The following dissertation contains two related essays. The first essay explores how institutional investor presence impacts investments during the global financial crisis. Using OLS, industry fixed effects, and Heckman 2SLS regression approaches, I explore two ways through which institutional investors could impact investments: liquidity and monitoring. My findings best support monitoring theory. I find that institutional investors monitor capital and R&D levels to maximize crisis period firm value. The second essay is a direct fallout from my first essay. In it, I investigate how institutional investor types influence investments. I ask, do certain types of investors improve liquidity or monitor firm investment behavior during the global financial crisis? My results suggest that long-term, dedicated institutional investors monitor firm investments more than short-term, transient investors. As a result, firms with greater dedicated investor presence perform better during the crisis periods than their peers.

Introduction: Prior research, mainly based in USA and Asia, has shown a relationship between ownership structure and earnings quality. Low earnings quality might result in inefficient resource allocation, lower economic growth and unintended wealth transfers. Following these issues, and due to the fact that the Swedish institutional setting differs from other countries, there is a need to explain the relationship in a Swedish context. Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explain how different ownership structures affect earnings quality. Method: This study is based on a deductive approach where the hypotheses have been deducted from agency theory, alignment effect, entrenchment effect and active monitoring hypothesis. The quantitative data consists of secondary data, namely annual reports. The study has been conducted with a cross-sectional design. Conclusion: The results show a positive relationship between foreign ownership and earnings quality. The result can be explained with agency theory’s type I-problem. Other ownership structures show no significant relationship. / Introduktion: Tidigare forskning, främst i USA och Asien, har hittat samband mellan företags ägarstruktur och earnings quality. Låg earnings quality kan resultera i ineffektiv resursallokering, lägre samhällsekonomisk tillväxt samt omotiverade förmögenhetsöverföringar. Till följd av dessa problem, samt att Sveriges institutionella miljö skiljer sig åt från andra länder, finns behovet att förklara sambandet i en svensk kontext. Syfte: Studiens syfte är att förklara hur olika ägarstrukturer påverkar earnings quality. Metod: Studien utgår från en deduktiv ansats där hypoteser deducerats utifrån agentteori, alignment effect, entrenchment effect, samt active monitoring hypothesis. Kvantitativ data består av sekundärdata i form av årsredovisningar. Studien har genomförts med en tvärsnittsdesign. Slutsats: Studiens resultat visar att företag med högre andel utländskt ägande tenderar att redovisa högre earnings quality. Resultatet kan förklaras av agentteorins typ I-problem. Övriga ägarstrukturer uppvisar inga signifikanta samband.

This thesis investigates the relationship between sustainability performance and ownership structure, measured using the ESG (environmental, social and governance) rating and ownership structure divided into four different ownerships (family/founder, institutional, corporate and governmental). In the pursuit of analysing the relationship between the ESG rating and the ownership structure, this study investigates publicly listed companies within the Nordic countries.This thesis has the aim of examining if a publicly listed company can use sustainability ratings and ownership structure, to understand broader market dynamics and help the manager thru this maximise firm value. Results from this could help them and the public in decision making processes around sustainability initiatives and how these characteristics influence the Nordic market dynamics, by having a better understanding of how the ESG ratings are prioritised among different ownership structures. This knowledge would allow management and the public to better understand how the ESG rating affects firm’s sustainability value as well as how market dynamics of this information is related to the market as a whole and direct competition.Using secondary data collected from Refinitiv database and Nasdaq, this thesis is a deductive and quantitative research that analyses companies for the target year 2020. In addition, this research can be considered to be a historic study.The findings of this research indicate a causal relation between sustainability performance and ownership structure, leading to the conclusion that a different ownership structure might influence and lead to a different score on the scale of sustainability performance. Furthermore, the findings indicate that the governmental ownership structure has the highest positive effect on sustainability performance.Concluding with discussing how this research contributes to the current field of knowledge on the topic through analysing the results using the legitimacy, shareholder, stakeholder and agency theory. The results are aligned with the legitimacy theory on ownership structure and the stakeholder theory. Additionally, the shareholder and the agency theory help with explaining why some structures put less value on sustainability performance than others.From the results one can conclude that sustainability performance is of importance to a varying degree among the different ownership structures. This tells us that there is still a gap in understanding why different ownership structures engage in different sustainability initiatives and future research is needed to examine why different structures engage in it over others.

This research develops and tests a model of the service unit ownership and control patterns used by international service companies. The main purpose of this study is to investigate trivariate causal relationships among environmental factors, organizational structure, and perceived performance in the internationalization process of service firms. A service firm operating in foreign soil has a choice of three general entry mode strategies offering different degrees of ownership and control of its remote operating units located in foreign countries -- full ownership arrangement, joint venture arrangement, and franchising arrangement. The entry mode strategies chosen depend on the factors relating to internal environment of a specific firm, industry related factors in which the firm operates, and external environment of the operating units at national context. This study identifies these factors, investigates how they affect the firm's choice of entry modes, and finally examines the impact of entry mode on firm's performance. The overall model has been explained by contingency theory that conceptualizes optimal level of ownership and control mode as a response by the firm to the interplay of environmental factors and as a determinant of firm's performance. To this core can be added complementary theories which are borrowed from agency theory, transaction cost theory, and resource dependence theory. These theories explain the linkages between market entry mode and each type of environmental factors. In order to empirically test the hypotheses, data were collected from hospitality firms regarding the ownership structure of subsidiaries located in foreign countries. As a whole, the conceptual model developed in the study received strong support from the empirical study. This study found a positive impact of contingency fit on performance and so support contingency theory in which some combinations of the environmental dimensions and organizational structure will lead to better organizational performance. Another finding of this study indicates that the increased level of ownership and control will result in enhancing the level of perceived performance. It should be noted that contingency model-based mode choice would provide managers with the optimal performance because there is not one best performing mode choice in volatile international market. Next, the relationship of market environment with organizational structure was examined through three different perspectives. Market environment was investigated at firm, industry, and national context, which includes five factors -- monitoring uncertainty, asset specificity, cultural distance, political uncertainty, and economic uncertainty. The model is suggestive of a picture in which five environmental factors vie for affecting the choice of market entry modes. All five environmental factors were found to be significantly related to firms' organizational structure. Among five environmental factors, cultural uncertainty has the largest effect on the choice of entry mode followed by monitoring uncertainty, political uncertainty, asset specificity, and economic uncertainty. One of the important implications of this research is the inclusion of franchising as an actual management strategy and competitive business practice that is related to international ownership and control strategy. Higher degrees of uncertainty associated with the foreign market encourage external dependence of the venture, in which the operation depends more heavily on local relationships. Franchising substitutes the loss of ownership by an increase of external relationships and it takes without losing control on retail operation. Resource exploitation depends on the local market for either inputs or outputs for better performance. Understanding the fit between the each set of contingent variables and the elements of ownership and control strategy will allow marketers to determine when franchising is the suitable mode of operation in global markets. Collectively, these results suggest that the choice of an organizational form for international service firms involves a complex balance of firm, industry, and country level factors. Managers can maximize performance by aligning entry mode strategy with external contextual circumstances as well as internal resources. Managers may also be able to make better mode choice decisions using the theory-driven criteria examined in this study, increasing their chances for financial and non-financial success. / Ph. D.

This study investigates whether family ownership influences firms’ accounting and market-based performance as measured by ROA respectively Tobin’s Q. The Swedish market is especially interesting due to its unique corporate governance system, and because previous studies based on a Swedish sample present contradictory findings on the family-performance relationship. Furthermore, we explore whether the stake, the active involvement of family members, and the presence of other blockholders, can be connected to firm performance. The results suggest that family firms are related to superior accounting performance as compared to non-family firms, and that actively involved family members are related to the positive relation. The evidence on market performance shows that families are awarded lower valuations as compared to non-family firms. The market results seem to be driven by extensive control in terms of voting rights or the combined monitoring powers of multiple blockholders, as family firms with a moderate stake of 20-50%, and firms without other blockholders, are not related to market discounts. Connecting to agency theory, the findings suggest that family ownership is related to reduced agency costs type I, thus increasing the profitability, but may be associated with higher type II costs if their control is too extensive.

In the last two decades, corporate governance rules in Sweden have been arguably improved, giving more protection to minority owners. We thus investigate the impact of dual-class shares on firm valuation on the Swedish stock exchange. Companies from Nasdaq Stockholm are observed during the years 2018-2022, where an OLS regression analysis is made to explore the relationship of the firm valuation measurement Tobin’s Q and other firm variables. Based on regression analysis we do not find an association between the categorical dual-class share structure and Tobin's Q. However, we find a negative association between size of the wedge - the divergence between voting and cash flow rights of the largest owner - and Tobin's Q, attributed to agency costs.

Försiktighetsprincipen är och har länge varit en av de viktigaste principerna inom svensk redovisning. Sedan år 2005 måste dock samtliga börsnoterade företag i Sverige upprätta sin redovisning i enlighet med det internationella regelverket International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). Tidigare forskning har anmärkt att IFRS ger relativt mycket utrymme för subjektiva bedömningar och har ett komplicerat förhållande till försiktighet som är ett omdebatterat ämne bland redovisare.Att upprätta redovisning är en subjektiv process där personliga egenskaper hos redovisaren och redovisarens omgivning har en inverkan på sättet den upprättas. Uppsatsens syfte är därför att förklara vilka faktorer som påverkar tillämpningen av försiktighet i redovisning i svenska börsnoterade företag. Studien fyller ett gap kring styrelsesammansättningens påverkan på mängden försiktighet i redovisning som inte är ett väl utforskat område, speciellt angåendesvenska förhållanden. Den undersöker även hur ägarstruktur och företagets storlek påverkar redovisningen i fråga om tillämpningen av försiktighet. För att genomföra studien har nödvändig data inhämtats från databaser och årsredovisningar. Market-to-Book valuehar använtssom en metod för att mäta försiktighet i redovisning. Studienhar kommit fram till några intressanta resultat som bidragit till forskningen kring försiktighetsprincipens framtid. Det har nämligen visat sig att företag med en större andel kvinnori styrelsen tenderar att vara mer försiktiga i sin redovisning. Större företag har även påvisats visa mindre tendenser till en försiktig redovisning vilket inte var förenligt med studiens ena hypotes. Försiktighet i redovisning är ett omdiskuterat ämne och det finns fortfarande mycket kvar att undersöka. Framtida forskning skulle kunna undersöka hur andra faktorer påverkar redovisningens försiktighet exempelvis redovisares personlighetsdrag. Andra metoder borde även användas för att mäta graden av tillämpning av försiktighetsprincipen.

本研究以2002至2004年非金融業之臺灣上市櫃公司為研究對象，從經營績效、股權結構及公司治理特性等觀點，探討企業發生委託書徵求事件之決定性因素、經營績效及其與盈餘管理行為之關聯性，並進一步分析企業特質對企業從事常態性委託書徵求行為之影響。就委託書徵求事件之決定性因素而言，本研究發現，整體績效表現愈差、獲利能力愈差、現金股利發放愈少、內部人持股比率愈低、董監事質押比率愈高、最終控制者之股份控制權愈低、席次偏離股份控制權程度愈大之企業，發生委託書徵求事件之機率愈高。經營績效之實證結果顯示，徵求委託書、利用金字塔及交叉持股之控股結構、控制權偏離所有權程度愈大之企業，當期之經營績效較差。前述實證結果亦適用於常態性徵求委託書之企業。至於委託書徵求事件與盈餘管理行為之關聯性而言，委託書徵求為企業從事盈餘管理行為之誘因之一，尤其在常態性徵求委託書之情況更為顯著。企業之董監事質押比例愈高、負債比率愈高、席次控制權偏離盈餘分配權程度愈大、控股結構複雜度(金字塔結構或交叉持股)愈高，其盈餘管理幅度較高。 / Based on a sample of non-baking corporations listed on Taiwan Securities Exchange and Over the Counter over the period of 2002 to 2004, this thesis first investigates the determinants and operation performance of proxy solicitation behavior, followed by examining the relationship between proxy solicitation and earnings management. In addition, the characteristics of companies that appeal to proxy solicitation on a regular basis are also studied. The empirical results show that companies with poorer overall performance, poorer profitability, lower cash dividend payout ratio, lower insiders shareholdings, higher share pledge ratio by the board members, lower control rights, and higher deviation in control rights from cash flow rights, are more likely to apply proxy solicitation. The empirical findings also indicate that companies with proxy solicitation, pyramid and cross-holdings structures, and higher deviation in control rights from cash flow rights, tend to have worse operating performance for the current period. The findings aforementioned can also apply to the companies that repeatedly employ proxy solicitation. This research documents that proxy solicitation is strongly associated with earnings management behavior, especially for companies that apply proxy solicitation repetitively. Companies with higher share pledge ratio by the board members, higher debt ratio, higher deviation in control rights from cash flow rights and employing pyramid and cross-holdings structures, are found to be associated with higher magnitude of earnings management.

隨著所有權與經營權日益分離因而引發代理問題，由於所有者與經營者之間存在著資訊不對稱(Information Asymmetry)，而引發監督等代理成本。本研究探討股權結構與公司價值之間的關係，究竟是支持「利益收斂假說」或是「利益衝突假說」，並探討公司內部人、機構法人是否能發揮監督功效，而提升公司價值，反應在股價是否為正向關係。而公司內部人若能適當監督產生正面效益，能使公司價值提升。機構法人為理性投資者，由於有專業團隊蒐集資訊進行投資分析，因此機構法人持股比例的高低具參考價值，對於公司股價具有影響力，故機構法人持股可視為另一股監督力量。 本研究採用2001年至2007年台灣TFT－LCD產業的追蹤資料，搭配固定效果模型，以股價為公司價值之代理變數，並將股權結構視為其他資訊之代理變數，來探討股權結構對於股價是否具有顯著解釋力。根據實證結果顯示，機構投資持股與公司價值呈顯著且正向關係，結果支持「效率監督假說」。其次，內部人持股比例對股價的造成的影響呈顯著且正向關係，研究結果與「利益收斂假說」吻合。並發現投信持股比例雖低，但其對股價的影響力較外資及內部人來的大。 / The increasing demand for the separation of ownership and management control has led to concerns on agency problems. The existence of information asymmetry between the owner and the management team has resulted in various agency costs, including supervision-related expenses, etc. In this dissertation, we try to study the relationship between ownership structure and corporate value, so as to determine whether the Convergence of interest Hypothesis or the Conflict of interest Hypothesis should be supported. We also try to probe whether the insiders of a company or the institutional investors are able to fully play their supervisory roles to increase the value of the company, and whether these roles have positive correlation with the company’s stock price. The supervisory functions of a company’s insiders, when properly fulfilled, will create positive effects and increase the value of the company. Being rational investors, institutional investors collect information and conduct investment analysis through a professional team. The shareholding by institutional investors, therefore, is indicative and influential to the company’s stock price. Institutional investors are reckoned as another force of supervision. In this research, we used the panel data of the TFT-LCD industry in Taiwan over the period of 2001 to 2007, supported by the fixed effect model. Stock prices are used as the proxy variables of the corporate value, and ownership structure is reckoned as the proxy variable for other information. The analysis is used to determine whether ownership structure has significant interpretation effect on the stock price. The empirical research results show that the shareholding by institutional investors has a significant and positive correlation with the corporate value, which supports the Efficient Monitoring Hypothesis. Further, the ratio of insiders’ shareholding also has significant and positive influence on the stock price. The research results therefore agree with the Convergence of Interest Hypothesis. It was also found that, whilst the ratio of shareholding by the SITE industry is relatively lower, its influence on stock price is greater than the institutional investors and insiders.

Tidigare finanskriser har resulterat i ett större fokus på bankers risktagande. Kriserna har påvisat hur bankers kris kan få förödande effekt på den globala marknaden vilket har föranlett olika konsekvenser (bland annat i form av nya regelverk) för att hantera bankers tendens mot ett för högt risktagande. Bankers inställning till risktagande kan förklaras utifrån dess ägarstruktur där ägarna kan ha olika riskpreferenser.   Forskningsstudier har påvisat att ett samband existerar mellan ägarkoncentration och bankers risk, dock utan någon konsensus om sambandets utseende. Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur ägarstruktur påverkar bankers konkursrisk, där banker inom EU-länder har undersökts. Vidare har karaktären på bankernas största aktieägare tagits i beaktning för att se om sambandet mellan ägarkoncentration och risk skiljer sig beroende på vilka ägare bankerna utgörs av. Därtill har sex hypoteser formulerats som syftar till att undersöka relationen mellan ägarstruktur, agentkostnader och konkursrisk utifrån agentteorin och teorier om bolagsstyrning. För studiens undersökning har  en kvantitativ metod använts tillsammans med en deduktiv ansats.   Undersökningen visar, likt andra studier, att det existerar ett samband mellan ägarstruktur och bankers risk. Mer specifikt visar vår studie att sambandet ser olika ut för olika ägartyper. För vissa ägartyper har vi identifierat ett positivt samband mellan ägarkoncentrationen och bankers konkursrisk medan för andra ägartyper har vi istället identifierat ett negativt samband. Avslutningsvis visar studien att agentkostnader föreligger i större grad när aktieägarna har mindre kontroll över ledningen. / Previous financial crises have resulted in a greater focus on bank’s risk taking. The crises have shown how the bank’s instability may create a devastating effect on the global market, which has given rise to several studies focus on bank’s risk. Bank’s attitude towards risk taking can be explained by its ownership structure where the owners may have different risk preferences.   Research studies have found a relationship between the concentration of ownership and bank risk, but without any consensus on the sign of the relationship. The purpose of this study is to investigate how ownership concentration affects bank’s default risk. The study has been performed on banks within the EU countries. Furthermore, the nature of the bank’s largest shareholders has been taken into consideration to distinguish whether they have an impact on the relationship between ownership concentration and risk. In addition, six hypotheses were formulated which aim to investigate the relationship between ownership concentration, agency costs and the default risk, based on the agency theory and theories on corporate governance. For this study’s survey a quantitative method has been used in conjunction with a deductive approach.   Our findings show that there exists a relationship between ownership concentration and bank risk. More specifically, our study shows that the relationship is different depending on the nature of the owner. For some types of owners, we have identified a positive relationship between ownership concentration and bank’s default risk, while for other types of owners we have instead identified a negative relationship. Finally, this study shows that agency costs are greater when shareholders perform a lower degree of monitoring of the management.