Selection Management Research Articles

Protestacje przeciwko nowogródzkim sejmikom za panowania Augusta III (1736–1763)

Nowogródek (Novogrudok) sejmiks were most often protested throughout the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. There were 93 protestatations against the Nowogródek (Novogrudok) sejmiks during August III’s reign. This made it possible to conduct a study of this type of sejmik documents for the first time. The purpose of the article is to analyze the protestations against the Nowogródek sejmiks during Augustus III’s reign, highlighting the common and different between them. Protestations were brought against all types of Novogrudok povet sejmiks. As a result, it was possible to establish the time and place where the protestations were brought. It was possible to establish the exact number of the protesting gentry in individual sejmiks and the usual number in Nowogródek sejmiks. Almost all of them were representatives of the petty gentry. It was possible to outline the circle of clans and certain gentry, who most often put their signatures under protestations against the Novogrudok sejmiks. The participation of the Novogrudok povet uryadniks (officers) and leading gentry families was rare. At the same time, the leading noble groups of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania had a significant influence on the Novogrudok sejmik: the Radzivils, the Sapiehas and the Czartoryskis. Their influence on the petty gentry was manifested in its active participation in protestatations at Novogrudok sejmiks. The protestations, main purpose was to disrupt the sejmik and therefore they were mainly against the sejmik director election. It was possible to find out that there is no connection between the number of protestations and the recognition of the sejmik as disrupted. It was possible to establish that there is also no connection between the number of gentry who signed the protestations and the recognition of the sejmik as disrupted. In conclusion, the average participation in protests against the Novogrudok sejmik during August III reign was reconstructed.

Disloyal managers and proxy voting

We examine how proxy voting responds to increased agency cost with an intention-to-treat analysis. Using staggered adoption of Corporate Opportunities Waiver laws that erode the fiduciary duty when managers (including directors) appropriate business opportunities from focal firms, we find that shareholders are less likely to support contentious incumbent director elections, especially in more established firms and firms with more outside opportunities. Moreover, we show that proxy voting by long-term institutional investors contributes to this effect. Overall, our results suggest that shareholders respond to increased agency cost with increased monitoring.

An empirical investigation of director selection in movie preproduction: A two-sided matching approach

This paper examines how movie producers recruit directors in the preproduction phase as mutual choices in a two-sided matching model. It conceptualizes that movie attributes and filmmaker characteristics determine the matching outcomes (“who directed which movie”) and in turn indirectly affect movie box office. We exploit a dataset of 4,807 feature films from 1990 to 2010 to examine empirically the complementarities between the movie/producer side and the director side in terms of movie budget, filmmaker track records and social relations. A series of simulations suggest that social relations facilitate positive assortative matching. Further simulation analyses are conducted to quantify the financial implications of movie–director mismatches, as well as the indirect effects of production budget and producer characteristics. The simulation results show that: a) the financial implications of having a mismatched director can be substantial; and b) the indirect effect of production budget and producer characteristics affect movie box office in an interactive manner. These findings can help filmmakers to better understand the financial impacts of movie–director choices and make more informed decisions at the early phase of preproduction.

Ideological homophily in board composition and interlock networks: Do liberal directors inhibit viewpoint diversity?

AbstractResearch issueA consistent feature of social networks is homophily: the tendency for people to interact with similar others. Psychological and sociological research suggests that homophily is most pronounced along ideological lines, with conflicting evidence as to whether this tendency is higher among individuals who hold liberal or conservative beliefs. Based on this literature, we conduct the first study of ideological homophily in two key organizational networks: the intrafirm connections among directors on the board and the interfirm connections created by board interlocks.Research insightsIn a panel of 408 U.S. firms between 2000 and 2020, we find that liberalism increases homophily both within and between boards. Furthermore, we find that homophily has decreased over time but that this has been driven by conservative boards while the effect of liberalism has strengthened in recent years. These findings provide the first evidence for an ideological component in the composition of intra‐ and interorganizational networks.Academic implicationsMost research on director selection and interlock formation has focused on situational or demographic antecedents. Our findings contribute to the development of a broader theoretical framework that accounts for individual dispositional factors in these processes.Practitioner implicationsOur findings bring attention to the issue of ideological homogeneity in firms. Given the growth of homophilic tendencies among liberal directors in recent years, we suggest that it may be increasingly important for directors to become aware, and mitigate the effects, of their ideological biases in order to maintain cognitive diversity in information networks and decision making.

Do CEOs get rewarded for CSR activities in the director labor market?

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to determine if Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) are rewarded or punished in the corporate director labor market for engaging in corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.Design/methodology/approachThe authors empirically examine the relation between CEOs' CSR engagement and their corporate board appointments in retirement using logit, ordinary least squares (OLS) and Poisson regression models.FindingsResults indicate that CSR engagement has significant director labor market consequences for retiring CEOs. Specifically, CSR engagement has a favorable impact on the ability of retired CEOs to obtain board seats and board seats at larger firms generally associated with higher pay, even after controlling for firm performance and other determinants previously documented to explain director selection. The authors also find evidence that CEOs of firms with high CSR engagement build up their firms' CSR scores over time as they approach retirement, which is consistent with the labor market for directors providing incentives to attract CEOs to board service in retirement.Originality/valueBy examining the relationship between a CEO's CSR engagement and their external corporate board directorships, this paper advances the understanding of the determinants of corporate board appointments. Further, while most prior research assesses the value of CSR engagement by looking at the relation between CSR engagement and that firm's performance, this is the first study to our knowledge to look outside the firm to determine if CSR engagement has value to the CEO.

Director Election, Shareholder Dissent, and Earnings Management

Shareholders can voice their opinions primarily by voting in director election. The potential effects of their voting behavior on subsequent board monitoring were examined using data on S&P 500 firms spanning 2003 to 2019. Voting results were found to correlate strongly with a board’s monitoring of upward earnings management. A high percentage of dissenting votes in the election of directors predicts weaker subsequent monitoring, as does a large difference in the number of dissenting votes among the different nominees. These effects are more pronounced when the directors perceive the board’s operation to be unjust and when the directors’ personal characteristics as more similar.

Institutional Antecedents to Shareholder Monitoring: The Liability of Localness in Shareholder Votes

This study explores how institutional forces shape the extent to which shareholders vigilantly monitor their invested firms. Using the context of the shareholder vote on director elections in Japan...

Board Diversity as Firms’ Adaptation to Stakeholder Norms: The Roles of Social Embeddedness in India

Stakeholder norms influence firms’ board composition including board diversity. However, less is known on how firms in emerging economies, specifically India—a heterogeneous institutional context where selection of directors exhibits distinct social embeddedness in firm-related network relations as well extra-network affiliations (e.g., religion/caste). Bridging the stakeholder perspective with the institutional perspective, we study Indian firms’ board diversity as a strategic adaptation to stakeholder norms from developed economies. Using panel regression analyses on 842 firm-year observations between 2013 and 2018, we find that in the Indian institutional environment, such an adaptation is subject to social embeddedness in ongoing relationships between firms and governments/public agencies, as well as firms’ positions in the interlocking network. The findings have important implications for corporate governance in emerging economies.

How Does the Majority Voting Rule of Director Election Influence Firm Value?

Taking the agency theory perspective, we theoretically analyze and empirically explore whether the majority voting rule of director election significantly influences firm value. Investigating S&P 1,500 firms between 2007 and 2017, we predict and confirm that the majority voting rule positively impacts firm value and stronger board independence strengthens the positively effect of the majority voting rule on firm value. Meanwhile, the temporal effect of the majority voting rule on firm value resembles an inverted U-shape relationship. Contrary to our prediction, we find that institutional shareholder ownership weakens the positively effect of the majority voting rule on firm value. We contribute new evidence that helps clarify the empirical ambiguity among extant research of the impacts of the majority voting rule. Further, our results shed light on both the benefits and potential drawbacks of empowering shareholders to strongly influence board elections.

Imperative of corporate governance on industry's profitability: An empirical study of privatized cement industry in Nigeria

Abstract. The study investigates the imperative of corporate governance on profitability of privatized cement industry in Nigeria. The variables studied were Rate of Returns as dependent variables and fourteen Corporate Governance proxies as independent variables. Data was collected from secondary sources, and the statistical tools employed in the Methodology were descriptive statistics and Pooled OLS regressions. The study aimed at bridging literature gap on studies that relate corporate governance and privatization policy in Nigeria. The results suggest that, no remarkable improvement of profitability post privatization due to challenges of exogenous factors such as macroeconomic environment instability and weak private sector. The industry witnessed changes in corporate governance such as adopting effective cost management and proactive business strategies, exposure to competition, withdrawal of Government subsidy and special grant post privatisation. Board Size and Workforce have positive and significant impact on Cement industry’s profitability, while, State Ownership, Institutional Ownership, Minority ownership, Percentage of Executive Directors and Privatization with time have negative and significant impact on company’s profitability. Conversely, Foreign Investors, Percentage of Non-Executive Directors and Percentage of Management Staff have positive and insignificant impact on the Cement industry’s profitability. Thus, it will be pertinent to conclude that the result has accepted Alternative Hypothesis that corporate governance has significant impact on the Cement industry’s performance (AROA), despite the challenges of microeconomic environment instability. The study recommends that, Government needs to stabilize macroeconomic environment and strengthen private sector. The Cement Industry needs to ensure right procedure of the selection of Non-Executive Directors, create incentive for foreign investor participation, ensure Payment of dividend, less government interference and accountability. Mechanisms such as efficient and independent audit committee, competent executive directors and professional management team need to be put in place to address the negative and insignificant impact of management staff on the industry. Keywords. Corporate governance, Profitability, Privatization, Cement industry. JEL. C01, C50, E10, E60, F02, F30, F41.

Director-Level Determinants of Director Election Results : A re-examination

Very few extant studies have analysed director-level determinants of director election results: the only existing studies are based on data from 2000-2010. In light of the very important changes that US boards of directors have experienced during the past decade, we re-examine this question by analysing a unique data set. We show that the impact from some determinants of director election results has changed over time and that once firm-level effects are controlled for, shareholders are likely to vote in favour of inside directors.

Les caractéristiques des administrateurs comme déterminants des résultats de leur élection par les actionnaires: Un réexamen

Very few extant studies have analysed director-level determinants of director election results: the only existing studies are based on data from 2000-2010. In light of the very important changes that US boards of directors have experienced during the past decade, we re-examine this question by analysing a unique data set. We show that the impact from some determinants of director election results has changed over time and that once firm-level effects are controlled for, shareholders are likely to vote in favour of inside directors.

Can you catch two birds with one stone? The impacts of nominating committee composition on board monitoring and resource provision

While it has long been recognized that boards of directors perform two primary functions – monitoring and resource provision – little research has systematically examined the relationship between these two functions in public corporations. Given the growing external emphasis on the monitoring function by investors and advocates of corporate governance reforms, it is important to understand how such an emphasis impacts the resource provision function. In addition to identifying the composition of the nominating committee as a key to understanding the relationship, we propose two mechanisms through which the formation of an independent nominating committee in response to the external emphasis on monitoring leads to a decline in board resource provision. One mechanism is through a decline in information sharing between top managers and the nominating committee in new director selection, which results in a divergence between board capital and the firm's specific resource needs. The other is through decreased trust between the CEO and the board, which results in a less collaborative CEO-board relationship. To alleviate this negative impact that an external emphasis on monitoring has on resource provision, we propose that boards can bring non-CEO executives back onto nominating committees as inside directors. Our theoretical analysis contributes to the understanding of how the composition of the nominating committee influences board monitoring and resource provision, and has important implications for corporate governance research and practices.

Mitigating information imperfections in proxy contests: The effect of dissidents' proxy solicitation

This study examines dissidents' expenses related to proxy solicitation activities in a contested director election. I find that dissidents' solicitation expenses are associated with higher chances of winning board seats. This association is consistent with my conjecture that dissidents extend their efforts in proxy solicitation and thus persuade more shareholders in dissidents' favor, but this is not likely driven by retained solicitor's reputation, dissidents' opportunistic behavior for reimbursement, or other popular strategic activities in proxy contests. Furthermore, I show that proxy solicitation activities are considered to be an information channel that substitutes for investors' own search for proxy statements from the SEC's EDGAR. Overall, this study suggests that proxy solicitation plays an important role in proxy contests.

Nomination of Directors in Israel: Theory, Evidence, Policy; מינוי דירקטורים: תיאוריה, ראיות, מדיניות

תקציר בעברית: מינוי של דירקטורים בחברות ציבוריות מהווה את אחד המהלכים החשובים והמרכזיים בדיני החברות והממשל התאגידי. כידוע, הדירקטורים מגבשים את האסטרטגיה של החברה ומפקחים על ההנהלה הביצועית שלה. ככלל, בתי המשפט נוטים לכבד את שיקול הדעת של הדירקטורים. על-כן, חשיבותו של המחקר בנוגע לאופן שבו דירקטורים מתמנים בחברות ציבוריות, היא ברורה.מאמר זה מבוסס על מחקר אמפירי שבחן את הליכי מינוי הדירקטורים ב- 125 החברות הגדולות בישראל בשנים 2015 - 2019. המאמר מציג ממצאים ונתונים ייחודיים בנוגע למינוי הדירקטורים, ובתוך כך מציג נתונים ביחס לדפוסי ההצבעה של המשקיעים המוסדיים ועומד על התפקיד שהם ממלאים, ביחד עם חברות הייעוץ למוסדיים. English Abstract: Corporate directors’ elections lie at the core of corporate governance. The board of directors is tasked with the mission of shaping and overseeing corporate policies and operations. Courts, for their part, give significant deference to board decisions, and do not substitute their judgement for that of the board (unless it is shown that the board’s decision involves a breach of fiduciary duty). Hence, the importance and relevance of research that explores the way directors are elected, is quite clear. Using a dataset of director elections at Tel-Aviv 125 companies (composed of proxy statements and voting results for director elections) from 2015 until 2019, we examine how directors are being elected in public companies listed in Israel. We provide novel and unique data on the voting patterns for director elections and explore the existing role played by the Israeli institutional investors and proxy advisors in the context of director elections.

Animation Behind the Iron Curtain: A Guide to Animated Films from Russia and Eastern Bloc Countries During the Cold War Era by Cowen Eleanor (review)

REVIEWS 359 Cowen, Eleanor. Animation Behind the Iron Curtain: A Guide to Animated Films from Russia and Eastern Bloc Countries During the Cold War Era. John Libbey, New Barnet, 2020. viii + 215 pp. Map. Illustrations. Chronology of selected political events and animated films. Notes. Bibliography. Index. £24.99: $32.00 (paperback). Eleanor Cowen’s Animation Behind the Iron Curtain is a welcome book on traditional animation. In a contemporary digitalized animation world, the author’s main objective is to draw attention to traditional animation films that have not been widely available to Western audiences. As stated on the cover, the book intends to be a ‘guide to animated films from Russia and Eastern Bloc countries during the Cold War era’. It comprises two parts. The first contains three chapters which briefly illustrate the main issues at stake during the Cold War years. In these introductory chapters, Cowen gives some simplified background information about the positions of the two states involved — capitalist USA versus Communist Soviet Union. The second part focuses on Eastern Bloc animation and dedicates each chapter to a specific area: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania. For each country Cowen describes a selection of directors and films and briefly defines some of their key animation techniques. The book offers neither an in-depth study of animation of the Cold War, nor a thorough analysis of issues of representation and propaganda, but instead aims to spotlight exemplary films made in the Soviet Bloc. The context provided serves as a rudimentary introduction to the Cold War as well as to animation techniques. The overall structure of the book is not always linear. The division of chapters in the first part, which attempts to introduce the Eastern and Western Blocs, leads to a few repetitions; while the second part has a tendency to digress, giving snippets of historical fact or explanations of animation techniques, which divert the focus of the discussion. The historical background is rather simplistic and, at times, only vaguely relevant to the films in question, but it might nevertheless be helpful for students utterly unfamiliar with the context. Cowen’s descriptions of animation techniques are presented more as an aside than an integral part of her discussion of the development of national film production. The techniques she examines are cel animation, stop-motion, paper cutout, rotoscoping, sand animation, editing, transition, narrative structure, plaster panel technique, mise-en-scène and sound design. While a brief introduction to these techniques might be welcomed by students not versed in film studies, a more harmonious discussion of their significance in relation to Cowen’s film selection would have resulted in a more compelling SEER, 99, 2, APRIL 2021 360 treatment of the cartoons. Moreover, rather than being analysed, the films are mostly delineated by plot details and only a few general aesthetic characteristics. Instead of a conclusion, the book presents a chronological table of selected political events, Western animation and Eastern Bloc animation. This chronology serves as a useful tool for locating the films in time and reorganizing the contextual information in a linear way. The chronology is accompanied by a map of Europe showing the division of the countries before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The map would presumably be valuable for students, especially non-European, unfamiliar with the geography of the region, and perhaps it would have sufficed to portray each country’s location visually in this way without the superfluous descriptions at the beginning of each chapter. Lastly, the reader might wish to know the method Cowen used to choose the films featured in the book. Most of them are unquestionably representative of some of the tendencies in each country, but the selection criteria adopted are not made clear. In the first part, Cowen selects only a few films that illustrate the main stances of the two sides of the Iron Curtain, while many other propaganda films go unmentioned. The same can be said for the discussion of animation in each country; quite a few influential masters are neglected and important films ignored. However, the book does not claim to offer a comprehensive study of Eastern...

Does CEO Power Affect the Association Between CEO Compensation and Tangible Assets Impairments?

This paper examines the association between CEO compensation and tangible long-lived assets impairment. We find that the level of CEO compensation is negatively associated with the tangible long-lived assets impairment charges. We also document that in firms with CEOs who have more decision-making power, the negative association between CEO compensation and tangible long-lived assets impairment charges is mitigated. Specifically, the negative association between CEO compensation and tangible long-lived assets impairment charges is less pronounced (1) when CEO chairs the board, (2) when CEO is the founder of the firm, (3) when the CEO is involved in the director selection process, and (4) when overall board independence is low.

Does firm payout policy affect shareholders’ dissatisfaction with directors?

In this study we investigate the information content of firm payout policy to shareholders. We focus on the association between a firm’s payout policy and shareholders’ satisfaction with board directors, as expressed by the percentage of negative or withheld votes for directors during annual elections (shareholders’ dissent voting). We fill a gap in the literature by using shareholders’ voting results in the election of board members at annual meeting as a setting to examine shareholder perception of firms’ payout policies. We find that higher share repurchase and/or higher dividend payout are associated with lower shareholders’ dissenting votes. We also find that such relationship is conditional on the level of free cash flow, firm future performance, the degree of management entrenchment, and the type of institutional investors. Our study contributes to the payout literature by providing empirical evidence that shows the outcome of shareholders’ votes in director elections may be influenced by the board of directors’ payout decisions.

Kultura pamćenja začetaka srpske medicine

The study of the history of medicine has developed two approaches: traditional and new, which is more comprehensive. The traditional approach implies the study of important individuals and ideas, the advancement of medicine as a science. This approach is widely accepted in both our and world science. The second, which is much more comprehensive, was initiated by Henry Sigerst with his works, and expanded and came to life in the 1960s and 1970s. The authors of the paper approach the study and presentation of Serbian medieval medicine with the cause-and-effect relationship of health and disease and other medical-historical phenomena and analyze them in a social, cultural and political context. From this point of view, the authors connect the mentioned contests with modern medical problems and approaches. The aim of this paper is to investigate and present the development of Serbian medicine in the Middle Ages, the conditions under which it was formed and developed, as well as the influence of the Serbian state and church on it. The first hospitals were established under the protection of Christian monasteries in the East, but also in the West. In addition to the first hospitals, the ideas of social medicine were born in the Middle Ages, under the influence of Christian thought. All this is a significant contribution to European medicine, the basis without which further development of medical science in the Renaissance would not be possible. The first real hospitals as treatment institutions in medieval Serbia were established in the period from the 13th to the 17th century. The collected historical material indicates the fact that there were nineteen of them. Hospitals were built and arranged on the model of already existing hospitals built on the soil of Byzantium. The monastery hospitals have a significant historical role, because they introduced Serbian medicine into the family of the then European medicine. It should be especially emphasized that Serbia was at the forefront of medicine at that time, because it had special (separate) departments for the treatment of patients with epilepsy and mental illness. A special place is occupied by the monastery hospital Hilandar on the Holy Mountain and the monastery hospital in Studenica. Along with the establishment of hospitals, they are also working on medical education, in the beginning more according to the mentoring principle, so that from the period of King Milutin's rule, the first medical school was established. In the organizational sense, the Serbian monastery hospitals laid the foundations of today's hospital organization, starting from the place for construction, equipment and working conditions, through the election of directors, doctors, medical and non-medical staff, to ethical norms.

How Does the Majority Voting Rule of Director Election Influence Firm Value?

How Does the Majority Voting Rule of Director Election Influence Firm Value?