Directors' remuneration has long attracted a great deal of attention from financial economists and academics due to its strategic role as a remedy to control agency problems. The key issue is the conflict between directors and shareholders on whether the remuneration is designed to maximise shareholders' value or to favour directors, who run the company on behalf of the investors. However, the conflict can never be detected when the disclosure of remuneration is not transparent. The study was conducted in Malaysia which provides a distinctive research setting different from other developing countries because Malaysia has a disclosure exercise that is still far below best practice as well as a unique Malaysian cultural and institutional environment. Thus, the unusual combination of politics (government) dominated by Malays and business dominated by the minority Chinese provides an interesting background to explore the determinants and consequences of directors' remuneration disclosure. This study's novelty stands on the exploration of ownership structure and board diversity in determining directors' remuneration disclosure, as well as the impact of disclosure towards firm value. The first chapter investigates the association between ownership structure and directors' remuneration disclosure. A significant and negative association is noted between family ownership and remuneration disclosure, suggesting that the traditional family control in Malaysia continue to be dominating outweighing the necessity of public disclosure. Moreover, this study encountered a non-linear relationship between government ownership and remuneration disclosure, indicating that the disclosure of directors' remuneration is positive up to a certain level of government ownership but reduces as government ownership increases. Evidently, directors in government-owned companies are being extra vigilant in disclosing their remuneration due to the political and personal security reasons, particularly post the 12th general election of Malaysia in 2008 that witnessed the government lose its two-thirds majority in parliament for the first time after 40 years. The second chapter examines how board diversity influences disclosure. The study found that only age diversity is significantly and negatively associated with directors' remuneration disclosure, supporting the age stereotype that characterised old directors who are wise and wisdom. Hence, the adverse disclosure behaviour can be explained by their ability to credibly withhold voluntary information and strategically disclose mandatory information on remuneration. Contrary to prior studies, this study found that ethnic diversity does not have a significant influence on directors' remuneration disclosure possibly due to the equal number of Malay and non-Malay directors on board throughout the period under review. Interestingly, cultural convergence is also known to be a contributing factor as both ethnics exercise their belief in determining the level of strategic remuneration disclosure. In line with upper echelon theory, the presence of female directors is found to be an insignificant determinant of remuneration disclosure possibly due to their risk-averse personality in the high-risk disclosure area. The third chapter aims to assess the extent to which directors' remuneration disclosure reflects information that is relevant to firm value. By using Tobin's Q, this chapter shows that directors' remuneration disclosure is value relevant in both financial and non-financial sectors among the FTSE30 companies. The finding implies that the market highly values directors' remuneration disclosure as it signals board transparency and provides a window to overall governance quality of an organisation. This chapter proposes that commitment to directors' remuneration disclosure has potential benefits that outweigh the risk of disclosing within the Malaysian context. Furthermore, this chapter explicitly addresses and justifies the potential endogeneity problem that has been ignored by typical accounting studies. Using the two-stage least squares (2SLS) technique to control for the endogeneity of voluntary remuneration disclosure in assessing its impact on firm value, findings from the robustness analysis carried out suggest that the empirical results reported are robust to potential endogeneity problems. Finally, this study provides two practical implications. First, it provides a disclosure incentive for directors to make better remuneration disclosure in the annual report. Despite that there is evidence of hesitancy to disclose due to the political volatility in Malaysia subsequent to the 12th general election in 2008, the market significantly values directors' remuneration disclosure as it signals good governance practice by the company as well as great reputation portrayed by the board members. More specifically, this study encourages disclosure on directors' remuneration as it positively affects firm value, in both financial and non-financial sectors. Secondly, this study offers essential guidelines for companies in determining the board composition. It suggests that a distinctive personality of each director can be a competitive advantage of a firm when it is properly transformed to make it congruent with the firm's objective, in achieving maximum efficiency of decision-making. While age diversity is found to be significantly associated with directors' remuneration disclosure, the remaining board diversity dimensions such as gender, and ethnicity are also significant in a condition when it is critically analysed using the upper echelon theory within the context of Malaysia. Overall, the study indicates the need to incorporate a diversified composition of the top decision-makers in deciding a strategic remuneration disclosure.

Banks play a primary role in the intermediation of savings and investments. As a result, the stability and development of the financial sector is of paramount importance to most countries. In developed countries, the global financial crisis which led to the shocking collapse of Lehman Brothers and distress in other global financial giants such as AIG, Merrill Lynch, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Northern Rock have raised concerns about corporate governance in the financial sector and more specifically, the importance of a stable banking sector worldwide. In developing countries, financial systems are heavily reliant on banking firms since they are the largest intermediaries. The institutional environment which includes substantial ownership by insider owners, poor legal and regulatory systems, corruption and the existence of distributional cartels underscore the need for effective regulation and sound corporate governance aimed at curbing excessive risk taking by owners. The effects of different ownership structures on banks have received little attention particularly in developing countries. Literature suggests that whether the ownership rights of a bank are held by just a few shareholders or by many and whether these shareholders are insiders or outsiders has differing effects on corporate governance. This study analyses the effects of ownership structure on corporate governance in Zimbabwean banks. The Zimbabwean banking sector has experienced major changes since the liberalisation of the financial markets in 1991. The sector expanded due to the entry of a significant number of private indigenous banks in a market previously dominated by foreign banks. Following this expansion, the sector suffered a near-systemic crisis in 2003 which resulted in the collapse of 13 of these newly registered banks and the arrest of several owner managers for abusing depositor’s funds. After the financial sector crisis, the central bank implemented new corporate governance regulations in 2004 which introduced a separation between ownership and management. The objective of the regulation was to address the problems relating to insider ownership concentration address corporate governance weaknesses in banks. The findings from this study indicate ownership concentration in all the banks across ownership types, and insider ownership concentration in private indigenous banks before and after the 2004 regulations. The empirical evidence also find that banks with insider ownership concentration suffered corporate governance weaknesses which resulted in problems such as related party transactions, frauds, tunnelling and abuse of depositor’s funds compared to those with outside ownership concentration. In this regard, the study finds that in developing countries, insider ownership concentration may result in corporate governance weaknesses whilst outsider ownership concentration can result in increased monitoring. The study also finds evidence of a weak legal and regulatory framework, poor enforcement and regulatory forbearance as some of the institutional arrangements which affected ownership structure and corporate governance in banks. The analysis in this study also indicate that the regulatory changes introduced by the central bank in 2004 have not been ineffective in tackling the corporate which resulted from insider ownership concentration. As a result, the study questions the a wholesome adoption of Anglo-Saxon type provisions relating to separation between ownership and management without an empirical analysis of their appropriateness to developing countries in developing countries.

Corporate governance (CG) is the set of rules and regulations through which organisations account to their stakeholders. An effective CG system promoting the efficient use of organisational resources is instrumental in the economic growth of a country. Based on the existing literature, this research identifies board structural features i.e., 'Board Independence', 'CEO Duality', 'Board Diversity', 'Number of Board Committees' and 'Audit Committee Independence' as key variables of an effective CG system. Previous studies have largely examined the direct relationship between CG systems and firm performance. This research develops a multi-theoretical model that links the Board structural characteristics with firm performance measured in Tobin's Q, Return on Assets and Return on Equity, via two crucial mediating variables, 'Board Size' and the 'Frequency of Board Meetings', and two additional moderating variables, 'Code of Corporate Governance' and 'Ownership Concentration'. The conceptual model that is developed is tested with the help of an econometric study based on a comprehensive set of balanced panel data of 265 companies listed on the Karachi Stock Exchange for a period of six years. The first panel (2009-2011) represents the time-period before the implementation of the revised Code, and the second panel (2013-2015) covers the time-period following the implementation of the revised Code. The results show that the Number of Board Committees (discussing strategic issues) is significantly related to performance and the 'Size of Board' significantly mediates the relationship between the number of board committees and performance. The relationship is also moderated by the Code of Corporate Governance and ownership concentration held by the largest shareholder. The results also show that the links between additional Board structural variables (board independence, CEO duality, board diversity and audit committee independence) and the financial performance are positive but not significant to draw conclusive result. Comparison between pre-and post-implementation of the revised Code of CG suggests that the intervening relationship between the board variables and the performance is stronger after the implementation of the revised Code. This research is a significant milestone in the country context of Pakistan that reflects the socio-economic set of several emerging economies. A key implication of this research is that the corporate sector in Pakistan needs to move away from the tick-box culture of CG. The sector needs to implement CG as a tool to mitigate business risks, appoint and empower non-executive directors to achieve an effective monitoring of management. The companies also need to establish their own ethical and governance principles applicable to the Board of Directors in order to deal with factors that are likely to reduce Directors' efficiency. The research offers new insights and conceptual framework for further research in this area.

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.

Diss. (sammanfattning) Göteborg : Univ., 2004. / Härtill 4 uppsatser.

The purpose of this study is to explore the engagement in an innovation ecosystem for knowledge co-creation. It aims at exploring the various aspects of ecosystems, innovation, and knowledge which can drive or hinder actors to engage in collaboration in an innovation ecosystem. A single case study was selected as a research strategy (The OSMaaS project), as it provided us the opportunity to analyze an innovation ecosystem with specific characteristics that few has considered before. Semi-structured interview was used as data collectiontechnique since this interview method offered us the required flexibility to explore in depth theindividual experiences lived during the process of evaluating whether to engage or not to the OSMaaS project. Consequently, a hybrid approach of thematic analysis was selected as methodfor data analysis as it allowed us to interact with the interviewees or the empirical world, theconcepts regarding innovation and ecosystems or theory, and the OSMaaS project or the case study. The findings show that aspects of ecosystems, innovation and Knowledge co-creation aspects such as co-opetition, ecosystem governance and structure, proximity, relative advantage, compatibility, complexity, trialability, observability, competitive advantage, and product development contain factors driving and hindering actors’ engagement in aninnovation ecosystem. These factors are explained within this study and show what have droveand hindered actors to engage in the OSMaaS project.

Digitalization, fueled by the innovation of new technologies and new ways of operating, is disrupting both society and business. This includes laboratories, where new technologies alter the way business can be made, thus requiring changes in key business elements such as corporate strategy, business model and organizational structure. Due to the requirement of alternations on both a strategic and operational level, performing a digital transformation presents numerous challenges for a laboratory. Challenges which, if identified and understood, can be mitigated to improve the chance of a successful transformation. Even though the numerous challenges that digitalization presents for organizations, research on the topic is sparse, especially for protocol-driven laboratories where a theoretical gap exists. Consequently, research on how such challenges can be mitigated is lacking. The following thesis therefore aims to explore potential challenges that protocol-driven laboratories are exposed to when performing a digital transformation; and how these can be avoided. To answer the purpose, an inaugural literature research was performed followed by a case study of Pegasuslab to identify and analyze relevant challenges. Thereafter a subsequent gathering and interpretation of literature was conducted, aimed at identifying areas of solutions to mitigate the previously identified challenges. From the analysis, nine overarching themes of challenges were identified, namely: Culture; Strategy; Value Creation; People & Skills; Relations; Security & Regulations; Technology; Governance & Structure; and Leadership. Further, aggregated challenges for each theme were analyzed and compared with current literature. From the subsequent gathering and interpretation of literature, four areas of solutions were found, namely: Defining a digital business strategy; Filling the competence gap; Increasing agility through a digital culture; and Using customer data for value. Finally, the thesis concludes with how a digital transformation affects the whole organizations. Thus, challenges for protocol-driven laboratories goes beyond technology and may be encountered on multiple dimensions. To mitigate potential challenges, top management commitment and resources are required to acquire a holistic and unified view of the transformation.