One neglected yet very important feature of family business is its internal homogeneity. Different from heterogeneity which focuses on differences across family firms, homogeneity here refers to the continuity and similarity of decision-making patterns either over time or across business units in a single family firm. This dissertation attempts to explore homogeneity in family businesses as well as its antecedents and performance consequences. To distinguish different types of homogeneity, strategic persistence is defined as homogeneity of strategic patterns over time and the pursuit of a dominant strategy as the homogeneity across related business units. Based upon S&P 1500 manufacturing firms from 1996 to 2013, it is found that family firms have a higher level of strategic persistence and a more consistent dominant strategy than nonamily firms. In addition, it appears that being older, with less organizational slack and having higher family involvement in ownership and management tends to strengthen the two kinds of homogeneity in family businesses. Finally, it is found that high homogeneity in decision-making can result in better performance in family business compared to nonamily firms, especially for those with high family involvement in management. Theoretical implications and limitations are discussed.

Corporate governance's main purpose is to ensure that companies act in a way that is beneficial for their shareholders. This study presents skin in the game as a possible solution and investigates its impact on firm performance on the Swedish market. More precisely, the board of directors’ amount of skin in the game in the companies they manage and its impact on return on assets (ROA). Data of board composition and stock ownership are, among other variables related to the board of directors, used in a multiple regression to determine possible relationships with firm performance. Swedish corporate governance tradition advocates a clear separation of ownership and control. Despite this, a positive relationship between skin in the game and firm performance in Swedish companies is confirmed. ​​The conclusion of the study is that a board of directors with skin in the game increases firm performance.

A large number of firms around the world are family firms. Many of these family firms are involved in internationalization strategies. Despite the breadth of knowledge on the internationalization of large family firms, not enough attention has been paid to some of the aspects of internationalization. Specifically, the literature is scarce with respect to understanding the mechanisms that may help or harm family firms in their internationalization strategies and the impact of these strategies on firm performance. In my dissertation, I use property rights theory to argue that family firms are able to minimize their negotiating and policing costs, allowing them to benefit from internationalization, but not in all environments. I add to the literature by further finding that family firms internationalize more in environments that have lower levels of legal and political, physical, and intellectual property rights. Also, I find that family firms experience higher performance in environments that have lower levels of property rights protection. Therefore, this dissertation creates various avenues for future research, and provides more evidence toward the superiority of family firms in some, but not all environments.

<p>Included in licentiate thesis in manuscript form.</p>

Thesis advisor: Thomas Chemmanur / My Ph.D. dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay studies the economic consequence of the current patent screening process on firm performance using a machine-learning approach. Using USPTO patent application data, I apply a machine-learning algorithm to analyze how the current patent examination process in the U.S. can be improved in terms of granting higher quality patents. I make use of the quasi-random assignment of patent applications to examiners to show that screening decisions aided by a machine learning algorithm lead to a 15.5% gain in patent generality. To analyze the economic consequences of current patent screening on both public and private firms, I construct an ex-ante measure of past false acceptance rate for each examiner by exploiting the disagreement in patent screening decisions between the algorithm and current patent examiner. I first show that patents granted by examiners with higher false acceptance rates have lower announcement returns around patent grant news. Moreover, these patents are more likely to expire early. Next, I find that public firms whose patents are granted by such examiners are more likely to get sued in patent litigation cases. Consequently, these firms cut R&D investments and have worse operating performance. Lastly, I find that private firms whose patents are granted by such examiners are less likely to exit successfully by an IPO or an M&A. Overall, this study suggests that the social and economic cost of an inefficient patent screening system is large and can be mitigated with the help of a machine learning algorithm. The second essay studies how investor attention affects various aspects of SEOs. Models of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs) such as Myers and Majluf (1984) assume that all investors in the economy pay immediate attention to SEO announcements and the pricing of SEOs. In this paper, we analyze, theoretically and empirically, the implications of only a fraction of investors in the equity market paying immediate attention to SEO announcements. We first show theoretically that, in the above setting, the announcement effect of an SEO will be positively related to the fraction of investors paying attention to the announcement and that there will be a post-announcement stock-return drift that is negatively related to investor attention. In the second part of the paper, we test the above predictions using the media coverage of firms announcing SEOs as our main proxy for investor attention, and find evidence consistent with the above predictions. In the third part of the paper, we develop and test various hypotheses relating investor attention paid to an issuing firm to various SEO characteristics. We empirically show that institutional investor participation in SEOs, the post-SEO equity market valuation of firms, SEO underpricing, and SEO valuation are all positively related to investor attention. Lastly, we also use the number of SEC EDGAR file downloads as an alternative proxy for investor attention, and our findings are robust to this alternative investor attention measure. The results of our identification tests show that the above results are causal. The third essay studies how the location of a lead underwriter in its network of investment banks affects various aspects of seasoned equity offerings (SEOs). We hypothesize that investment banking networks perform an important economic role in the SEO underwriting process for SEOs, namely, that of information dissemination, where the lead underwriter uses its investment banking network to disseminate information about the SEO firm to institutional investors. Consistent with the above information dissemination role, we show that firms whose SEOs are underwritten by more central lead underwriters are associated with a smaller extent of information asymmetry in the equity market. We then develop testable hypotheses based on the information dissemination role of underwriter networks for the relationship between SEO underwriter centrality and various SEO characteristics, which we test in our empirical analysis. Consistent with the above hypotheses, we find that more central lead SEO underwriters are associated with less negative SEO announcement effects; smaller SEO offer price revisions; smaller SEO discounts and underpricing; higher immediate post-SEO equity valuations for issuing firms; and greater post-SEO long-run stock returns for issuing firms. We also find that SEOs with more central lead underwriters are associated with greater institutional investor participation. Our instrumental variable (IV) analysis using the industry-average bargaining power of underwriters relative to issuers as the instrument shows that the above results are causal. Consistent with greater value creation by more central lead underwriters, we find that more central lead underwriters receive greater compensation. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Carroll School of Management. / Discipline: Finance.

CEO compensation is an important issue since shareholders, politicians, regulators, and the media have different opinions on the appropriate level. Critics argue that CEO compensation is excessive due to the weak link to firm performance, but even though the field has been thoroughly researched there are mixed findings regarding the relationship between CEO compensation and firm performance. Literature suggests that this could be due to that each economy is unique and has its specificities when determining CEO compensation. CEO compensation in Sweden is generally lower than in the US and Britain, but the performance of the firm is the same or even better. Therefore, the aim of this paper was to study the relationship between CEO compensation and firm performance in the Swedish context. Through a univariate, bivariate, and multivariate analysis of 38 firms on the Nasdaq OMX Stockholm, our findings show that there is no significant relationship between CEO compensation and firm performance in Swedish listed firms when using standard control variables. This result is more consistent with the managerial power theory and less with the agency theory and contract theory. The findings suggest that there is no alignment between Swedish CEOs' compensation incentives and the shareholders' interest (i.e., firm performance).

This research investigated the relationship between several firm-controlled, marketing and management factors and firm performance. Hypotheses describing the relationship between the strategic, geographic, tactical, technological and organizational factors and firm performance of hardwood lumber manufacturers were tested. These factors were operationalized, measured in a mail survey and used in statistical analysis to identify relationships among the variables. An adjusted response rate of 19.8% was obtained from the mail survey. Non-response bias was not found to be a significant problem in the data. A twelve measure performance indicator was developed and utilized to evaluate the performance of hardwood lumber manufacturers who were predominantly privately-held companies. The averages for the profit and costs performance measures were the lowest of all twelve performance measures and this suggested that firms should focus improvement on these measures. The current marketing tactics, including species mix, product mix, customer mix, and promotion mix was determined. The utilization of advanced production technology has increased in the industry since it was last measured in 1999. The majority of respondents (60%) had dry kiln operations and 49% had a surfacing mill. Thirty five percent of respondents indicated that their company was certified by either forest, chain-of-custody, or both. Of the five firm-controlled factors investigated in this research, four of them were found to be related to firm performance. Geographic location was not found to be related to the performance of hardwood sawmills. Firms who were backward integrated and firms who were both backward integrated and forward integrated performed significantly better than firms who were not vertically integrated or forward integrated. Higher performance scores were associated with larger firms, firms who had multiple sawmills and firms who were members of the NHLA. There was no relationship found between diversification of the product mix, species mix, customer mix variables and performance. The diversification of a firm's promotion expenditures was positively correlated to performance. Firms that used optimized headrigs, optimized edgers and optimized trimmers performed significantly better than did firms not using all three of these technologies. Firms that used computer based log tallying, lumber tallying or inventory control performed significantly better than firms utilizing none of these technologies. An increase in the use of business strategy from previous studies along with a shift towards the use of a differentiation strategy was discovered. Firms interpreted to be following a hybrid differentiation/cost leadership strategy performed better than firms following a cost leadership, focus, or differentiation strategy. The implication of these results is that larger, vertically integrated firms are likely to perform better than smaller, non-integrated hardwood lumber manufacturers. It is recommended that firms diversify their use of promotion media and venues in order to attract new customers. Adoption of production and information technology will help some hardwood lumber manufacturers improve their performance. It is recommended that hardwood lumber manufacturers control costs and differentiate their products in order to gain competitive advantage. / Ph. D.

M. Tech. (Department of Logistics and Supply Chain Management, Faculty of Management Sciences), Vaal University of Technology. / The construction industry is an important contributor to the economy of South Africa. In this industry, buyers and suppliers work in collaboration with each other to achieve superior supply chain performance. To achieve this, they have to find ways and methods to improve it. The purpose of this study was to investigate supply chain coordination and firm performance in the construction industry in the Gauteng Province. This study considers three drivers: supplier coordination, customer coordination and coordination effectiveness to achieve the performance of the construction industry. In most previous research studies, researchers have overlooked the important considerations and variables of supply chain coordination and firm performances as environmentally-friendly exercises in the construction industry. As a result, there was an abundant necessity to examine how the construction industry should implement a supply chain coordination programme and firm performance as environmentally-friendly practices in the organisational activities to ensure the sustainability of the construction industry. The effective application of SCC and firm performance in the construction industry will benefit all stakeholders. A quantitative approach was adopted in which a survey questionnaire was used to collect data from 414 construction supply chain managers and professional employees in the Gauteng Province. The study used a non-probability convenience sampling technique to select respondents. Data were analysed with the aid of two software packages: the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS version 27.0) and the Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS version 27.0). A confirmatory factor analysis was applied in examining and testing the relationships between observed constructs and their causal latent constructs while structural equation modelling was used to test the hypothesised relationships between constructs. The results revealed that supplier coordination, customer coordination and coordination effectiveness positively and significantly influence firm performance in the construction industry. Further, the study determines that to improve firm performance, the construction industry should advance the stages of trust, guarantee and sustainable relationships with their stakeholders. The results provide useful insights into how the construction industry could benefit from cultivating trust, assurance and sustainable relationships between supply chain partners as well as on how to improve firm performance. Therefore, this study is not only important for construction companies but also for manufacturers, suppliers and customers since most of them will collectively achieve the goal of performing purposeful activities to boost construction performance and sustainability.

The intense competition arising from globalisation requires MNCs to manage their HRs globally and strategically to become a source of competitive advantage. Hence, SIHRM acknowledges the need to balance global integration and local responsiveness, together with emphasising the importance of seeking strategic fit between HR policies and business strategy, which in turn leads to superior firm performance. Furthermore, this development also increased awareness and recognition of the role of senior managers and cultural traditions. Therefore, the primary purpose of this research was to explore the relationship between SIHRM effectiveness and firm performance as perceived by senior management coupled with the influence from MNCs' headquarters and Chinese cultural values. Consequently, the researcher selected a case study approach with a triangulation data collection method through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews undertaken in four selected subsidiaries of MNCs. The research findings strengthened the theoretical foundations of several HRM models, together with supporting Analoui's eight-parameter approach (1999) as a functional, coherent and interlinked framework regarding the effectiveness of senior managers. In particular, this research found that quality enhancement of products and service was the preferred and adopted key business strategy amongst the studied MNCs. Whilst they are also seeking to balance globalisation and localisation through reconciling control and adaptation rather than satisfying one at the expense of the other, such that the trend is for Western HR policies to be gradually accepted and internalised by the younger generation of the Chinese managers. Finally, this research made several recommendations to foreign MNCs operating in China.

This study shows the effects of the ‘soft’ board gender quota in Sweden enacted in 2006. Using a sample of 2,181 firm-year observations, Swedish listed firms do increase the percentage of females after the enactment of the quota, but this effect is not coming due to the quota. Neither more firms comply to the quota of 40 per cent caused by the quota enactment. Firms with state involvement are more likely to comply to the quota and increase the percentage of females. Internationalized firms have elusive results on the percentage of female directors and quota compliance. On average, more female directors in board positions have a positive effect on firm performance as measured in Tobin’s Q and ROA. The increase in the percentage of females and the positive effect on firm performance is more pronounced in the later time period (2012-2017) than the period short after the quota (2006-2011).