Agency theories suggest that governance matters more when agency conflicts are potentially more severe. However, empirical studies often do not control for the potential severity of agency conflicts. I show that the marginal benefit of governance varies with the free cash flow level, a proxy for the potential severity of agency conflicts. As the free cash flow level increases, higher governance quality becomes incrementally more value-enhancing, and lower governance quality becomes incrementally more value-destroying. This is consistent with the hypothesis that better governance helps resolve the agency conflicts in investment decisions when a firm has more free cash flows (Jensen, 1986). This study highlights the importance of controlling for the potential severity of agency conflicts in governance studies and provides an improved method to estimate the marginal benefit of a governance mechanism.

Abstract The aim of a company¡¦s legal system is to harmonize the conflict interests among stakeholders for pursuing the company¡¦s maximum value. However, in the recent years, we have seen that a lot of enterprises happened abuses one after another. Securities authority and investors therefore deem the corporate governance necessary to enhance. Facing the insufficiency of corporate governance, Taiwan added the Articles 14-2, 14-3, 14-4, 14-5 of Securities and Exchange Act when the Act was amended in January 2006. These added articles introduced the system of independent directors, but they caused the disputes in the domestic industries and academic circles. This article is trying to find the ways of improvement for each problem in order to promote the efficiency and competence of independent directors, as well as induces the following major conclusions and suggestions. 1. Conclusions (1) The topic of independent directors is still a difficult issue. (2) It has to meet six elements for promoting the efficiency and competence of independent directors. They are: a. independency; b. professional and time input; c. proper incentive of monitor and control; d. freely acquire the needed data and information for monitoring and controlling; e. economic cost of monitor and control, or efficient monitor and control; f. adequate limits of authority for controlling and balancing. (3) Only legal system and honest and trusted operation are working at the same time, can the efficacy of corporate governance be brought into fully play. (4) The fulfillment of corporate governance needs the implement of all members in the company. 2. Suggestions (1) The facet of legal regulations: a. amend the Article 27 of Company Law; b. independent directors occupies 50% of the number of all board directors; c. the shareholders with holding rate less than 1% in the company are elected as independent directors. (2) The facet of systems: a. whether the company sets up the independent directors or not is the company¡¦s free selection; b. the solutions or opinions of the independent directors for the items on the agenda should be bulletined on the Market Observation Post System and the company¡¦s website; c. appropriate rewards; d. compelling standards for setting up other functional committees.

Family or group-owned corporations and informed trading are two features of Taiwan¡¦s capital market. Is there any relationship between the two features? Can we solve this kind of problem by some mechanism of corporate governance? These issues are common concerns for participants of capital markets and government policy makers, therefore, there are many scholars devoting themselves in the related research. This study adopts the work of McInish and Wood (1992), who measure informed trading by calculating standardized bid-ask spread. Moreover, some variables, such as trading volume, risk, stock price, company size, and listing market are taken into account because the literature indicates they may affect bid-ask spread. According to the concept of voting rights and cash flow rights introduced by La Porta, Lopez-De-Silanes, Shleifer, and Vishny (2002) and the concept of fraction of cash flow rights on the voting rights introduced by Claessens, Djankov, and Lang (2000), we use the difference ratio, which is one minus the fraction of voting rights over the cash flow rights, to measure the degree of central agency problems. The corporate governance variables, such as board size, the proportion of outside directors, and institutional shareholdings are employed as moderating variables. Multiple regression models are used to test the hypotheses. According to the test results, we find that the more cash flow rights deviate from voting rights the more informed trading will be and it can be alleviated by increasing board size and hiring big CPA firms for audit purpose; while it can be worsen by adopting more outside directors and institutional shareholdings.

Financial statement quality can directly affect investor confidence. Corporate governance in well-functioning mechanisms can improve Financial statement quality. Recently, in order to enhance corporate governance performance, avoid financial fraud, and protect investors, the government constantly amend the related rules. Financial fraud is most through misstated financial reports, and even fraudulent misstatement may result from financial statement restatement. The purpose of the study is to examine whether ownership structure, board of director composition, and audit quality in corporate governance are associated with financial statement restatement. Empirical results show that in ownership structure the higher stock proportion of the institutional investors, the probability of financial statement restatement is higher. It is consistent with conflict of interest hypothesis. In audit quality, the enterprises have lower occurrence rates of financial statement restatement while they hire the big 4 accounting firms to audit their financial statements. Furthermore, when accounting firms provide non-audit services to their audit clients, the higher significance of non-audit fees, occurrence rates of financial statement restatement are higher.

Financial statement quality can directly affect investor confidence. Financial fraud is most through misstated financial reports, and even fraudulent misstatement may result from financial restatement. Well-functioning mechanisms can improve financial statement quality. In this study, the financial restatements from 2002 to 2008 were investigated to discuss the influences of operating performance, degree of earnings management and corporate governance mechanisms. The results reveal that the worse the operating performance, the more probability the financial restatements. It indicates that increasing earnings can cover up bad operation. It is further found that the financial restatements with worse operating performance will probably increase their restatement amounts. In the aspect of earnings management, the results show that the higher the degree of earnings management by discretionary accruals, the more probability the financial restatements. It is indicative of the manager use discretionary accruals to operate the earnings management in order to cover up their worse financial performance. But the verified result is not outstanding. It is also found that the financial restatements with higher degree of earnings management by discretionary accruals will probably increase their restatement amounts. Finally, the results can not prove whether the corporate governance mechanisms show that the financial restatements probably occur in the companies with CEO duality. Moreover, the results also can not prove whether the larger the board of directors, the higher their restatement amounts.

<p>The Enron collapse in 2001 has resulted in an increasing attention to corporate governance. Even in Sweden, some scandals have occurred, for example Skandia, ABB, Trustor; a parallel could be drawn, implying that these scandals have resulted in increased attention to corporate governance. Corporate governance concerns the relationship between a corporation’s management, board of directors, shareholders and other stakeholders. The problems with the relationship between managers and share-holders are referred to as the principle-agent problem. The increase in corporate governance disclosure can be seen as a way by the corporations to regain the trust from the shareholders. Can agency theory be used to explain why some corporation disclose more corporate governance information than others?</p><p>The purpose with this master thesis is, with starting point in agency theory, to contribute to the understanding of which factors that influence corporations to disclose corporate governance information in the annual reports.</p><p>For this thesis, a quantitative research has been performed. Annual reports from corporations listed on the Stockholm Stock Exchange have been examined, to be able to develop a corporate governance disclosure index and to measure 15 characteristics, derived from the agency theory and two control variables. The data was analysed in SPSS , using both linear and multiple regressions.</p><p>The analysis showed that role duality actually measured if a corporation had a foreign parent company and corporations listed on the O-list other on Stockholm Stock Exchange served as proxies for smaller corporations. Therefore, it was possible to con-clude that corporations were influenced by the origin of the parent company and the size of the corporation to disclose corporate governance information. Another conclusion was that corporate governance characteristics derived from agency theory is not appropriate when trying to find factors that influence corporations to disclose corporate governance information. Nevertheless, this does not mean that it is inappropriate to take the starting point in the agency theory.</p>

<p>Titel: En regulativ reforms vandring mellan olika kontexter:</p><p>revisionskommittéer på ”resande fot”.</p><p>Bakgrund: Allt fler länder väljer att implementera olika regulativa reformer inom corporate governance från andra länder, oftast från de anglosaxiska. En regulativ reform kan vara en riktlinje, en bestämmelse eller förordning. Då det har påvisats tydliga skillnader mellan olika länders corporate governance system, kan det ifrågasättas om det verkligen fungerar att</p><p>överföra regulativa reformer bara för att de har visat sig fungera bra i ettannat land.</p><p>Syfte: Syftet med uppsatsen är att beskriva och förklara vad som händer meden regulativ reform då den införs i en ny kultur och affärskontext. Som exempel på en regulativ reform har vi i vårt fall studerat införandet av revisionskommitteer i svensk kontext.</p><p>Metod: För att komma fram till vad som kan hända med en implementerad</p><p>regulativ reform i en ny kultur och affärskontext, har vi valt att titta närmare på implementeringen av revisionskommittéer i Sverige.</p><p>Slutsats: Vi har kommit fram till att en regulativ reform som kommer från en annan kultur och affärskontext kommer att omtolkas då den överförs till en ny kontext. Oavsett hur det ursprungliga konceptets syfte ser ut,kommer det att översättas, om inte medvetet så omedvetet, i enlighet med de värderingar som mottagaren är präglad av på grund av den omgivande kontexten. Vårt teoretiska bidrag stödjer de argument som finns inom ramen för skandinavisk institutionell teori som säger att ett organisationskoncept kommer att justeras i enlighet med den lokala kontexten.</p><p>Vidare forskning: För vidare forskning föreslår vi att en undersökning görs efter det att den regulativa reformen, revisionskommittéer, har implementerats i svensk lagstiftning och hur detta påverkar det svenska corporate governance systemet.</p>

<p>Enligt det agentteoretiska synsättet kan osäkerhet kring företagsledarens beteende avhjälpas genom att förutsätta ett opportunistiskt beteende från denne och sedan utforma styrmekanismer som begränsar denna opportunism.<strong>  </strong>Agentteorin har dock sitt ursprung i en amerikansk kontext med helt andra värderingar än de som format de svenska institutionerna. Därmed öppnas det för andra orsaker och teorier som kan förklara förekomsten av rörliga ersättningar i Sverige.</p><p>Syftet med denna uppsats är att bidra till diskussionen om vilket eller vilka teoretiska perspektiv som kan ligga bakom förekomsten av belöningssystem i Sverige.</p><p>Uppsatsen bygger på kvantitativ forskningsstrategi detta eftersom författarna försöker finna ett samband mellan olika variabler.  Genom att utgå från en total populations undersökning av ca 300 börsnoterade företag kom den slutliga populationen som uppfyllde de uppställda kriterierna att uppgå till 211 företag. Respektive bolags årsredovisningar studerades därefter med hjälp av ett kodningsschema som angav informationen som skulle inhämtas och kvantifieras.  Information har sedan statistiskt bearbetats för att kunna bidra till att testa de uppställda hypoteserna.</p><p>Eftersom att ingen av agentteorins antagande som prövades kunde styrkas indikerar detta att andra teorier kan vara bättre lämpade. Resultaten indikerar på att det är institutionell teori i form av härmande isomorfism och symbolisk kompensation som är mer tillämplig för att förklara rörliga ersättningar i det svenska corporate governance-systemet. <strong></strong></p>

Univ., Diss.--St. Gallen, 2006. / Zsfassung in engl. Sprache.

Univ., Diss.--Heidelberg, 2006.