratio of a firm over the median cash ratio of firms within the same 3 digits SIC code is the proxy for financial flexibility. Capital structure decisions include the extent and maturity of debt as proxied by debt-to-equity ratio, and average debt maturity respectively. Results indicate that compared to managers who are not entrenched, entrenched managers obtain less rather than more debt, and they use long-term rather than short-term debt maturity. Also, entrenched managers keep more excess cash than managers who are not entrenched. This is especially the case for firms in small and large market value groups compared to medium sized firms. Results do not change before, during, and after the 2008 global economic crisis. The second essay examines the impact of ethical corporate citizenship and CEO power on cost of capital, and firm value in the context of stakeholder theory. Firms listed as World's Most Ethical Companies (WMECs) exemplify ethical corporate citizenship, which is operationalized as a binary variable of 1 for WMECs, and zero for non-WMECs. This paper matches WMECs and non-WMECs control firms in the same 3 digits SIC code, and within 10 percent of total assets. CEO power is primarily measured using CEO pay slice calculated as CEO total compensation as a percentage of top 5 executives of the firm. Powerful CEOs have pay slice above the 50th percentile, and weak CEOs pay slice is below the 50th percentile. Tobin's q is the proxy for firm value, and cost of capital is measured as the market value weighted cost of debt, and cost of equity. Results indicate that WMECs have neither lower cost of capital nor higher Tobin's q than matched control sample of non-WMECs. Firms led by powerful CEOs have significantly lower cost of debt capital, and lower industry-adjusted Tobin's q than firms led by weak CEOs. The negative impact of CEO power on firm value is consistent with agency theory that self-interested CEOs extract firm value for personal advantage, subject to managerial controls. Results have implications for research and practice in capital structure, corporate governance, CEO compensation, and corporate social responsibility. / Doctor of Philosophy / This study consists of two essays. Essay 1 examines the impact of managerial entrenchment on financial flexibility, and leverage decisions of the firm. Managerial entrenchment is measured using the entrenchment index. The excess cash ratio of a firm over the median cash ratio of firms measures financial flexibility. Capital structure decisions include the extent and maturity of debt as measured by debt-to-equity ratio, and average debt maturity respectively. I find that entrenched managers use less debt than managers who are not entrenched. Also, entrenched managers prefer using long-term rather than short-term debt, and they keep more excess cash than managers who are not entrenched. This is especially the case for small and large firms compared to medium sized firms. Essay 2 investigates the impact of ethical corporate citizenship and CEO power on cost of capital, and firm value. Ethical corporate citizenship (ECC) refers to firms' commitment to a culture of ethics, effective governance, leadership, and innovation. ECC is measured as a binary variable of one if a firm is listed on World's Most Ethical Companies (WMEC), and zero otherwise. CEO power is primarily measured using CEO pay slice that is calculated as CEO total compensation as a percentage of top 5 executives of the firm. Powerful CEOs have pay slice above the 50th percentile, and weak CEOs pay slice is below the 50th percentile. WMECs and non-WMECs in the same 3 digits standard industry classification, which have similar total assets as the WMECs are compared. I find that WMECs have neither lower cost of capital nor higher Tobin's q than non-WMECs. Powerful CEOs often utilize their influence to reduce cost of debt capital, but also reduce firm value compared to weak CEOs. Self-interested CEOs who extract firm value for personal advantage partly explains the negative effect of CEO power on firm value.

Background: Formal CEO board membership is a unique feature of Swedishboards. The share of firms having Formal CEO board membership hassignificantly decreased in the last 20 years and thus, this feature might haveevolved to be used as a signal of high CEO quality. CEO quality is in turnlikely to, through Formal CEO board membership, serve as a moderator of therelationship that both CEO power and CEO discretion has to firm performancewhich has previously been somewhat ambiguous. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explain how the CEO’s power anddiscretion is related to firm performance and if this relation is moderated byFormal CEO board membership. Method: To fulfill the purpose of this thesis, a deductive research approachwas used. The theoretical model used is built on four theories namely,Stewardship theory, CEO power, CEO discretion and Signaling theory. With a five-year interval stretching between 1998 to 2018, the quantitative empiricalmethod relies on compensation and financial data from Swedish firms. Conclusion: The results indicate that the relation that both CEO power andCEO discretion have to firm performance, consistent with the theoreticalmodel, is positive. The results further indicate that Formal CEO boardmembership as a signal of CEO quality can moderate these relationships. Thisfinding is, however, exclusive to the years after 2008.

Background: CEO duality has been a highly discussed topic for the last 20 years. The trend shows that more and more companies and countries move towards a separation of the roles of CEO and chairman of the board, but the empirical results show little evidence that this is beneficial for firm performance. The two main accepted theories explaining if CEO duality has a positive or negative effect on firm performance has been the agency theory and the stewardship theory Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explain CEO duality´s effect on firm performance based on the agency and stewardship theory by analyzing and comparing the U.S. as an agency country versus Sweden & Japan as a stewardship country. The study also aims to contribute with evidence if a stewardship country as Sweden instead would benefit from a CEO duality board structure.   Method: To be able to fulfill our purpose was a deductive approach used for this study. A quantitative empirical method is used and data for the various dependent, independent and control variables were collected in order to get the results needed to be able to give answers to the stated hypotheses. The data collection consists of data from a total of 200 firms. 100 firms were collected from the U.S. market in order to represent the agency theory where 50 had a CEO duality board structure and 50 without. Furthermore, data from 50 Swedish non-CEO duality companies and 50 Japanese firms with CEO duality were collected as the stewardship country. The data was obtained between the years 2016-2020. Conclusion: The result indicates that CEO duality on some performance variables have a negative impact on firm performance. Contrary to our first hypothesis, our results suggested evidence that CEO duality had a negative effect on firm performance in the stewardship country (Sweden & Japan). In line with our second hypothesis, our results also suggested that CEO duality also had a negative impact on firm performance in the agency country, USA. Although not all performance variables were significant, the thesis could not provide any support for the stewardship theory explaining CEO duality relationship on firm performance.

過去研究指出，增加董事會的開會次數將提高董事會的監督效能。本研究以董事會之開會次數為應變數，納入總經理特性、董事會特性與財務特性，探討影響董事會監督強度之決定性因素。本研究發現，總經理任期、總經理持股比例、董事會規模及前期經營績效對董事會監督強度存在顯著負向關係，而總經理與董事長為同一人對董事會的監督強度呈顯著正相關。進一步將樣本依總經理是否屬於控制家族成員，將樣本分成兩組樣本後，本研究發現，總經理之控制家族色彩會削弱總經理任期與董事會監督強度關聯性，但也具有增強總經理與董事長為同一人、董事會規模與董事會監督強度關聯性的效果。 / Prior researches argue that board meeting time is an important resource in improving the effectiveness of a board (e.g., Vafeas, 1999; Ryan et al., 2007). We use a Poisson model with the number of board meetings as the dependent variable and examine the determinant factors of the intensiveness of board monitoring. We find that the intensiveness of board monitoring is driven by CEO characteristics, board characteristics, and prior performance. CEO tenure, CEO ownership, board size and prior performance are significantly inversely related to the intensiveness of board monitoring. CEO/chair duality positively influences the number of meetings (significant at the 0.1 level). We analyze separately the relations between CEO characteristics, board characteristics, prior performance and meeting frequency for non-family CEOs and CEOs who are numbers of the controlling family, and use interaction term between independent proxies and the controlling family dummy variable to test for the significance of these differences. We find that the relation between the number of board meetings and CEO tenure is weaker when the CEO is a member of the founding family. We also find that the relations between the intensity of board monitoring and CEO duality, board size are stronger when the CEO is a member of the founding family.

Det har blivit allt mer viktigt för företag att ta ansvar inom områdena miljö, ekonomi och samhälle. Företag använder sig av CSR-kommunikation för att visa vilka handlingar de vidtar för att uppfylla dessa förväntningar och erhålla legitimitet. Det förekommer dock att CSR-kommunikationen inte överensstämmer med verkligheten. Det skapas då ett gap mellan företagens symboliska och substantiva handlingar, vilket benämns som CSR-decoupling. Företag i USA kontra Västeuropa befinner sig på olika marknader när det kommer till företagskulturer. Denna studie syftar därför till att undersöka användandet av CSR-decoupling i USA och Västeuropa. Studien undersöker även verkställande direktörens makt och intressenternas krav för att se om dessa faktorer påverkar användandet av CSR-decoupling. Studien är en kvantitativ tvärsnittsstudie som bygger på data bestående av amerikanska börsnoterade företag och västeuropeiska börsnoterade företag. Hypoteserna besvaras utifrån tidigare forskning och resultatet från en regressionsanalys samt t-test. Resultatet från regressionsanalysen visar att användandet av CSR-decoupling är större i USA än i Västeuropa, medan t-testet visar det motsatta. Av studien kunde inget samband fastställas mellan verkställande direktörens makt och CSR-decoupling. Resultatet visade däremot ett positivt samband mellan intressenternas krav och CSR-decoupling, samt att västeuropeiska börsnoterade företag påverkas mer av intressenternas krav när det kommer till användandet av decouplingstrategier. / It has become increasingly important for companies to take responsibility in the areas of environment, economy and society. Companies use CSR-communication to show what actions they are taking to meet these expectations and gain legitimacy. However, it happens that CSR-communication does not correspond to reality. This creates a gap between the companies' symbolic and substantive actions, which is referred to as CSR-decoupling. Companies in the U.S versus Western Europe are in different markets when it comes to corporate cultures. This study therefore aims to research the use of CSR-decoupling in the United States and Western Europe. We also examine the CEO's power and stakeholder requirements to see if these factors affect the use of CSR-decoupling. The study is a quantitative cross-sectional study based on data consisting of U.S listed companies and Western European listed companies. The hypotheses are answered based on previous research and the results of a regression analysis and t-test. The results from the regression analysis show that the use of CSR-decoupling is greater in the U.S than in Western Europe, while the t-test show the opposite. From the study, no statistical relationship could be established between the CEO's power and CSR-decoupling. The result, on the other hand, showed a positive statistical relationship between stakeholder requirements and CSR-decoupling, and that Western European listed companies are more affected by stakeholder requirements when it comes to the use of decoupling strategies.