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We examine the influence of ownership structure on a blockholder’s power in a firm. We first describe the presence and ownership stakes of blockholders in a comprehensive sample of US firms. We develop a measure of the influence of the ownership structure on a blockholder’s power and show that an average blockholder loses 12% of her potential power due to the presence and size of the ownership stakes of other blockholders. Further, the influence of ownership structure varies systematically with a blockholder’s rank and identity, with the second and nonfamily manager blockholders experiencing the largest loss of power.

This chapter contrasts the effects of main bank–firm ties on the performance of firms in the changing economic environment of the Japanese financial system. The dual stake of the main bank as stockholder and creditor has a positive effect on stock returns in the growth period, but a negative effect in the contraction period. The empirical results suggest that the current problems in the Japanese economy can be traced back to the failure of corporate governance that cast dark clouds on the Japanese economy after the bursting of the economy in 1990.

Sustainable development and the enhancement of justice and security globally are predicated on the existence of sufficient and appropriately deployed assets. Mindful of this, and of the misuse of both public and private wealth, UN Sustainable Development Goal 16.4 (SDG 16.4) seeks to ‘…significantly reduce illicit financial … flows’. This chapter critiques how this aim of SDG 16.4 has been operationalised. We argue that the choice and placement of the term ‘illicit’ is crucial: it can relate to the finances, the flows, or both, as well as to the people involved, as facilitators or protagonists, and is expansive enough to encompass criminal, unlawful and ostensibly legal but illegitimate or harmful assets, acts and actors. Moreover, this chapter explores why the movement of assets is significant, within and between jurisdictions, and how these transfers and transactions impact on sustainable development and can worsen inequalities. Our attention is on the conceptualisation, measurement and operationalisation of illicit financial flows (IFFs) in particular and the corresponding implications for available policy responses in the form of situational interventions as a more plausible route to understanding and reducing IFFs in the context of promoting SDG 16.4.

This paper looks at the research to date on the future of broadly granted stock options (options granted to at least half the full-time employees of a company). In the U.S., granting options broadly became popular in the late 1990s, but has lost some of its appeal in the wake of stock market declines, accounting changes, and increased shareholder concerns about dilution. The data indicate a significant minority of companies will change their plans, but a substantial majority will keep them. The data also indicate changes in accounting rules will not affect stock prices and that broadly granted options are better for corporate performance than narrowly granted options.

The global economy has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has placed greater responsibility on companies to fulfill their obligations to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) amid the crisis. This chapter investigates the role of a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) attributes in improving a firm's CSR in the emerging economy of Jordan and how the COVID-19 pandemic modifies this relationship. Using a Jordanian sample of 655 firm-year observations during the 2014–2021 period, the research results show that older CEOs, well-educated CEOs, CEOs' remuneration, and CEOs' ownership positively correlate with CSR reporting. However, long-tenured CEOs are associated with lower CSR initiatives. The subsample analysis findings also validate the significance of CEO attributes in improving CSR practice during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the prepandemic period. These findings are beneficial for the regulatory setters to understand better whether CEO attributes are linked to engagement in CSR-related information. This research is among the limited number of studies that have explored how CEO attributes impact CSR reporting for the stakeholder's welfare. Moreover, it uniquely concentrated on contrasting the findings before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Concentrated ownership implies greater alignment between ownership and control, mitigating the agency problem. However, it may also engender governance challenges such as funds appropriation through related party transactions and the oppression of minority shareholders, especially in the context of weak legal systems. We draw from legal theory (the tradeoff controlling shareholder model and private benefits of control) and from organization theory (socioemotional wealth), to suggest that concentrated ownership can be beneficial in both robust and weak legal systems for different reasons. We advance theory on the effects of controlling shareholders and suggest that the longer-term outlook associated with engaged concentrated ownership can aid the shift of the corporation toward Berle and Means' (1932, p. 355) “third possibility” of corporations serving the interests of not just the stockholders or management but also of society.

This chapter aims to answer whether foreign multinational corporations (MNCs) operating within the Chinese context differ from indigenous firms on several essential labor standards indicators: white- and blue-collar salaries, pension insurance, and working hours. In drawing upon neo-institutional and organizational imprinting theories and applying these to the Chinese context, the study addresses competing arguments regarding the expected effects of ownership type on these indicators. We employ seemingly unrelated regressions (SURs) to empirically examine a novel national survey of 1,268 firms in 12 Chinese cities. The regression results show that foreign MNCs do not provide uniquely beneficial labor practice packages to workers when compared with various indigenous firm types, including state-owned enterprises (SOEs), affiliate businesses of Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, and domestic private enterprises (DPEs). Specifically, although MNCs provide relatively higher wage rates, they underperform relative to SOEs concerning social insurance. However, DPEs consistently underperform relative to MNCs across most indicators. The mixture of the results contributes important nuances to the application of neo-institutional and organizational imprinting theories to the Chinese context.