Small Board Research Articles

Reassess needs, best board size as new year begins

With the start of the new year, some nonprofits take the opportunity to review their needs and decide if they should revise the size of their board. Experts say that there is no “ideal” board size. But traditionally, newer, smaller nonprofits tend to have smaller boards and larger, more established organizations tend to have larger ones. But that's not always the case and in fact, both new and established groups can see benefits or disadvantages from having too many—or too few—board members.

Investigation on the Impact of the Development of Digital Economy on the Innovation Efficiency of Chinese Small and Medium-sized Board Listed Enterprises

Investigation on the Impact of the Development of Digital Economy on the Innovation Efficiency of Chinese Small and Medium-sized Board Listed Enterprises

Bibliometric review of research on corporate governance and firm value

This study aims to provide a bibliometric review (Zupic & Čater, 2015; Hallinger, 2019) of the corporate governance and firm value knowledge base. This paper is guided by PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) and based on the Scopus index for determining and extracting data. A total of 1,661 articles from 1983 to 2021 are included. The USA, the UK, and Australia are the leaders in the literature. A significant gap exists for further research from developing and non-Western settings. We identified authors with the highest citations (Danny Miller, Luc Renneboog, and Kose John), the most prominent authors based on the citation for each document (Danny Miller, Luc Renneboog, and Igor Filatotchev), and the most highly cited documents (“Higher market valuation of companies with a small board of directors”, Yermack, 1996; “Disentangling the incentive and entrenchment effects of large shareholdings”, Claessens et al., 2002, and “Boards: Does one size fit all?”, Coles et al., 2008). Besides, the review reveals an intellectual structure of the corporate governance and firm value knowledge base in three schools of thought: agency theory, firm value, and boards of directors. Our findings provide an overview of top-influential research for new scholars and enable us to identify highly cited theoretical foundations quickly.

Студенческий кампус как конкурентное преимущество частного практико-ориентированного вуза

The subject area of the article is the improvement of the competitive position of a private Russian university focused on training, including professional entrepreneurs, due to the presence of its own suburban campus. The article suggests a variant of its creation that is accessible to any large and market-successful non-state university. Unlike the most famous foreign universities that are in the top 100 [1] and have built their campuses at the expense of their own high incomes, or from Russian federal universities funded from the budget, even the largest domestic private universities do not have the resources to build full-fledged campuses according to existing standards. Therefore, at the first stage, it is advisable for them to focus on the purchase of small country boarding houses from among the departmental rest houses built in Soviet times. The requirements for the organization of the work of such a campus are formulated, including work and rest modes for both students and university teachers. The final part of the article clarifies the educational technologies that are most adapted for the considered variant of the organization of training. The purpose of the article is to argue the expediency of creating suburban campuses as a necessary element of the infrastructure of a large private university practicing entrepreneurship training. To achieve this goal, the following tasks are solved in the study: to formulate and briefly argue the main competitive advantages that the presence of a suburban student campus provides to a modern university, regardless of its organizational and legal status; to propose and justify a low-budget option for creating a suburban campus, available not only to state federal universities using budget allocations for this, but also to private institutions of higher professional education; to formulate the basic requirements for the organization of the campus, as well as for the work and rest regimes of direct participants in the educational process.

Corporate governance and capital structure: dynamic panel threshold analysis

ABSTRACT This paper examines the nonlinear connection between corporate governance (CG) and corporate leverage. Our study applied the dynamic panel threshold model (DPTM) to facilitate the capture of the nonlinear effect of CG on a firm’s leverage for Japanese listed companies. Additionally, our study sought to demonstrate the linkage between CG and the speed of adjustment (SOA), particularly following the reforms in Japan’s CG system, to reach a targeted level of leverage. The empirical findings confirm the presence of the threshold influence of managerial ownership and board size, thus confirming their nonlinear impact on capital structure. Moreover, at a low level of managerial ownership, the SOA for firms to achieve the optimal level of leverage is faster than it is for firms with a high level of managerial ownership (MO), while firms with a larger board achieve their targeted level of leverage quicker than firms with a smaller board. Our findings indicate that recent reforms in Japan’s CG system seem to have been inefficient, with no positive effect on corporate leverage.

Heat flux enhancement by regular surface protrusion in partitioned thermal convection

We investigate the influence of the regular roughness of heated and cooled plates and adiabatic partition boards on the mean heat transport in a square Rayleigh–Bénard (RB) convection enclosure by two-dimensional direct numerical simulations. The roughness is in the form of isothermal protrusions with a rectangular base and triangular tip. The protrusion height varies from 10% to 25% of enclosure height. With increased protrusion height, the large-scale circulation cannot wash out the cavity between two consecutive protrusions. Thus, the overall heat transport of the enclosure impedes. We have inserted the partition boards between two successive protrusions with a gap between the conduction plate and the partition board to wash out the cavity. The partition board height varies from 20% to 99.8% of enclosure height. We have performed the simulations for the range of Rayleigh number 106–108 and at a fixed Prandtl number of 1. The tip of the triangular protrusion acts as an active plume-emitting spot. We observe a single large-scale elliptical roll with counter-rotating corner rolls for small partition board height. With an increase in partition board height, an elliptical large-scale roll breaks down into the number of large-scale rolls horizontally placed one beside the other. Finally, we observe multiple rolls stacked vertically when the partition boards almost touch the conduction walls. Heat flux enhancement strongly depends on large-scale flow structures. We found a maximum heat flux enhancement in protrusion with partitioned RB case approximately up to 4.7 times the classical square RB for an optimal gap between conduction plate and partition board. The maximum heat transport enhancement is due to the strong horizontal flow through the gap between the conduction plate and partition board, which locally reduces the thermal boundary layer's thickness. The interaction between the horizontal jets and the thermal boundary layers enhances heat transport.

Integrative Conservation: A new journal from the conservation frontline

<i>Integrative Conservation</i>: A new journal from the conservation frontline

Fitting the name or unworthy of the name?-Does the name of family firm major shareholder influence family's egoistic behavior?

It has been generally believed that the major shareholders of family firms are more willing to implement egoistic behaviors aimed at benefiting the family. This study analyses whether the major shareholder of the family firm whose name contains "Confucian symbols" such as benevolence, righteousness, loyalty, and kindness will reduce family self-interested behaviors as his name indicates. Using a sample consisting of all 425 family firms listed on Small and Medium Enterprise Board and Growth Enterprise Board, the result shows that the major shareholder whose name contains Confucian symbols is less likely to misappropriate corporate assets and less likely to make "family-first" personnel arrangements, meanwhile is more open to external supervision. Further mechanism testing reveals that the major shareholder whose name contains Confucian symbols also tends to choose corporate culture that reflects Confucianism. The study confirms that the name of the major shareholder is one of the factors which can affect the operation of the family business, demonstrates that different family firms have different attitudes towards family self-interest, and promotes the extant research from the "differences between family and non-family firms" level further to the "differences among family firms running by different families" level.

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE OF KENYA FOREST SERVICE IN NAIROBI CITY COUNTY

Purpose: The objective was to determine the effect of corporate governance and organizational performance of Kenya forest service in Nairobi City County&#x0D; Methodology: The survey adopted stratified sampling and employed questionnaires to collect data from a sample of 166 managerial level staff working at the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) Headquarters’ Office at Karura in Nairobi City County. Descriptive and inferential statistical models were employed to analyze, describe, and infer deduction and conclusion from the research findings. Correlation matrix and regressions models were employed to analyze data collected, and describe the research findings in reference to the variables under examination.&#x0D; Findings: The study findings showed that board composition, board independence, board size and board audit committee have an advantageous and significant influence on the iperformance of an organization.&#x0D; Unique contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: The study recommends that, qthe qKFS qmanagement should qensure more qboard members are qappointed externally to enhance board efficiency and organization iperformance. Additionally, KFS management should increase the number of board members with non-executive status to increase board independence within the organization. The survey findings established that, small boards are preferable to large boards in influencing organization iperformance positively. The study recommends that, sKFS management should design an effective system to identify its ideal board size to promote iperformance.

The Impact of Financial Risk Management System under Big Data on the Performance of Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

In the past five years, financial risk events have occurred frequently, and the traditional financial risk management system has been unable to resolve the risks in the current network economy era in a timely manner. Big data technology is a research hotspot in recent years. This paper selects the data of my country's small and medium-sized board listed companies on June 31, 2022, and constructs a financial risk management system that combines financial indicators and non-financial indicators from the perspectives of financial risk early warning mechanism, big data theory and decision tree analysis. The empirical results show that big data technology promotes the construction of financial risk management system, and the improvement of financial risk management system is significantly positively related to the performance of small and medium-sized enterprises.

CSR Disclosures, CSR Awards and Corporate Governance as Determinants of the Cost of Debt: Evidence from Malaysia

The current study examines the relationship between corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures, media announcements of CSR awards and a firm’s cost of debt in Malaysia. The sample consists of 104 Malaysian publicly listed companies belonging to the Edge Billion Ringgit Club between 2009 to 2015. The study uses panel data regression analysis and the ordinary least squares estimation method. The results find that the interaction between CSR disclosures and winning awards for a company’s CSR initiatives and practices lowers the cost of debt. Our study concludes that, when a company discloses more information on its CSR initiatives and practices, it reduces the cost of debt. Thus, we argue that CSR disclosures and awards can act as proxies for branding listed firms, making them more marketable and allowing them to negotiate better debt contracts. However, the study shows that politically connected companies have a higher debt cost than non-politically connected firms. Furthermore, our results indicate that smaller boards are effective, but audit committees are not effective in monitoring the board of directors in Malaysian listed firms.

Options trading and earnings management: Evidence from the penny pilot program

Using a difference-in-differences approach that relies on the exogenous increase in options trading activity generated by the Securities and Exchange Commission's Penny Pilot Program, we find a negative causal effect of options trading on earnings management. With a reduced magnitude of discretionary accruals, the pilot firms are less likely to marginally beat earnings targets and less likely to have financial misstatements during the pilot period. Cross-sectional analysis shows that the effects are more pronounced among firms with a small or less independent board or a small audit committee. Furthermore, the pilot firms receive more market attention, and their stock price efficiency improves more than the nonpilot firms during the pilot period. The evidence is consistent with the argument that active options trading enhances market scrutiny of firms' reporting behavior, improving financial reporting quality and price efficiency.

Can the technologically advanced policy achieve green innovation of small and medium-sized enterprises?—The case of China

The purpose of this study is to apply a multidimensional fixed-effects difference-in-differences (DID) model to empirically examine the impact, policy mechanism, and heterogeneity of Technologically Advanced Policy (TAP) on green innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) based on the data of China’s A-share listed companies from 2004 to 2021. The results show that TAP significantly improves the green innovation level of listed companies on the small and medium-sized board, and has a more significant role in promoting technologically advanced enterprises (TAEs). The results of the policy effect are still robust after the placebo test, changing the dependent variable, and controlling for the influence of the environmental inspection system, the emissions trading system (ETS), and the carbon emissions trading system (CETS). Furthermore, we find that the policy effect of TAP is better in state-owned SMEs and SMEs in the eastern, central, and western regions. In addition, further research shows that the green innovation effect of TAP is mainly realized through mechanisms such as government subsidies, tax reduction, credit financing, and market competition. Moreover, state-owned SMEs have obvious advantages in the three mechanisms of government subsidy, tax reduction, and market competition, while private SMEs only have significant advantages in credit financing mechanisms. Overall, our findings show that TAP has achieved policy effects in promoting green innovation for SMEs in China, but state-owned SMEs still receive significant policy preference. It is recommended that future policy reforms favor private SMEs.

On the design and manufacturing of miniaturized microstripline power splitters for driving multicoil transmit arrays with arbitrary ratios at 7T.

The purpose of the current study was to implement unequal microstrip power splitters for parallel transmission at 7 T that are optimized for size and loss and that can be configured for a wide range of power ratios. The splitters will enable the use of more transmit coils without a corresponding increase in the number of transmit channels or amplifiers to control specific absorption rate, shorten RF pulses, and shim inhomogeneous RF fields. Wilkinson unequal power splitters based on a novel microstrip network design were optimized to minimize their size under 8 cm in length and 9 cm in width, enabling them to be included in coil housing or cascaded in multiple stages. Splitters were designed and constructed for a wide range of output power ratios at 298 MHz. Simulations and bench tests were performed for each ratio, and a methodology was established to adapt the designs to other ratios and frequencies. The designs and code are open source and can be reproduced as is or reconfigured. The single-stage designs achieved good matches and isolations between output ports (worst isolation -15.9 dB, worst match -15.1 dB). A two-stage cascaded (one input to four outputs) power splitter with 1:2.5, 1:10, 1:3, and 1:6 ratio outputs was constructed. The worst isolation between output ports was -19.7 dB in simulation and the worst match of the three ports was -17.8 dB. The measured ratios for one- and two-stage boards were within 10% of the theoretical ratios. The power-handling capability of the smallest trace was approximately 70 W. Power loss for the one- and two-stage boards ranged from 1% to 3% in simulation compared with 5.1% to 7.2% on the bench. It was concluded that Wilkinson unequal microstrip power splitters can be implemented with a small board size (low height) and low loss, and across a wide range of output power ratios. The splitters can be cascaded in multiple stages while maintaining the expected ratios and low loss. This will enable the construction of large fixed transmit array-compression matrices with low loss.

Ownership Concentration, Control, and Capital Structure in Family and Non-Family Firms

The objective of this paper is to empirically examine the relationship between the firm’s ownership and control structure and its leverage. Capital structure is not only the result of various financial characteristics of the firm but also depends on who is in control. Thus, it is fundamental to understand the influence that certain features of the shareholding structure or the composition of the board, including the potential differences between family and non-family firms, exert on capital structure decisions. The paper uses a sample of wine firms in Portugal, because it helps to capture a business sector where family firms make up a significant portion of the industry. It is used an unbalanced panel data set of 460 firms for the period 2010 to 2018 and applied a random-effects model specification. Our results do not evidence significant differences between family and non-family firms. Still, they indicate that firms with fewer shareholders, smaller boards, and where the main director or member of the board is also a shareholder tend to present higher debt levels. There is no evidence of a non-monotonic relation between the ownership structure and debt, nor the presence of moderating effects on that relation. This paper fills a gap in the literature as the impact that specific characteristics of firms and their leaders have on capital structure decisions is still a topic less studied in the literature, particularly in bank-based economies.

Board characteristics and sustainability reporting: a case of listed firms in East Africa

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the influence of board characteristics on sustainability reporting among listed firms in East Africa.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a sample of 79 listed firms drawn from East African securities exchanges and data from 2011 to 2020. Sustainability reporting is measured using Global Reporting Initiative, and the data is analyzed by using three-panel data estimation models – fixed effect, random effect and the generalized method of moments.FindingsThe results reveal that board gender diversity, board financial expertise and board independence are positively and significantly associated with sustainability reporting. Conversely, board size has a negative and significant effect on sustainability reporting.Practical implicationsThe findings from the study provide valuable insights to firm owners and policymakers. The study highlights the importance of directors with financial knowledge, a high proportion of non-executive directors and women representation in board and smaller boards as a strategy that will help firms improve sustainability practices and reporting in East Africa.Social implicationsResults of this study underscore the effect of corporate governance (CG) dimensions on social responsibility activities, such as philanthropy, emission reduction and waste management initiatives as reported through sustainability responsibility.Originality/valueThis study adds to the growing literature on the relationship between CG attributes and sustainability reporting from a developing economy perspective. Specifically, the study examines how board gender diversity, size, independence and financial expertise affect sustainability reporting adoption.

Measuring the Energy and Performance of Scientific Workflows on Low-Power Clusters

Scientific problems can be formulated as workflows to allow them to take advantage of cluster computing resources. Generally, the assumption is that the greater the resources dedicated to completing these tasks the better. This assumption does not take into account the energy cost of performing the computation and the specific characteristics of each workflow. In this paper, we present a unique approach to evaluating the energy consumption of scientific workflows on compute clusters. Two workflows from different domains, Astronomy and Bioinformatics, are presented and their execution is analyzed on a cluster of low powered small board computers. The paper presents a theoretical analysis of an energy-aware execution of workflows that can reduce the energy consumption of workflows by up to 68% compared to normal execution. We demonstrate that there are limitations to the benefits of increasing cluster sizes and there are trade-offs when considering energy vs. performance of the workflows and that the performance and energy consumption of any scientific workflow is heavily dependent on its underlying structure. The study concludes that the energy consumption of workflows can be optimized to improve both aspects of the workflow and motivates the development of an energy-aware scheduler.

Study on the influence of COVID-19 on the growth of China's small and medium-sized construction enterprises.

The outbreak of COVID-19 at the beginning of 2020 had a significant impact on China’s economy, society, and citizens; it also had a negative impact on the development of the construction industry. In particular, small and medium-sized construction enterprises with low ability to withstand risk have been strongly impacted, aggravating a crisis of survival among these firms. The focus of this study is to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on the growth of small and medium-sized construction companies. Based on the characteristics of small and medium-sized construction enterprises, this paper establishes a growth evaluation index and builds a growth evaluation model based on factor analysis. Twenty-three construction enterprises listed on small and medium-sized enterprises board are selected as samples, and the quarterly data of 2019 and 2020 are used for empirical analysis. The results show that the epidemic has had a high short-term impact on construction enterprises, and the total output value of the construction industry in the first quarter of 2020 was 16% lower than that in the same period of last year. In the long run, the impact of the epidemic on the growth of small and medium-sized construction enterprises has been limited. In the first quarter of 2020, the growth score of enterprises decreased by only 1.95% year-over-year, and it was essentially flat in the second and third quarters. The epidemic has had little influence on solvency, tangible resources or intangible resources but a high short term influence on profitability, capital expansion and market expectations. The long-term impact is small; It is conducive to the improvement of enterprise operation ability. Finally, to both address the influence of the COVID-19 on small and medium-sized construction enterprises and to realize their transformation and upgrading, targeted suggestions are offered at the policy and enterprise levels. The results will help to understand the impact of the epidemic on the growth of construction enterprises, and provide decision support for the healthy and orderly development of the follow-up construction industry.

Generalized Graph Product and its Application on Generating Solutions of the Millennium n-Queens Problem

The generalized Kronecker graph product was introduced by Figueroa-Centeno et al. (2008). Later, Baca et al. (2018) used it for obtaining solutions of the n-queens problem on larger boards from solutions on smaller boards. In this paper, we generalize the graph product and the recent results by Baca et al. (2018), obtaining a larger class of solutions by knowing solutions on lower size boards in advance. We finalize the paper stating a couple of conjectures regarding conditions for obtaining composite solutions via graph product.

Research on Financing Efficiency of Small and Medium-Sized Logistics Enterprises New Third Board Market

In order to analyze the financing efficiency of small and medium-sized logistics enterprises in China, this paper is based on the financial data disclosed by 19 small and medium-sized logistics enterprises listed on the New Third Board, and uses the DEA-BCC model to analyze the financing efficiency from 2016 to 2020, it can be seen that: 1) the financing efficiency of small and medium-sized logistics enterprises in China has been on the rise, but it has not reached the ideal level; 2) the level of pure technical efficiency is higher than the scale efficiency; 3) the mold technology limits the improvement of financing efficiency; 4) From the perspective of different industries, The freight forwarding industry has the highest financing efficiency.