Important Role In Corporate Governance Research Articles

Can nudging with descriptive norms help internal auditors stop runaway information systems projects?

AbstractAlthough internal auditors are expected to play an important role in corporate governance, they are not always effective in bringing their message to management’s attention when they observe that a risky course of action is being taken that could harm the organization. When information systems projects go awry, for example, internal auditors often struggle to get managers to listen to their warnings. Instead, managers may turn a deaf ear to the auditor’s warnings. In this paper, we build on the idea that internal auditors can follow an approach that combines two elements to reduce this so-called deaf effect: (1) the auditor can apply communication techniques to more effectively deliver the message, and (2) the internal auditor can develop a relationship with the manager such that the auditor is viewed as a ‘partner’ rather than an ‘opponent.’Following a mixed method approach, we examined how ‘nudging with a descriptive norm’ as a communication technique could help internal auditors to reduce the deaf effect and how this can be understood in the context of the auditor-manager relationship (AMR). We conducted two experiments showing consistent evidence that both (1) nudging with a descriptive norm and (2) AMR, had significant indirect effects on the deaf effect that were mediated through perceived social norms. A complementary series of ten interviews with Chief Audit Executives shed further light on how internal auditors could apply ‘nudging with a descriptive norm’ as a communication technique, and what should be considered, including the auditor-manager relationship. Implications for both internal audit research and practice are discussed.

Executives with CPA firm career experience and corporate fraud

Corporate fraud undermines investors’ confidence and is harmful to the development of capital market. Using a sample of A-share listed companies in China over the period of 2008–2021, we find that executives with CPA firm career experience can help reduce the likelihood of corporate fraud. We explore the potential economic mechanisms and find that executives with CPA firm career experience can improve the quality of internal control and audit quality. Further analysis shows that the effects of executives with CPA firm career experiences on corporate fraud is more pronounced when firms endure lower agency cost and firms are not controlled by state government. Our findings suggest that executives’ career experience plays an important role in corporate governance.

Derivative Actions Do Not Always Play an Important Role in Corporate Governance in the U.S and the U.K

Derivative Actions Do Not Always Play an Important Role in Corporate Governance in the U.S and the U.K

경영권방어수단과 타인자본비용

[Purpose]This study examines the effect of Anti－Takeover Provisions(ATP, hereinafter referred to as ATP) on the cost of debt capital using credit ratings and borrowing interest rates. Through this, it is intended to clarify whether creditors interpret ATP, which means weakening shareholder rights, differently from shareholders.
 [Methodology]From 2011 to 2018, domestic companies listed on the KOSPI Market excluding the financial industry were selected as samples, and ATP were identified through the articles of incorporation. We conducted a regression analysis to verify the effect of Anti－Takeover Provision on the cost of debt.
 [Findings]As a result of the analysis, companies with ATP had relatively lower credit ratings and higher borrowing interest rates than those without ATP. And the more ATP they had, the lower their credit rating was. This is consistent with overseas empirical studies that the weakening of shareholder rights is also disadvantageous to creditors, supporting that mergers and acquisitions can benefit from coinsurance effect, which reduces the risk of default by improving the company’s debt capacity after the merger.
 [Implications]This study has contributions in that it analyzed the impact of strengthening (or weakening) shareholder rights on creditors using domestic data. Research and systems related to corporate governance have been dealt with a lot from the perspective of shareholders, but there is a lack of various studies on how they affect creditors. Creditors are major stakeholders of the company and play an important role in corporate governance. In this study, it is meaningful in that the impact of changes in corporate governance on them from the perspective of creditors was analyzed through ATP.

Policy and innovation of the wind power industry in China: do female executives matter?

PurposeFor survival and prosperity, enterprises must pursue exploitative and exploratory innovations simultaneously. To accelerate technological breakthroughs in the wind power industry, the Chinese Government has promulgated several support programs from the demand and supply sides. This study assesses the impact of different categories of innovation policies on exploitative and exploratory innovation. As women also play an increasingly important role in corporate governance, the authors also elucidate the moderating role of female executives in these relationships.Design/methodology/approachBased on micro-data of 119 listed Chinese wind power firms during 2006–2020, this study provides a theoretical model and tests the hypotheses.FindingsBoth demand-side and supply-side innovation policies significantly facilitate exploitative and exploratory innovations of in the Chinese wind power industry. Furthermore, female executives enhance the effects of these policies on exploitative innovation but negatively moderate their effects on exploratory innovation.Originality/valueInnovation is generally considered homogeneous. This is one of the first studies to evaluate the impact of different categories of innovation policies on exploitative and exploratory innovations. In addition, although the increasingly important role of women in corporate governance is acknowledged, whether and how female executives affect the effectiveness of innovation policies has not been fully explored. This study advances the understanding of the potential impact of female executives on innovation policy effectiveness.

CSR Committee and Attributes in Indonesia and South Korea Does is matter to ESG Performance?

A company's sustainability or corporate social responsibility (CSR) or Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) has now become important in reflecting how well the company manages its business. Several studies show that the board of directors plays an important role in corporate governance. The independence and strength of the board of directors determine the quality of information, reduce asymmetric information between stakeholders and protect stakeholders. Therefore, the specification of the formation of directors on the CSR committee is essential to be made to focus on formulating, establishing, monitoring, and strategically implementing the CSR program or ESG implementation that will be implemented. This study will further analyze the relationship between the factors that affect the company's ESG performance, especially during the pandemic crisis. This study compares ESG performance in countries with high ESG scores and low ESG score categories in developed and developing countries. There are three important contributions from this study. First, this research enriches the literature by adding to the understanding of the factors that shape a company's ESG performance. Second, this research enriches the literature by adding to the understanding of research in this area in the context of developed and developing countries in times of crisis. Third, the variables used in the research can be a factor in policy analysis in framing decision-making.

Covering or monitoring? Independent director connectedness and corporate fraud in China

This paper examines how independent directors’ social capital, as measured by their social network, affects corporate fraud. We find that firms with well-connected independent directors are less likely to commit fraud, supporting our monitoring effect hypothesis. This result is robust to a battery of tests. Further analyses show that the effect is stronger for firms with a relatively poor legal environment, for firms whose independent directors face strong reputation incentives and when independent directors are audit committee members. Moreover, we explore a potential economic mechanism of the effect and observe that well-connected independent directors are associated with less absenteeism and more dissension. Overall, our findings suggest that independent directors’ social capital plays an important role in corporate governance.

Dividend regulation and cost stickiness: evidence from a quasi-natural experiment

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the effect of dividend regulation on cost stickiness (i.e. the asymmetric change in firm expense between sales increase and sales decrease) and explore the underlying mechanism.Design/methodology/approachBased on the quasi-natural experiment of the Guideline for Dividend Policy of Listed Companies issued by the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) in 2013, the authors employ a difference-in-difference model to investigate the impact of dividend regulation on cost stickiness.FindingsThe authors find that the cost stickiness of treatment group firms has decreased significantly when compared with control group firms after the dividend regulation. Moreover, this effect is more pronounced among firms in lower marketization regions, in lower competition industries and those with less analyst coverage and lower cash flow levels. Further analyses show that dividend regulation reduces the cost stickiness of firms by mitigating agency problems. Finally, the conclusion holds after several robust tests, including controlling for firm fixed effect, propensity score matching (PSM), placebo test and reconstruction of expense variable.Originality/valueThis paper confirms that dividend regulation serves an important role in corporate governance, which reduces firms' agency costs and thereby decreases cost stickiness. The conclusions shed light on the dividend policies of listed companies and capital market regulation in the future.

Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Corporate Board Diversity Policies and Regulations

With the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in company activities, discussions on how to use AI in company management have emerged. Although AI is not legally recognised as a director in company law, there are examples of robot directors such as Vital, which have managed to get a seat in the corporate boardroom. Today, AI is on the verge of playing an important role in corporate governance. However, whether it has a seat on the board of directors or an important role in decision making is still a hot topic. Another critical discussion in the field of corporate governance in recent years is board diversity, which aims to improve the corporate decision-making process and create efficiency. This article attempts to anticipate the potential impact of AI on corporate board diversity policies and regulations. Therefore, this article seeks to examine the effects of the inevitable use of AI in the corporate decision-making process on corporate board gender diversity discussions and regulations under three possibilities: AI as a board member, AI as an enabler to assist a decision maker or AI being used to help decision making such as selecting board members.

Does the risk of major customer need to be balanced? The role of customer concentration in corporate governance.

In the operation and management of the company, major customers may affect a supplier firm's level of governance. The goal of our study is investigating whether a major customer acts as an important role in corporate governance in emerging markets and exposing the mechanism that how major customers affect corporate decision-making. There is a growing body of literature involving studies about the effect of customer concentration on firm performance of western countries. Few studies have recognized to what degree does customer concentration satisfy the sustainable development of supplier firm. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms, we found a nonlinear relationship between customer concentration and risk-taking, corporate policies and firm performance. Evidence shows that the effect of customer concentration in China resembles an inverted U-shaped curve and major customers are crucial in financial and investment policies. Our results help to provide a broader perspective on the role of major customers, giving a deep explanation about the role of customer concentration in corporate governance.

The voice of minority shareholders: Online voting and corporate social responsibility

In 2014, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange introduced “Rules for the Implementation of Online Voting” to standardize the implementation of online voting for its listed companies. Using this event as an exogenous shock, we design a difference-in-differences model to show that minority shareholders’ participation in online voting improves firms’ corporate social responsibility performance. We reveal that this improvement is achieved through minority shareholders’ positive influence on firms’ internal control and transparency and is more pronounced for private firms and firms with lower levels of profitability and less external monitoring. Accordingly, since the standardization of online voting, minority shareholders have played an important role in corporate governance and have a positive influence on firms’ sustainable development.

Employee quality and stock price crash risk

ABSTRACT Employees are practitioners of firm activities and play an important role in corporate governance, and their quality will affect stock price crash risk. We investigate the effect of employee quality on stock price crash risk. Using a sample of Chinese-listed firms, we find that employee quality has a significant negative influence on stock price crash risk and the effect is only significant in state-owned enterprises and high-tech firms. The findings are robust to an alternative measure of employee quality and controlling for missing variables and endogeneity. We further find that the effect is achieved by improving internal control quality, therefore, internal control plays a mediating role in employee quality and stock price crash risk. Our study provides new empirical evidence for human capital theory of corporate governance, and also provide implications for monitoring stock price crash risk.

The impact of the Social Security Fund on auditor litigation risk

In this study, we examine the effect of the Social Security Fund on auditor litigation risk. Using audit fees as a proxy for auditor perceptions of litigation risk, we find that the Social Security Fund significantly reduces auditor litigation risk. Furthermore, we show that the Social Security Fund influences auditor litigation risk through reducing both the audit risk and the business risk of public companies. In addition, the impact of the Social Security Fund for reducing auditor litigation risk is more obvious in the group of firms with low levels of internal governance, which indicates that the Social Security Fund plays an important governance role as a high-quality institutional investor. In summary, we verify that the Social Security Fund, when acting as an institutional investor, plays an important role in corporate governance, and that it helps to reduce auditor litigation risk. Our results provide empirical support for expanding the governance role of the Social Security Fund as an institutional investor in China’s A-share market.

Board composition and corporate risk-taking: a review of listed firms from Germany and the USA

Purpose Corporate governance is a crucial factor when considering excessive corporate risk-taking. Since corporate boards play such an important role in corporate governance, the purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the impact of board composition and further board characteristics on excessive corporate risk-taking. Design/methodology/approach This study investigates listed firms from Germany and the USA from 2004 to 2015 based on data from Thomson Reuters Data Stream. The authors apply the fixed effect and random effect estimation method to demonstrate the impact of board composition on corporate risk-taking. Findings This study provides empirical evidence that an increase in the proportion of independent directors is associated with less corporate risk-taking. These effects are stronger among German firms. Lastly, the effects of board size and audit committee effectiveness (AUCE) on risk-taking have mixed results. Research limitations/implications The results favor continued efforts to strengthen the composition of corporate boards and improve the effectiveness of audit committees to curb unhealthy corporate risk-taking. The recommendations from the research will provide regulators and corporate management with the necessary information needed to design an appropriate independent board structure, and board size (BOSI). The research will, furthermore, fortify the indispensability of financial experts on audit committees. Originality/value This study contributes to the agency theory debate with these findings. Stronger board independence enables a better monitoring of the CEO, which leads to decision making based on a more appropriate level of risk.

Do mutual fund networks affect corporate social responsibility? Evidence from China

AbstractThe mutual fund plays an important role in corporate governance and corporate social responsibility. From the perspective of the social network, using data from A‐listed companies in China from 2009 to 2016, this paper empirically tests the influence of mutual fund networks on corporate social responsibility behaviours. To solve the sample selection bias in this study, we utilize propensity score matching to find the different social responsibility behaviours between firms with or without highly concentrated mutual funds. Our results suggest that mutual fund investors positively impact a firm's corporate social responsibility performance, as predicted. The fund network centrality and pressure mechanism have a positive impact on corporate social responsibility performance because they provide more peer pressure and network information to firms in which they are heavily invested. This paper provides new evidence on how mutual fund investors affect corporate social responsibility performance, which is meaningful to examine in corporate green governance.

Exploring corporate governance research in accounting journals through latent semantic and topic analyses

SummaryThe literature on corporate governance (CG) has been expanding at an unprecedented rate since major corporate scandals surfaced, such as Enron, WorldCom, and HealthSouth. Corresponding with accounting's important role in CG, accounting scholars increasingly have investigated CG in recent years, so the body of literature is growing. Although previous attempts have been made to summarize extant literature on CG via reviews, none of these attempts has utilized recent developments in text analyses and natural language processing. This study uses latent semantic and topic analyses to address this research gap by analysing abstracts from 1,399 articles in all accounting journals that the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) has rated A and A*. The ABDC journal list is widely recognized as a journal‐quality indicator across many universities worldwide. The analyses revealed 10 distinct research topics on CG in the ABDC's top accounting journals. The results presented include the five most representative articles for each topic, as distinguished by topic scores. This study carries important practice and policy implications, as it reveals major research streams and exhibits how researchers respond to various CG problems.

Earnings Pressure and Earnings Management: Analysis Based on a Quasi-natural Experiment from China

Since analysts play an important role in corporate governance, this paper aims to examine the impact of earnings pressure from analysts on corporate earnings management. To verify the relationship of earnings pressure and earnings management, this paper selected the listed companies in China as a sample, and chose the deregulation of short selling mechanism to make conclusion persuasive. This paper shows that the greater earnings pressure perceived by managers, the possibility and degree of corporate earnings management increase. When the Short Selling was deregulated, earnings management can be significantly inhibited due to the decrease of earnings pressure. In addition, the influence of earnings pressure on earnings management is more significant in non-state-owned enterprises, and audit quality doesn’t affect the relationship.

The Role of Internal Audit in Corporate Governance and Contribution to Determine Audit Fees for External Audits

This study aims to determine the role of the internal audit function in good corporate governance and to know the contribution of the internal audit function to the implementation of external audit and the determination of audit fees. The method used is in-depth and critical review literature. The results of our analysis show that the role of internal audit in corporate governance is to assess the fairness of financial statements, to compliance with applicable standards and rules, and to provide creative advice for the effectiveness and operational efficiency of the company. Effectiveness and efficiency of the implementation of external audits is influenced by the availability of internal audits, knowledge and experience of internal auditors internal audit quality, level of coordination between internal auditors and external auditors, level of risk in the audit environment, external auditor work style, and inherent risk the amount of fee that must be given to the external auditor. So, it can be concluded that the internal audit function has a very important role in corporate governance. Moreover, a quality internal audit function can affect the effectiveness and efficiency of the implementation of external audits and can influence the determination of fees for external auditors.

IPTEKS TEKNOLOGI INFORMASI TERHADAP PROSES AUDITING DAN PENGENDALIAN INTERNAL PADA PT. BANK SULUTGO

The rapid development of Technology and Information has a very beneficial impact on PT. Bank SuluGo in conducting audits. The use of computers in modern times has an important role in corporate governance to achieve goals in the field of business. The purpose of this study is to determine the role of Information Technology in the audit at PT. SulutGo Bank. The role of Information Technology can facilitate auditors in completing work in their respective fields and can develop the performance of auditors and develop the ability of auditors to their respective primers in completing their work.Keywords : Internal Audit, Information Technology (IT), Internal Control

Research on Top Management Incentive and Supervision under the Framework of Principal-Agent Based on Social Trust

This paper investigates the impact of social trust, an extremely important informal institution, on corporate governance. We use the data of 2008-2016 China’s A share listed private companies, to study how the regional social trust environment affect the efficiency of salary incentive mechanism on CEOs. We find that social trust can significantly improve the effect of executive compensation incentive, namely the compensation of the senior executive is more sensitive to performance in a firm with higher social trust. In particular, social trust can be an effective alternative to formal institution and plays an important role in corporate governance when the formal institution faced by the company is undeveloped.