Denna studie undersöker graden av executive turnover i svenska målbolag som genomgick de tio största företagsförvärven under 2021 och 2022. Genom att analysera sammansättningen av företagsledningen före och efter förvärven samt undersöka omständigheterna kring förvärven, identifieras faktorer som kan ha bidragit till hög executive turnover. Resultaten visar att den genomsnittliga graden av executive turnover var 41%. Höga turnover-nivåer observerades när målbolaget och köparen var relaterade, köparen var inhemsk eller målbolaget verkade på en mättad marknad. En kombination av dessa faktorer resulterade i den högsta turnovern. Studien ger insikter om Krugs (2004) egenskaper och deras påverkan på executive turnover. Detta kan hjälpa företag att förstå och hantera konsekvenserna av executive turnover vid företagsförvärv.

The top management team is important to understand as the executives within the top management team would have long-term implications for a firm's investment, operating and financing decisions which would affect the firm value. As these executives may have pre-existing connections outside the current firm, they are likely to be affected by these connections within the top management team. In this dissertation, I draw upon the literature in sociology that discusses different mechanisms of connections; 1) better information transfer, 2) cohesion and better coordination, and 3) favorable treatment to see how the connections within the top management team affects different decisions for the firm using data from 1999 to 2013. First, I find that the executives with connections to the CEO are less likely to be forced out and those with social connections to the CEO enjoy less sensitivity of involuntary turnover to performance. Notably, I find that this is consistent with CEOs favorably treating the connected executives rather than CEOs keeping connected executives for the benefits. Second, I find that firms with greater percentage of executives with connections to the CEO have greater accruals earnings management and lower likelihood of detection of accounting manipulations. I also show that the connections have an effect only when the joint tenure between the CEO and the executives are short. Finally, I document that firms with more closely connected top management team issue management earnings forecasts in a more precise form and issue more frequent and accurate forecasts. I show that this matters more when the top management team’s external network size is small. / Business Administration/Accounting

Effective investment strategies help companies form dynamic core organizational capabilities allowing them to adapt and survive in today's rapidly changing knowledge-based economy. This dissertation investigates three valuation issues that challenge managers with respect to developing business-critical investment strategies that can have significant impacts on firm performance and growth in the competitive, information-orientated business environment. Using firm-level data collected from Taiwan, this dissertation examines specific valuation issues that are vital in shaping not only firm performance but also competitive advantages in current knowledge-based economy: (1) investments in information technology (IT), (2) human capital, and (3) corporate governance. To address these three major managerial challenges relating to firm investment strategies, this dissertation focuses on investigating the impact of three sources of business value creation, including IT investment, workforce education, and Chief Audit Executive (CAE) turnover. The results of investigating service infrastructure in the banking industry support the idea that in today's complex, fast moving multichannel business environment, evaluation of the strategic value of IT must consider both the direct impact of individual channels and the complementary relationships between IT-based channels and the traditional branch channel while constructing an effective business strategy to align IT use with firm strategic objectives. The interdependence between channels found in this study has a significant effect on firms' short term profitability and long term market competition capability, suggesting that the true value of IT will be fully realized only when coupled with complementary investments in organizational resources. Second, results of examining investments in workforce and research and development (R&D) activities in IT industries indicate that firms with more highly educated workforces have, on average, better performance. Investment in R&D for improving innovation capability is positively associated with firm performance. More importantly, higher levels of workforce education moderate the impact of R&D investment on firm performance, confirming the hypothesized interdependency between workforce education and firm innovation capabilities. In other words, firms benefit more from investment in R&D activities when they have a higher level of educated workforce. An important strategic implication from the DuPont Analysis is that the complementarity between workforce education and R&D capital reinforces a firm's differentiation strategy. Finally, the results of analyzing CAE turnover in Taiwan public companies show that CAE turnover is positively correlated with executive turnover (Chief Executive Officer [CEO] and Chief Financial Officer [CFO]) and financial restatements, which are commonly viewed as a signal of a troubled business or failure. The study also shows that CAE turnover has a negative impact on contemporaneous and future firm performance, suggesting that, to some extent, changing the head of the internal audit function conveys a negative signal to the market regarding a firm's performance. Given that the CAE monitors and assesses enterprise risk practices, the findings of this study suggest that CAE turnover could be used as an indicator of business volatility and potential business risk. The passage of the governance law which improves the quality of a firm's internal control system is found to reinforce the signaling role of CAE turnover and improve firm performance. The results of this dissertation provide important strategic insights regarding the factors managers should consider when making investment choices that are expected to align with a firm's long term development and performance. This dissertation complements literature in managerial accounting and information systems, particularly contributing to business value of IT investment, human capital, and internal audit research streams. It also addresses regulatory implications for policy makers such as regulating relevant disclosures of company information for interested parties and developing a regulatory environment that minimizes regulatory barriers which can suppress businesses and economy growth. / Business Administration/Interdisciplinary

This Dissertation consists of two essays. The first essay studies the causal impacts of compensation disclosure on executive compensation, turnover, and executives’ job responsibilities. We find that, after the SEC mandates the disclosure of Chief Financial Officers (CFOs)’ compensation in 2006, CFO pay increases significantly relative to CEO pay, particularly in firms most affected by the mandate. CFOs are more likely to leave their firms following poor performance. The results are absent for the CEO or other executives, suggesting they are unique outcomes of enhanced CFO compensation disclosures. The evidence is consistent with more intense monitoring following the disclosure mandate. CFOs require additional compensation for the loss of private benefits due to greater monitoring and are subject to greater internal discipline. There is also some evidence that the CFOs hide bad news and lower corporate reporting quality after the mandate, suggesting that CFOs engage in more short-term behavior to boost their performance and avoid termination. The second essay of my dissertation focuses on the idiosyncratic volatility puzzle - the negative relation between estimated idiosyncratic volatility and the subsequent month returns documented by Ang et al (2006). We document a systematic pattern of temporary increases in the estimated idiosyncratic volatility for the quintile of stocks with the highest estimated idiosyncratic volatility in a given month. A large portion of this temporary increase in the estimated idiosyncratic volatility is reversed in the subsequent month. This temporary increase in the idiosyncratic volatility for the quintile of stocks with the highest estimated idiosyncratic volatility is associated with relatively large positive returns (positive abnormal returns) in the estimation month and relatively low returns (negative abnormal returns) in the subsequent month. Our evidence shows that these temporary increases in the estimated idiosyncratic volatility and the related positive and negative abnormal returns in the estimation and subsequent months, respectively, create a negative relation between the estimated idiosyncratic volatility and subsequent month returns documented in the prior literature (Ang et al. 2006). We find no significant relation between idiosyncratic volatility and subsequent returns for eighty percent of the stocks that do not exhibit large changes in idiosyncratic volatility despite large differences in the levels of their idiosyncratic volatility. Finally, there is no relation between the estimated idiosyncratic volatility and subsequent returns after a lag of 3 months when the abnormal returns associated with temporary changes are no longer present. Overall, our results are consistent with the notion that there is no relation between the true underlying idiosyncratic volatility and expected returns, and that the previously documented negative relation between estimated idiosyncratic volatility and subsequent month’s returns is being driven by temporary one-month increases in the estimated idiosyncratic volatility and the associated abnormal returns for a subset of stocks. / Ph. D. / The disclosure of executive compensation is an important issue because it affects the investors’ ability to monitor the firms’ compensation practices. Properly designed compensation contracts, in turn, incentivize the executives to make decisions that serve the investors’ interests. The SEC has made continuous regulatory efforts to monitor the executive compensation and has adopted several disclosure rules. However, the impacts of such enhanced compensation disclosure has not been well understood. My first essay studies the impacts of compensation disclosure on executive compensation, turnover, and executives’ job responsibilities. We find that, after the SEC mandates the disclosure of Chief Financial Officers (CFOs)’ compensation in 2006, CFO pay increases significantly relative to CEO pay, particularly in firms most affected by the mandate. CFOs are more likely to leave their firms following poor performance. There is also some evidence that the CFOs hide bad news and lower corporate reporting quality after the mandate, suggesting that CFOs engage in more short-term behavior to boost their performance and avoid termination. Traditional asset pricing models in which investors hold well-diversified portfolios imply that there should be no relation between firm specific risk (the idiosyncratic volatility) and the expected returns. However, Ang et al (2006) document that stocks with high firm specific risks earn low subsequent returns. The significant negative relation between firm specific risk and subsequent returns has puzzled many researchers. The second essay of my dissertation provides a possible resolution to this puzzle.