The majority of previous research in the field of board diversity was dedicated to the direct link between board gender diversity and firm performance. Grounded in Agency- and Resource dependence theory, this thesis expands on this research and examines the main relationship including the influence of two additional factors: educational level of female directors and mandatory board gender quotas. Analyzing a sample of 454 European firms (3,871 firm-year observations) over the period 2007-2017, a positive relationship between board gender diversity and firm performance is found. Furthermore, the results suggest that educational levels or board gender quotas do not affect this relationship. The effects on firm performance differ depending on whether legislative measures or voluntary initiatives are in place, i.e. in contrast to legislative quotas, voluntary initiatives enhance firm performance.

This study investigates the effect of board size on firm performance measured through return on assets. Furthermore, this study investigates how this relationship is influenced by uncertainty avoidance. An unbalanced global sample of more than 9,000 observations divided over 23 countries for the time period 2006 – 2016 is used to examine this. In contrast with other studies a global sample is used and a new variable, uncertainty avoidance is added. In the study, I find that board size positively affects firm performance. Furthermore, I find that uncertainty avoidance affects the relationship between board size and firm performance. Although in contrast with other studies, my evidence supports the argument that firms should increase their board size to reduce agency costs and increase board capital.

This dissertation examines the impact of regulation and public policies on firm performance. Chapter 1, entitled “Political Contributions, Insider Trading, and CEO Compensation”, determines why CEOs from politically-connected firms receive higher pay compared to their non-politically connected peers. We investigate whether insider trading can explain high CEO pay. Using hand-collected firm-level lobbying data, we examine whether politically-connected CEOs engage in insider trading after sponsored bills are introduced and passed in the U.S. legislative bodies. Our results show that politically-connected CEOs commit insider trading, which yields higher compensation packages. In addition, we also find that lobbying benefits firm performance. Politically-connected firms receive more government contracts, which increases firm value. Overall, political contributions benefit both CEOs and shareholders. Chapter 2, entitled “The Impact of Incarceration on Firm Performance” conducts analyses on the impact of incarceration on firms based in the United States. Through time series Granger Causality Vector Autoregression (VAR) tests by state, we find that incarceration can influence labor markets measured by the state’s unemployment rate. We find that firms based in states with high incarceration underperform compared to firms based in states with low incarceration. This also holds true when examining prison reform data from the Pew Charitable Trust. Through differences in differences tests, we find that firms based in states with prison reform outperform firms based in states without prison reform. When controlling for firm and state macroeconomic factors, we find that increases in incarceration rates have a negative effect on firm performance.

This dissertation examines the effects that intangible capital and diversity reputation have on firm performance. In Chapter 1, entitled “CEO Overconfidence and Intangible Corporate Investments,” we extend the corporate investment and CEO overconfidence literature by examining how CEO overconfidence affects investment-cashflow sensitivity using a new measure of Tobin’s q and cashflow. Specifically, we incorporate intangible capital, which neo-classical investment theory mostly ignores, in the empirical analysis. We develop three overconfidence measures and their interaction with the respective standard and new cashflow settings to capture the investment-cashflow sensitivity effect of CEO overconfidence. We use three investment measures (physical, intangible, and total investments) and find that the effect of managerial overconfidence on investment-cashflow sensitivity is more prominent for corporate intangible investments than physical investments. Moreover, our results show that the standard measure of physical capital weakly explains the intangible investment-cashflow density. Our study offers useful insights in that it explains the reason why investment-cashflow sensitivity has been weaker in recent years. We also show that investment-cashflow sensitivity is stronger when intangible capital is incorporated into the analysis. Chapter 2 is entitled “Diversity Reputation and Firm Performance.” The modern American workplace is a microcosm of modern American society. The increasing diversity of the American workforce has made the increasing diversity of the American workplace a necessity. We explore the impact of diversity reputation on firm performance. We measure a firm’s diversity reputation by its inclusion in DiversityInc’s list of Top 50 Companies for Diversity. We measure firm performance by various accounting measures (return on assets, return on investment, and return on sales) as well as one market-based measure, Tobin’s Q. We find that firms that have a better diversity reputation outperform firms that do not.

This project follows the implementation of a new supply fulfillment model for a service organization. Research findings provide evidence that a change in operating model can result in an increase in firm performance. The purpose of this project is to study a real-life example of an organization experiencing an increase in firm performance based on a change in operating model. The project utilizes historical data of growth and average costs to determine the environment for the current year experiencing the change in operating model. It is determined that this study reveals a decrease of order costs, increase in data integrity and standardization, and an increase in overall order quality.

本研究乃針對董監事異動進行分析探討，主要議題有二，第一項議題為董監事異動之決定性因素，而另一項議題為董監事異動後對經營績效之影響。在影響董監事異動的決定因素中，首先探討公司前期經營績效與董監事異動之關聯性，以分析經營績效不佳是否為發生董監事異動的因素之一，接著分析股權結構如何影響董監事異動。最後再探討董監事異動後之經營績效是否得以改善。 本研究以2000年到2008年間上市(櫃)公司為研究對象，以董監事是否發生異動與董監事異動比率作為董監事異動變數以對上述關係加以探討。實證結果發現，前期經營績效與董監事異動為顯著負相關，意謂前期經營績效差時，會導致董監事異動之發生。且機構投資人持股與董監事異動為顯著正相關，當機構投資人持股比率高，董監事異動增加，說明機構投資人發揮其監督功能。不過，本研究未能發現在董監事異動後，公司績效有顯著的提升。 / This paper examines the determinants of board director turnover behavior and whether board director turnover signals the firm performance of subsequent period. The empirical findings show that board director of firms with poor firm performance and high institution ownership are more likely to have turnovers. While there is no relationship between the frequency of board director turnover and improvement in firm performance.

<p>Today, the global market is a fast expanding environment. There are more and more companies that go abroad to compete with companies from all over the world. The barriers between countries have been lowered and trade is encouraged. Therefore, international expansion is an important factor for many companies. The purpose of this dissertation is to study the effect international expansion has on firm performance. Since there is limited previous research within the field of international expansion and performance done on Swedish companies this dissertation tries to fill that gap.</p><p> </p><p>The study is performed on listed Swedish companies. Several factors are used to measure the international expansion and performance of the companies. The relationships between international expansion and firm performance were positive when international expansion was measured as Number of Countries and Market Commitment. When international expansion was measured as Foreign Assets and as the GL-Index (Gerlofstig-Lindstrand Index), support was given to a positive relationship. The relationship between Foreign Board and firm performance as well as Foreign HR (Human Resources) and firm performance was to some extent supported. The remaining two measures of international expansion were Foreign Assets and International ownership. These measures showed no supported relationships between international expansion and firm performance. To conclude, the results of the study indicated that there are some support for a relationship between international expansion and firm performance for listed Swedish companies.</p><p> </p><p>This study contributes to the lack of research on the effect of international expansion on performance of Swedish companies. Swedish managers can use the conclusions drawn from the study as guidelines for international expansion.</p>

<p>Today, gender quotation in the Board of Directors has become an important political question that is being discussed not only in Sweden but in several other countries as well. However, research on gender diversity and, for that matter, other forms of diversity in the corporate world is not something new. Diversity in Board of Directors and Top Management Teams and how it affects firm performance have been the topic of many researches the last two decades. Nevertheless, there are still many unanswered questions in this field that need to be answered. The purpose of this dissertation is to study how diversity in BoDs and TMTs affect firm performance. We used five different diversity variables, tenure, age, education, nationality and gender in our research and we tested them separately to see how they each affect firm performance. Because there is limited previous research conducted on diversity in Sweden and on Swedish firms, this dissertation attempts to fill that gap.</p><p>This study is conducted on Swedish firms that are listed on large cap on Stockholm stock exchange. We used several ways to measure the five different diversity variables in both BoDs and TMTs. Firm performance was measured by using two well established measurements, Return on Equity and Return on Assets. We developed ten hypotheses to test how diversity affects firm performance; some diversity variables had positive effect on firm performance, while others had negative effect. The hypotheses are based on earlier research. There are mixed results from our study; seven out of ten hypotheses had to be rejected due to insignificant relationship between diversity and firm performance. Three hypotheses were rejected, even though they showed a significant relationship between diversity and firm performance, because the relationship was the opposite of our hypotheses. One reason for these results can be that there is low diversity in both BoDs and TMTs, and this makes it difficult to measure and establish a relationship between diversity and firm performance.</p>

Today, the global market is a fast expanding environment. There are more and more companies that go abroad to compete with companies from all over the world. The barriers between countries have been lowered and trade is encouraged. Therefore, international expansion is an important factor for many companies. The purpose of this dissertation is to study the effect international expansion has on firm performance. Since there is limited previous research within the field of international expansion and performance done on Swedish companies this dissertation tries to fill that gap.   The study is performed on listed Swedish companies. Several factors are used to measure the international expansion and performance of the companies. The relationships between international expansion and firm performance were positive when international expansion was measured as Number of Countries and Market Commitment. When international expansion was measured as Foreign Assets and as the GL-Index (Gerlofstig-Lindstrand Index), support was given to a positive relationship. The relationship between Foreign Board and firm performance as well as Foreign HR (Human Resources) and firm performance was to some extent supported. The remaining two measures of international expansion were Foreign Assets and International ownership. These measures showed no supported relationships between international expansion and firm performance. To conclude, the results of the study indicated that there are some support for a relationship between international expansion and firm performance for listed Swedish companies.   This study contributes to the lack of research on the effect of international expansion on performance of Swedish companies. Swedish managers can use the conclusions drawn from the study as guidelines for international expansion.

Despite the huge sum of money that is being spent on research and development (R &amp; D) on yearly basis by firms, very few empirical studies exist to shed more lights about the effects of this practice on firm performance. However, the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) in their publication of International Accounting Standard (IAS) 38, require that expenditures incurred during R &amp; D should either be expensed in the statement of comprehensive income or capitalized as an intangible asset in the statement of financial position provided certain criteria are fulfilled (IASB, 2012, p. 1045).Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of expensed R &amp; D and/or capitalized R &amp; D on firm performance METHOD: Data for the study was collected from the audited financial statements of firms listed at the London Stock Exchange as well as from the website of this stock market. Two sampling techniques were utilized in the study; namely stratified sampling and random sampling. Stratified sampling technique was used to stratify the companies into various industries while random sampling was used to randomly select firms that are engaged in R &amp; D from each of these industries. The final sample consisting of 52 firms gave a total of 260 observations for a period of 5 years between December 31st, 2007 to December 31st, 2011.Expensed R &amp; D and capitalized R &amp; D were obtained by taking the averages of statement of comprehensive income R &amp; D to Revenue and statement of financial position R &amp; D to revenue respectively. Moreover, firm performance was measured using accounting-based indicators which were Return on Asset (ROA), Return on Capital Employed (ROCE), Dividend Yield (DY), Dividend Cover (DC), Earnings per Share (EPS), Price Earnings Ratio (PE) and Capital Gearing Ratio (CGR). RESULTS: The results of the study show that expensed R &amp; D has a significant positive impact on DC, a significant negative impact on EPS, positively correlated with CGR with no significant impact and negatively correlated with ROA, ROCE, DY and PE but had no significant impact. As concerns capitalized R &amp; D, the results reveal that capitalized R &amp; D has a significant negative impact on ROA, ROCE and EPS, positively correlated with CGR but have no significant impact and negatively correlated with DY, DC and PE as well though no significant impact was found.