Nomination Committee Research Articles

Employee disclosures in the grocery industry before the COVID‐19 pandemic

We provide evidence on the consumer staples industry's commitment and accountability to employees prior to the COVID‐19 pandemic by analysing their employee‐related disclosures in annual reports. A high level of disclosure exists from 2004 to 2019 with 93 percent of the industry disclosing some information about employees. The highest categories of disclosure are remuneration, health and safety, and training and development. We find that total disclosure is significantly related to having employee share ownership, a Big 4 auditor, a larger board of directors, a majority independent board, independent chair, an audit and nomination committee and higher ROA.

Does board committee independence affect financial distress likelihood? A comparison of China with the UK

This study explores the relationship between board committees’ independence and the financial distress of firms in China and the UK. Akin to previous literature, we estimate this relationship between 2007 and 2016 using a conditional logit model on a sample of matched pair firms. For China, the results indicate a positive and statistically significant association between the percentage of independent audit committee members and the financial distress of firms. In contrast, the opposite relationship was found for independent compensation and nomination committee members. For the UK, the relationships are the same, but the results are significant only for nomination committee independence. Our overall results suggest that independent audit committee members are not favorable for firm survival. In contrast, the independent compensation and nomination committee members are beneficial for the financial health of firms, as they are responsible for designing fair compensation packages and for selecting the most suitable persons to decide the strategic moves of the firm, respectively. A robustness test demonstrates that the results are robust to the assumed functional form imposed by the conditional logit model and confirms our core findings for both Chinese and UK firms.

In Memoriam: Linda Patia Spear, PhD.

Linda Patia Spear, PhD, died on October 13, 2020. She was a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the Department of Psychology, at the State University of New York at Binghamton. Linda served as director of the Developmental Exposure Alcohol Research Center (DEARC) and was a major force in the Neurobiology of Adolescent Drinking in Adulthood (NADIA) consortium. Linda's exceptional service to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) included serving on the Steering Committee for Underage Drinking Prevention, Extramural Advisory Board and National Advisory Council of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). Linda was a long-time member of the Research Society on Alcoholism and made important contributions to the RSA as a Program Co-Chair and on the Nomination committee.

Analysis of Pre and Post-MCCG 2017: Leadership Effectiveness Through the Board Nomination Committee of Top 50 Malaysian PLCs

Purpose – This paper investigates the impact of the two main aspects on selecting the right Board candidate including best practices within the position and structure along with the recruitment activities proposed under the Malaysian Corporate Governance Code (Code) compared across 2012 and 2017.Design/ methodology approach - For this analysis, a target list of the top 50 PLCs based on market capitalization was gathered from 784 Malaysian PLCs as of 14 August 2020. In the annual review of the reports, this study includes statistical methods to quantify and interpret the disclosures.Originality - This study reviews the developments of the policies from the Code in 2012 to the Code in 2017. Also applicable to other PLCs other than the top 50 Malaysian PLCs would be the Board Nomination Committee – Role and Structure and the Board Nomination Committee – Recruitment Activities scoring indices designed.

To what extent do governance, government funding and chief executive officer characteristics influence executive compensation in U.K. charities? Insights from the social theory of agency

AbstractThis paper draws on agency theory, as extended by the social theory of agency (STA) (Wiseman, Cuevas‐Rodríguez & Gomez‐Mejia, 2012), to examine the association between governance arrangements, reliance on government funding, chief executive officer (CEO) non‐profit experience, and CEO compensation in the UK charity sector. We rely on a hand‐collected data for the largest 240 charities and find that greater trustee board diversity (specifically gender and education diversity) and the existence of a remuneration or nomination committee are positively associated to CEO compensation. The results also show that a reliance on government funding and CEO's non‐profit work experience, together with the presence of a finance/accounting expert on the audit committee are negatively associated to CEO compensation. The existence of an audit committee, internal audit function, use of specialist external auditor and CEO characteristics (gender, ethnicity and managerial experience) are not significant factors. Our findings are largely consistent with the STA's propositions. Specifically, executive compensation levels reflect the CEO's ability to work with a diverse board while a higher reliance on government funding signals the role of the State's pressures in moderating CEO compensation. Finally, in a context characterised by altruism and public benefit, financial rewards are not seen as the dominant ‘value metric’, resulting in lower compensation for CEOs previously working in the sector. Our findings have policy implications, specifically in relation to the role, composition and effectiveness of governance structures (e.g., trustee boards, audit and remuneration committees) in overseeing the design of executive compensation schemes within the charity sector.

Chronological Development of the Corporate Governance Guidelines in Bangladesh: A Comparative Analysis between CGG-2012 and CGC-2018

In this study, the chronological development of the Corporate Governance Guidelines (CGG) and Corporate Governance Code (CGC) is examined to identify how much the Code has evolved over time. A comparative analysis between the CGG-2012 and CGC-2018 has also been conducted in the study to outline the latest changes and areas of further improvements. The study is exploratory and literature review-based in nature. Hence, contemporary literatures were analyzed along with comparison of the CGG-2012 and CGC-2018 issued by the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission (BSEC). Data was collected from various secondary sources including – corporate governance codes of different countries, research papers, journals, newspaper articles and websites. The study points out that the BSEC has followed a six-year interval pattern in the further development and modification of the corporate governance codes in Bangladesh. Also, it has been found out that in terms of the number of conditions in the code, the CGC-2018 is about 75 percent enhanced than CGG-2012. Previously, CGG-2012 was enhanced by more than 150 percent over the first guideline in 2006. CGC-2018 has introduced some crucial governance issues that were not present in the code before but there still remain some areas that are yet to be addressed in the best-practices recommendations. Keywords: Corporate Governance, Nomination and Remuneration Committee, Board of Directors’ Committee, Company Website. DOI: 10.7176/EJBM/12-27-13 Publication date: September 30 th 2020

ASR News & Announcements

Typically, around this time of year, our News and Announcements would include highlights from our Annual Meeting. Unfortunately, we are all aware that Covid-19 has led the ASR Council to cancel our 2020 Annual Meeting. The ASR Council recognizes that not having a conference this year may be very disappointing. Every year, we look forward to intellectually stimulating research and conversation, sharing teaching experiences, and navigating grant opportunities. The ASR Council will begin preparations for our 2021 Annual Meeting in the coming weeks. Our Chicago hotel is conveniently located on the Magnificent Mile between the ASA hotel and the heart of Chicago. Congratulations, again, to the winners of ASR’s 2020 election. Gerardo Marti will serve as President-Elect. Tricia C. Bruce, Damon Maryl, and Grace Yukich are our newly elected council members. You can read the profiles of our newly elected ASR leadership by visiting www.sociologyofreligion.com, click on About ASR, and click on Profiles of Newly Elected (third option in the drop down menu). Thank you to everyone who participated in the election: the candidates, the nomination committee, and our members who voted.

Impact of expertise of audit committee chair and nomination committee chair on financial performance of firm

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of financial, monitoring and experiential expertise of audit committee chair (ACC) and HR, monitoring and experiential expertise of nomination committee chair (NCC) on the financial performance (FP) of the firm.Design/methodology/approachQuantitative approach was used in this study to collect data from 50 non-financial firms of Pakistan and to analyze the data through e-views for testing hypotheses.FindingsThe findings revealed that financial and monitoring expertise of ACC and experiential expertise of NCC positively influence return on assets, return on equity and the net profit margin of the firm. However, no significant influence of experiential expertise of ACC and monitoring and HR expertise of NCC on FP was found.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this study will help firms of Pakistan to understand what expertise of their ACC and NCC can contribute to the enhancement of their FP. However, the current study examined the non-financial firms of Pakistan only.Originality/valuePast studies have never shown the particular focus on different types of expertise of “Chairs” of nomination and audit committees in a combined research to analyze their impact on FP of firms. The present study has abridged this gap in the field of expertise of chairs of board committees so, it will open new areas of discussion for future researchers in domains of “agency theory”, “human capital theory” and corporate governance.

제20대 국회에서 발의된 법원조직법 개정안에 대한 헌법적 분석 - 대법원장의 사법행정권을 중심으로 -

The Constitution of the Sixth Republic is evaluated as a democratic constitution whose principle of separation of powers is relatively well reflected in the organization and composition of the governing structure. Since the implementation of the current Constitution, various efforts to embody democratic principles in the legislative and administrative sectors, both political areas, have been steadily developed and have been quite effective. With certain achievements achieved in the political arena, public opinion has risen that yearning for democratic reform in the judiciary. After achieving certain outcome in the political arena, public opinion has risen that yearning for democratic reform in the judiciary. The people's opinion of democratic reform in the judiciary was focused on rationalizing the power of the Chief Justice. It is because the excessive authority is concentrated on the Chief Justice despite his weak democratic legitimacy. Thus, a number of bills were proposed in the 20th National Assembly with the aim of limiting or reducing the Chief Justice's authority over judicial administration. The proposed bill can be divided into one that calls for diversifying the composition of Justice nomination committee and another that calls for the creation of a new judicial administrative body beyond the current judicial administrative system. These bills are intended to limit the judicial administrative authority of the Chief Justice in proportion to democratic legitimacy, which is questionable whether they harmonize with the principle of judicial independence and current constitutional articles. Rational adjustment of the judicial administrative authority of the Chief Justice in proportion to democratic legitimacy is of course a request in light of democratic principles, but constitutional legitimacy is recognized only when it is harmonized with the basic principles and provisions of the Constitution.

Dominant Personalities in Board Committees, Company Characteristics, and Internet Environmental Disclosure by Malaysian Listed Companies

This paper investigates the determinants of internet environmental disclosure (IED) amongst Malaysian listed companies. Ten variables have been tested using data collected from 170 Malaysian listed company websites, namely, dominant personalities in the audit committee, chairman of audit and nomination committees, dominant personalities in the audit and nomination committees, internationality, leverage, foreign shareholders, level of technology, firm age, number of shareholders, and listing status. It was found that internationality, foreign shareholders, level of technology, firm age, number of shareholders, and listing status are significantly affected by the level of IED. However, dominant personalities in the audit committee, chairman of audit and nomination committees, dominant personalities in the audit and nomination committees, and leverage did not show a significant relationship with the level of IED in Malaysia. The study provided some evidence to support signaling theory, shareholder accountability theory, and cost and benefit hypothesis in relation to internet disclosure.

Company Characteristics, Dominant Personalities in Board Committees and Internet Financial Disclosures by Malaysian Listed Companies

This paper investigates whether the internet financial disclosure can be explained by a company’s characteristics and the dominant personalities in board committees of the Malaysian listed companies. Ten hypotheses were tested using data collected from 194 Malaysian listed companies’ websites. Specifically, this paper examines the relationship between the internet financial disclosures (IFD) and the variables, namely internationality, leverage, foreign shareholders, level of technology, firm age, number of shareholders, listing status, dominant personalities in the audit committee, and chairmen of audit and nomination committees. It is found that the level of technology, firm age, number of shareholders and listing status significantly affect the level of IFD. However, the dominant personalities in the audit and nomination committees affect negatively the level of IFD in Malaysia. The study provides some evidence to support the signaling theory and the cost and benefit hypothesis in relation to internet disclosure.

The board chairman’s characteristics and financial stability of Malaysian-listed firms

This study examines the association between the board chairman’s (BC’s) characteristics (independence, age, ethnicity, tenure, family membership, dual chair with nomination committee (NC), dual cha...

שופטי מערכת: עלייתה של הבירוקרטיה השיפוטית ומשמעויותיה <br>System Judges: The Rise of the Israeli Judicial Bureaucracy and Its Implications

תקציר בעברית: הדגם השכיח לקריירה שיפוטית בישראל אינו שגרתי במבט השוואתי. הוא משלב מיסודו מאפיינים השכיחים הן במדינות המשפט המקובל והן מאפיינים השכיחים במדינות המשפט הקונטיננטלי. עם זאת, בשלושים השנים האחרונות נצפתה תופעה חדשה: עלייתם של שופטי המערכת. עורכות דין – מרביתן נשים – שבשלב מוקדם בקריירה המשפטית החלו לעבוד במסגרת מערכת השפיטה, כסגל עזר שיפוטי או/ו כרשמות, טרם בחירתן לשופטות מן המניין. המאמר הנוכחי מבקש לעמוד על שלושה היבטים של תופעת שופטי המערכת: היקפה ומאפייניה, הגורמים המרכזיים בעיצובה, ומשמעויותיה. ההיבט הראשון נוגע למגמות בדפוסי המינוי. בהתבסס על מחקר אמפירי מקיף ראשון מסוגו, המכסה את כלל השופטים שכיהנו בישראל מהקמת המדינה ועד לסוף שנת 2016, המאמר מבקש להראות את הדפוסים השונים במינויים שהם חלק מהתופעה. זאת, לרבות הירידה במספר ובשיעור השופטים המתמנים לערכאות הבכירות, הגידול בהיקף מערך הרשמים ושיעור השופטים שמשרתם האחרונה טרם מינוי היה כסגל עזר שיפוטי. ההיבט השני נוגע לגורמים המרכזיים המעצבים את התהוותו של דגם שופטי המערכת. התגבשותו של דגם זה לא הייתה תוצאה של החלטה סדורה אלא של סדרת החלטות טכניות לכאורה, המצטברות לכדי דגם של ממש. החלטות אלו התקבלו באתרים שונים, בכנסת, בממשלה, בוועדה לבחירת שופטים, ובמנהלת מערכת השפיטה. על אף ריבוי השחקנים והאתרים שבהם התרחש השינוי, המאמר מצביע על שני גורמים מרכזיים בהתרחשותו: מעבר מערכת השפיטה לתפיסה של ניהול סכסוכים והפרויקט של שיפוט כמקצוע. שני פרויקטים אידיאולוגיים אלה הם מרכזיים בעיצובו של הדגם, ובהתאם המנהלה של מערכת השפיטה והוועדה לבחירת שופטים הם אתרים משמעותיים שבהם הדגם התהווה. לבסוף, המאמר מבקש לעמוד על ההשלכות והמשמעויות של אימוץ הדגם. העמידה על השלכות אלו חשובה כבסיס לדיון עתידי בתופעה ובהסדרתה על ידי המערכת הפוליטית, שצפויה להתממש כחלק מהמאבקים הבין-מוסדיים המתרחשים בישראל בין שלושת הרשויות. המאמר מתמקד בשתי השלכות: בכך שדגם שופטי המערכת מקבע באופן מוסדי את התסריט המוסדי של הרשות השופטת; והפיכת הדגם לדרך כניסה משמעותית למערכת השפיטה עבור נשים שנעדרו ממנה בעבר: נשים ערביות, נשים יהודיות בעלות רקע דתי, ונשים יהודיות שגדלו בפריפריה החברתית-כלכלית של ישראל. שתי ההשלכות גם יחד – לרבת המתח שבניהן – מדגישות את מורכבות התופעה והשפעותיה, ועל כן את הצורך בהמשך מחקר ודיון ציבורי-מקצועי בעיצובה העתידי. English Abstract: The Israeli path to the judiciary is unusual from a comparative perspective. It incorporates properties common both to common law and civil law systems. In the past thirty years, this hybrid stance was further intensified by the emergence of a new phenomenon: the rise of system judges. These are lawyers—predominately women—who early in their legal careers began working in the judiciary, as law clerks and/or registrars, and were appointed to be judges from those positions. These judges are not recognition judges, nor are they strict career judges with a separate career path. This article presents this phenomenon and explores it. It traces its contours through the biographies of the judges. Based on an empirical study that covered the biographies of all judges appointed from between 1948 and 2017, it presents the different patterns in judicial appointments, such as a decline in the direct appointment of lawyers to appellate courts; the growth of the judicial staff, and the gradual rise of system judges across the judiciary. The article further elaborates on the central factors that shaped the system judges pathway. It argues that it has emerged not as the result of a premeditated plan, but rather through a series of seemingly technical reforms pushed by different actors in the judicial nomination committee, the Knesset, the government, and the director of the courts. Even though the process was promoted by different actors and in different arenas, the article demonstrates the central role played by the managerial shift of the judiciary in the past decade, and by the attempts to promote judgeship as a separate profession. Finally, the article discusses two possible implications that the emergence of system judges may have for the judiciary as a whole: the potential of system judges to institutionally solidify the voice of the judiciary, and the potential of system-judgeship as a pathway for marginalized groups.

Shareholders’ activism as a moderator of the relationship between corporate governance and return on investment

The purpose of shareholders’ involvement in the process of governance is to add corporate value and achieve better governance and firm performance (FP). However, corporate governance (CG) practices can vary from country to country and change over time. This study examines the moderating influence of shareholders’ activism (SA) on the CG effectiveness – FP relationship in non-financial companies listed in the Libyan Stock Market between 2007 and 2016. CG effectiveness was the independent variable and consisted of five dimensions: board of directors, monitoring committee, audit committee, nomination and compensation committee, and ownership. Leverage, firm age and firm size were used as control variables. Return on investment was used to assess the corporate performance. SA was tested as a moderating variable using the interactive regression models. The study found out that the CG effectiveness is positively and significantly related to return on investment (beta = 0.608, p < 0.01). This relationship was strengthened by SA (R2 = 0.053, P < 0.05). Overall, the study shows that SA boosts the relationship between CG and FP in the Libyan Stock Market.

Supply and Demand Side Determinants of Board Gender Imbalance: The U.S. Evidence

Women are heavily underrepresented in U.S. boardrooms at a time when many countries are introducing policies such as gender quotas to achieve greater gender balance in boards. To understand why, we examine how successful women are, relative to men, in finding a second board appointment after an initial appointment. We find that women do better than comparable men in terms of the quality, likelihood, and speed of the second appointment. Examining first appointments, we find that women who obtain board seats generally have significantly less leadership and work experience in quoted firms than men, but (after controlling for observable attributes) are appointed at larger firms. Our findings are consistent with the under-representation of women being more a consequence of supply-side factors: in particular, a lack of opportunities for women to rise up the corporate ladder so that only a small number of exceptionally capable women manage to be on the radar of nomination committees. We find little evidence that boards engage in either taste-based or statistical discrimination against women.

2019 ATBC Honorary Fellows

In 1963, the Council of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation established the election of Honorary Fellows as “persons of long distinguished service to tropical biology.” This is the highest award given by the Association: To date more than 80 Honorary Fellows from over 15 countries have been elected by the Council. This year, we are fortunate to have two outstanding Fellows. On behalf of The Honorary Fellow Nomination Committee, we present the 2019 Honorary Fellows as follows: Professor Jonah Ratsimbazafy is a renowned Malagasy primatologist who has made substantial contributions to the conservation of Madagascar’s imperiled biodiversity, especially saving iconic, evolutionary unique and endemic Malagasy primates from the brink of extinction, through his research, teaching and outreach activities. His efforts in environmental protection and conservation in Madagascar has been internationally recognized with prestigious awards like the Disney Conservation Hero Award. He has been invited to present seminars worldwide. Professor Ratsimbazafy earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology from SUNY Stony Brook University, New York (2002), and is currently the President of GERP (Groupe d’Etude et de Recherche sur les Primates de Madagascar), an organization that advocates for the conservation of lemurs. He is also a Professor in the Department of Paleontology and Anthropology at the University of Antananarivo and has been a mentor for many young Malagasy anthropologists. He has been a very active researcher and has published more than 90 scientific papers. He has also been an active member of various national and international conservation organizations. He is currently serving as the Vice-Chair of IUCN’s Primate Specialist Group—Madagascar section, and as a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Primatology and the Madagascar Conservation and Development journal. He also served as Co-Chair of the Local Organizing Committee for ATBC 2019 and was one of the keynote speakers (Figure 1). Dr. Goodman received his PhD from the University of Hamburg, Germany. He is a MacArthur Field Biologist on staff for the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and has spent three decades documenting biodiversity in Madagascar as a conservation biologist in residence in collaboration with WWF. His research interests include inventories of poorly known forest areas, description of animals and their natural history in Madagascar. He has written and edited some of the most important books for natural history and biological conservation of fauna and flora in Madagascar, including Natural History of Madagascar (2003), Extinct Madagascar (2014) and most recently, a recent three volume set “Terrestrial Protected Areas of Madagascar” (2019). He has made critical contributions to education and capacity building for conservation biology in Madagascar. He is the founder of the Association Vahatra, a grassroots organization that promotes conservation of native fauna in Madagascar, while training the next generation of biologists and conservation scientists. For these activities, he has been recognized by many awards, including Conservation Leadership Award of WWF (2004), MacArthur Foundation Fellow (2005) and Leopold Prize of the American Society of Mammalogy (2018). He served as a key member of the Scientific Committee of ATBC Annual Meeting in 2019, gave a keynote presentation and was instrumental in securing funding to support the participation of Malagasy students (Figure 2).

Improving corporate governance with functional diversity on FTSE 350 boards: directors’ perspective

PurposeBoards presently are considered the most critical component in improving corporate governance (CG). Board diversity is increasingly being recommended as a tool for enhancing firm performance. Academic research and regulatory action regarding board diversity are focussed mainly on gender and ethnic composition of boards. However, the perspective of board members on board diversity and its impact is mostly missing. Moreover, while strategic leadership perspective suggests that a broader set of upper echelon’s characteristics may shape their actions, empirical evidence investigating the impact of less-explored attributes of diversity is almost non-existent. While the research on the input–output relationship between board diversity and firm performance remains equivocal, an intervening relationship between board diversity and board effectiveness needs to be understood. The purpose of this paper is to address all three limitations and explore the subject from board members’ perspective.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents the findings of qualitative, exploratory research conducted by interviewing 42 board members of FTSE 350 companies. The data are analysed thematically.FindingsThe findings of the research suggest that board members of FTSE 350 companies consider the diversity of functional experience to be a critical requirement for boards’ role-effectiveness. Functionally diverse boards manage external dependencies more effectively and challenge assumptions of the executive more efficiently, thus improving CG. The findings significantly contribute to the literature on board diversity, as well as to strategic leadership theory and other applicable theories. The research is conducted with a relatively small but elite and difficult to approach set of 42 board members of FTSE 350 companies.Practical implicationsThe paper makes a unique and significant contribution to praxis by presenting the perspective of practitioners of CG – board members. The findings may encourage board nomination committees to seek board diversity beyond the gender and ethnic characteristics of directors. The findings may also be relevant for policy formulation, as they indicate that functionally diverse boards have improved effectiveness in a range of board roles.Social implicationsBoard diversity is about building a board that accurately reflects the make-up of the population and stakeholders of the society where the company operates. The aim of board diversity is to cultivate a broad range of attributes and perspectives that reflects real-world demographics as boards need to continue to earn their “licence to operate in society” as organisations have a responsibility to multiple constituents and stakeholders, including the community and the wider society within which they exist. Building social capital through diversity has value in the wider context of modern society and achieving social justice.Originality/valueThe paper makes an original and unique contribution to strategic leadership theory by strengthening the argument of the theory. The paper explores beyond widely researched attributes of gender and ethnicity on boards and explores the impact of a less-researched characteristic of directors – their functional experience. Moreover, the paper opens the “black box” of CG – boards, and presents the perspectives of board members. The findings indicate that board members in FTSE 350 boards define diversity more broadly than academics and regulatory agencies often do.

The effect of corporate governance on company value (Empirical study of LQ 45 companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange period 2015-2017)

This research aims to examine the effect of corporate governance on company value of LQ 45 companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). The corporate governance mechanism consists of institutional ownership, proportion of independent commissioner, managerial ownership, independent audit committee, remuneration and nomination committee, board of directors, and board of commissioners, while firm value is proxied by Tobin’s Q. This research used 106 companies as a sample taken from a population of 135 companies in LQ 45 listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) period 2015-2017. The data were analyzed using a multiple linier regression analysis with SPSS program. The result shows that corporate governance mechanisms which are proxied by institutional ownership, proportion of independent commissioners, board of directors, and board of commissioners have an effect on firm value, while the corporate governance which are proxied by managerial ownership, independent audit committee, and remuneration and nomination committee have no effect on firm value.

Hierarchies of criteria in NSO board-nomination processes: insights from nomination committees’ work

ABSTRACT Research question: The purpose of this paper is to create knowledge on board-selection processes and their outcomes in terms of board composition. We address two research questions: (1) What evaluative criteria are at play in board-selection processes; and (2) what hierarchies of criteria are formed when evaluative criteria are ranked? The significance of the study lies in contemporary considerations of good governance, in sport members’ (un)equal access to positions of power, and in how issues of representation relate to the legitimacy of sport governance systems and to broader societal patterns of representation, influence, and democracy. Research methods: Nomination committees are increasingly used worldwide to further good governance in sport organizations. Our analysis builds on interviews with representatives of 61 out of 71 Swedish national sport organizations’ nomination committees. Results and Findings: Our study shows that trade-offs are made not between gender and merit, as previously suggested, but between and among a wide variety of representation criteria and a wide variety of efficiency criteria. We show how tensions between criteria result in trade-offs that imply a ranking of criteria into seven types of hierarchies, only one of which prioritizes a representation-based board composition. Implications: Because rankings of multiple evaluative criteria impact any single criterion of interest (e.g. gender), future studies should take into account the range of evaluative criteria at play. For sport management and policy practitioners alike, we provide a tool to understand and address (in)adequate representation but also an imperative to consider the meaning of adequate representation.

Does corporate governance affect dividend policy in India? Firm-level evidence from new indices

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the nexus between corporate governance and dividend policy of listed Indian firms. Design/methodology/approach Using new corporate governance stipulations, five new indices were constructed, namely, overall board governance index, board structure index, audit committee index, compensation committee index and nomination committee index. Using the newly developed indices, disclosure index and different firm-specific control variables, different panel Logit and Tobit regression models were estimated for 482 non-financial and non-utility listed firms during 2006–2017. Also, before the econometric analysis, mean difference test was conducted to examine the differences in dividend behaviour and corporate governance practices during pre- and post-Companies Act, 2013 and between payers and non-payers. Findings The overall evidence suggests that the firms having stronger corporate governance tend to pay higher dividends suggesting that the firm’s propensity to pay dividends increases with the improvement in corporate governance standards. Among the corporate governance indices board structure, audit committee and disclosure norms show a significant and positive relationship, whereas compensation committee and nomination committee show a positive but insignificant relationship with dividend policy. Control variables mostly had the expected impact on the dividends of the firms. Practical implications This study suggests that the establishment of the strong and effective corporate governance system is desirable to mitigate the agency conflicts between managers and shareholders and limit managers’ opportunistic behaviour in dividend payout policy. Originality/value This study is one of the latest studies to use several newly constructed indices on corporate governance mechanism based on new stipulations which bring new evidence on their specific impact on the dividend policy for an emerging market economy like India.