Regular Board Research Articles

Corporate governance and corporate carbon disclosures: The moderating role of earnings management

AbstractThis research aims to explore the relationship between corporate governance (CG) and carbon disclosure (CD) and the moderating role of earnings management (EM) in this relationship. The model was built based on legitimacy theory, upper echelons theory, and agency theory. We employed a two‐step generalized method of moments (GMM) regression and conducted robust tests to reaffirm the results using panel data from 134 listed companies in the Vietnamese stock market from 2015 to 2022. Our findings indicate that larger board sizes, boards with more independent members or the presence of a CEO who concurrently serves as the chairman of the board can potentially decrease the likelihood of CD, while companies with a higher proportion of female board members or regular board meetings may tend to publish more carbon information. Furthermore, EM can moderate the relationship between CG and CD, and this variable exhibits high reliability in the model. This research adds to the vast body of existing knowledge about the effectiveness of CG by investigating how different dimensions of CG affect corporate CDs in Vietnam, especially, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first research attempting to provide the empirical result of the moderating role of EM in the relationship between CG and corporate CDs.

Start of the year marks a good time to revisit expense reimbursements

Now that most—if not all—nonprofit boards are back to holding their regular board meetings in person, it's a good idea for them to refresh their policies regarding expense reimbursement.

Proper location, timing can help ensure successful board retreats

Often, nonprofits will use the start of a new year as an opportunity to have a board retreat that brings their senior staff and boards together to focus attention on specific long‐term tasks and issues facing the organization. Whether it's strategic planning, succession planning or bringing on new board members to fill the roles of those whose terms have expired, board retreats can be useful is a variety of ways by removing many of the usual distractions that are present at regular board meetings—and by carving out time away from the many other obligations that board members have on their plates throughout the year.

Impact of Outside Blockholders Over Link between Independent Directors and the Normal and Abnormal Related Party Transactions

This study examines the effect of independent directors on related sales and related purchases using the normal and abnormal values from 2003 to 2022 of the total sample of 13,789 firms representing 89% of the total Taiwanese listed firms. As a second tier of independent external mechanisms, impact of outside blockholders, on the association between independent directors and related party transactions is examined. This study hypothesizes that the level of related party transactions varies with independent directors. Further, the connection between related party transactions and independent directors varies with the impact of outside blockholders. This study finds that a greater number of independent directors is significantly linked with lesser levels of normal related sales, lower levels of normal related purchases, and higher levels of abnormal related purchases. Thus, the hypotheses are confirmed. This study also finds that the extent of impact of outside blockholders supports a lower level of normal related purchases but higher abnormal related purchases, thus, the hypotheses are supported. Implications include that firms should strengthen their monitoring mechanisms to oversee both normal and abnormal related transactions, emphasizing the importance of regular board reviews. Additionally, the influence of outside blockholders on purchasing decisions underscores the need for companies to engage with these stakeholders to align strategies with shareholder interests.

Board retreats help with strategic planning, succession planning and more

At the beginning of a new year, many nonprofits take the opportunity to host board retreats that aim to bolster relationships among board members, who often don't have much interaction with each other outside of the regular board meetings. Nurturing closer relationships through team‐building is a goal in and of itself, experts say, but there are many other reasons to hold board retreats that serve even greater purposes.

Focus meetings around key discussions to keep boards engaged

Keeping your board present and engaged during regular board meetings can be a challenge for many nonprofits. Board members are often quite busy and have many other things competing for their time. If your board meetings don't adequately capture and sustain their interest, their thoughts and attention can turn elsewhere, which means your nonprofit is missing out on a valuable resource, according to Amy Eisenstein, a fundraising consultant, CEO and co‐founder of the Capital Campaign Toolkit.

Are Board Member’s Strategic Orientations Associated with Customer Focus? Empirical Evidence from Insurance Companies in Uganda

This paper investigates the potential association between the strategic orientations of board members and customer focus within Ugandan Insurance firms. The evaluated strategic orientations encompass analysis, proactiveness, futurity, defensiveness, riskiness, and aggressiveness. Using a descriptive cross-sectional survey design, the research was conducted among a population of 131 insurance companies licensed in Uganda for 2023. The study’s effective sample revealed a 74.7% response rate. The study findings reveal that board members’ strategic orientations are positively and statistically significantly associated with customer focus. The findings further reveal that the most important board member strategic orientations in the insurance sector in Uganda are analysis, defensiveness, and futurity with a customer focus. The study findings further reveal that futurity is negatively and statistically significant with a customer focus. The study concludes that board member strategic orientations are strongly associated with customer focus in the insurance companies in Uganda. The study recommends that top management enhance strategic orientation awareness among board members, align with customer-focused goals, select board members with diverse orientations, and conduct regular board member evaluations.

The Impact of Board Characteristics on the Financial Performance of Savings and Credit Co-operative Societies in Arusha and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

This paper examines the impact of board characteristics—such as size, gender diversity, skills, and meeting frequency—on the financial performance of SACCOSs in Tanzania. The study focused on three financial performance indicators: net loan income, operating efficiency ratio, and deposit-to-asset ratio. Descriptive statistics and linear regression models were used to analyse panel data collected from financial reports of 198 SACCOSs for five years (2014–2018). The results show a positive and significant relationship between financially-skilled board member(s) and the depositto-asset ratio; conversely, they were negatively associated with the operating efficiency ratio. The results further show that board meetings are positively and significantly related to net loan income, whereas board size is positively associated with the operating efficiency ratio. Moreover, the paper found no evidence of a relationship between women’s board members and financial performance. Impliedly, having financially-skilled directors on a board and regular board meetings facilitated financial performance in a SACCOS. Thus, the paper calls for board members to have financial skills, and boards to conduct regular meetings for constructive advice and effective monitoring to boost financial performance. JEL Classification: G2, G20, G3, G30, G39, M49

Draw on ex officio board members for expertise, guidance

For some nonprofits, their location mission or programming results in a limited number of people who are willing to serve as volunteer board members. But they can still get input and valuable advice and guidance from knowledgeable members of the community through the use of ex officio board members—individuals who provide some of the expertise and services that regular board members do but aren't necessarily held to the same requirements and time commitments.

Help board cultivate relationships with ‘Jefferson dinners’

For many nonprofits, there's a significant amount of time between regular board meetings. Weeks, if not months, can pass, during which the personal bonds and connections between board members can fade if there is no other form of communication or organizational responsibilities bringing them together.

Joint board management meetings and earnings management

PurposeJoint board management meetings bring boards of directors and top management teams together to share information and discuss company matters. The authors investigate whether these joint meetings are associated with higher agency costs or information sharing benefits in the context of firm earnings management.Design/methodology/approachUsing publicly disclosed data on the frequency of joint board management meetings in Indonesian firms, the authors examine the relationship between joint board management meetings and earnings management during 2010–2017.FindingsThe authors find that more joint board management meetings are associated with lower earnings management. This is consistent with joint board management meetings providing net information sharing benefits. Additional testing indicates that the results are the strongest when firms hold more joint board management meetings than regular board meetings.Originality/valueThe findings suggest that in addition to holding regular board and audit committee meetings, formal meetings between boards of directors and top management teams are beneficial to shareholders by restricting opportunistic accounting choices by firm management.

Influence of Board Attributes on Board Roles Performance in Savings and Credit Co-operative Societies (SACCOS) in Tanzania

This paper reports the findings of a study that had evaluated the influence of board attributes size, gender diversity, skills and meetings on board’s role performance in terms of strategic, resource provision and monitoring roles in SACCOS, Tanzania. Data on the boards’ roles were collected using a questionnaire survey administered to 198 SACCOS boards’ chairpersons. Data for board’s attributes were obtained from annual audited financial reports. Data were then subjected to factor analysis and linear regression models. The results show that board meetings have a positive and significant influence on the boards’ ability to perform strategic, resource provision and monitoring roles. The study further shows that board financial skills have positive and significant effect on strategic and monitoring roles. Impliedly, having a financial skill director on board parallel with board meetings help to stimulate active participation of board members in executing their roles. No evidence, however, was found on the effect of board size and board gender diversity on the board roles’ performance. Thus, the study suggests that financial skills of members needs high prioritization in the election of board members to boost efficiency in performing their board roles. Also, regular board meetings for worthy strategies settings, advice and effective monitoring of the SACCOS.

Try the STARS approach to drafting board agenda

There are many small tasks that nonprofit leadership and staff must accomplish if they want regular board meetings to go off without a hitch. The common refrain among experts is that proper preparation is key—that the benefits of an efficient and effective board meeting far outweigh the time and resources that go into planning it.

Design junior board programs with motivations of younger supporters in mind

Surveys consistently show that nonprofits face challenges when it comes to establishing leadership pipelines within their organizations that help cultivate young people to take on more substantial roles as they grow in experience and engagement with the group. To address this, many charities are turning to junior boards—also known as associate boards or young professionals committees, among other terms—to help identify and bring onboard younger volunteers who show promise and interest in the organization's mission. The hope is that these individuals will go on and serve as regular board members and even part of executive leadership in time.

Onco-Fertility Tumor Board is Vitally Important for Addressing Fertility Issues in Cancer Patients

Some cancers and some cancer treatments can lead to temporary or permanent infertility. Infertility is a special issue which need to be considered and addressed in cancer patients who may face this issue due to their malignancy itself or due to the treatment offered to them. Our team had reviewed contemporary literature and came to the opinion that it is vitally important to establish a specialized board of experts who can have regular board meetings in which all selected cases of cancer patients are discussed who can potentially suffer from some form of temporary or permanent infertility. The relationship between infertility and cancer is being documented in various studies and systemic reviews published lately [1, 2]. Counselling of patients and their next of kin is also an important aspect of this proposed multi-disciplinary team (MDT) Board .Before making any consideration regarding the relevance of the issue of infertility in selected cases of cancer the multidisciplinary team has to develop robust processes in order to make sure that we will not be missing this important problem which our cancer patients may face at the time of diagnosis, treatment or later on as a late sequela of oncological treatment. Practice committee on onco-fertility consortium made clear recommendations highlighting the importance of expert team involvement. The proposals are being published in January 2021 issue of Journal of assisted reproduction [3]. This document provides a valuable insight regarding the establishment healthcare quality processes and their practical implications.

Outside Directors’ Insider Trading Around Board Meetings

Using a novel dataset containing U.S. companies’ regular board meeting schedules, we find evidence of informed trading by outside directors prior to board meetings. In the days prior to board meetings, when outside directors possess private information, they make purchases that yield higher abnormal returns and are larger than those made during periods distant from board meetings. We find no such pattern for inside directors who possess private information regardless of the timing of board meetings. Moreover, we find that these patterns are especially exhibited by trades made by more sophisticated directors, trades made prior to board meetings that result in news disclosures, and nonroutine trades. Our results suggest that outside directors trade based on information they obtain in preparation for board meetings.

Electromechanical rolling whiteboard for improving posture and comfort of users in classrooms.

The prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders is high among teachers. Poor posture when writing on whiteboards is considered among the important causes of these disorders. The present study aimed to evaluate an electromechanical rolling whiteboard for educational environments as an ergonomic intervention. Thirty university lecturers volunteered to take part in the study. Participants performed a 5-minute writing task on a regular board and on the newly modified whiteboard in random order. The comfort and effectiveness of the boards and the perceived physical effort and posture of the participants were evaluated and compared by applying the verbal rating scale, Borg's rating of physical exertion scale, and rapid entire body assessment, respectively. A total of 83.2% of participants reported the new whiteboard to be comfortable or more comfortable to use than the regular whiteboard, and 76.6% of them found the new whiteboard to be higher or much higher in effectiveness and usefulness in comparison with the regular whiteboard. The comfort and posture ratings revealed that exertion was significantly less and posture improved while writing on the new board as compared to its counterpart (p < 0.0001). The new whiteboard increased user comfort, reduced physical effort, and improved posture, hopefully leading to a decreased number of work-related musculoskeletal disorders.

Análise de dados estatísticos para tomadas de decisão em conselhos de classe

Este trabalho propõe uma metodologia para ser utilizada nos conselhos de classe como forma de orientar a tomada de decisão sobre reprovações de alunos que não alcançaram a pontuação mínima para aprovação em determinada disciplina. Foi realizado um levantamento e análise da base de informações das disciplinas do curso Técnico em Mineração do Instituto Federal de Minas Gerais Campus Congonhas na modalidade subsequente entre os anos de 2015 a 2019 para calcular estatísticas das notas dos alunos. A partir da análise dos dados, é proposto um mapeamento contendo hipóteses sobre o nível de aprendizado dos alunos. Assim tende-se a estabelecer uma tomada de decisão do conselho mais coerente e regular ao longo dos anos na perspectiva de um processo de avaliação a serviço da aprendizagem.

Corporate Governance and Market Performance of Non-financial Firms in Nigeria

board independence, board gender diversity and board meetings on the market performance of Nigerian quoted non-financial firms from 2010 to 2019. The used ex post facto research design and the sample included eighteen (18) quoted non-financial firms. The data analysis was carried out with the aid of Generalised Method of Moment (GMM) via E-view software. The results showed that board independence and board meetings exhibited a significant effect on market performance while board size and board gender diversity displayed an insignificant effect on market performance. Therefore, it was recommended that the non-executive directors should be selected based on their experience and business knowledge expertise while regular board meetings should also be held by the board.

Bank governance and crisis-period efficiency: A multinational study on Islamic and conventional banks

This study examines the effect of Islamic banks' dual board governance mechanisms (Shariah supervisory board and regular board of directors) on technical efficiency; and whether the effect of such governance mechanisms varies between normal times and global financial crisis period. The results show that Shariah supervisory board contributes to reducing an Islamic bank's technical inefficiency. During the GFC, both SSB governance and regular board governance generate an incremental efficiency gain to Islamic banks, but the effect is more pronounced for SSB governance. The key findings on the governance-inefficiency relationship are robust to controlling for potential endogeneity of corporate governance.