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The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the implications of board human capital heterogeneity for company innovation by focusing on the educational and the functional background of directors. Moreover, it examines the moderating effect of the CEO expertise-overlap within the innovation domain on the relationship between board human capital heterogeneity and firm innovation.

The hypotheses are tested through a set of ordinary least squares regressions on a unique dataset of 149 Italian high-tech companies observed between 2012 and 2015.

Findings show that the educational and the functional background heterogeneity of directors increase both the innovation input and output. However, results highlight that these relationships are negatively moderated by the CEO expertise-overlap within the innovation domain.

The paper emphasizes the importance of appointing directors with different and specific educational and functional backgrounds to foster the company innovation.

The paper fills a gap in the literature as it has devoted limited attention to the performance implications of board human capital heterogeneity in the high-tech industry where knowledge and skills are the primary sources of value. Moreover, the paper integrates the research on the CEO-board interface by shedding light on how the CEO expertise within the innovation domain affects the contribution of heterogeneous boards to company innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how a substantial organization gradually builds a management accounting system from scratch, changing its accounting routines by learning processes. The paper uses the experiential learning theory and the concept of learning style to investigate the learning process during management accounting change. The study aims to expand the domain of management accounting change theory to emphasize the learning-related aspects that can constitute it.

The paper provides an interpretation of management accounting change based on the model of problem management proposed by Kolb (1983) and the theory of experiential learning (Kolb, 1976, 1984). The study is based on a 14-year longitudinal case study (1994‐2007). The case examined can be considered a theory illustration case. Data were obtained from a broad variety of sources including interviews, document analysis and adopting an interventionist approach during the redesign of the costing system.

The paper contributes to two important aspects of management accounting change. First, it becomes apparent that the costing information change was not a discrete event but a process of experience and learning conducted through several iterations of trial-and-error loops that extended over the years. Second, the findings reveal that the learning process can alter management accounting system design in a radical or incremental way according to the learning style of the people involved in the process of change.

Because of the adopted research approach, results could be extended only to other organizations presenting similar characteristics. Several further areas of research are suggested by the findings of this paper. In particular, it would be of interest to investigate the links between learning styles and communication and its effect on management accounting change.

The paper includes implications for the management of learning during management accounting change, to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of this process.

This paper is one response to the call for an interdisciplinary research approach to the management accounting change phenomena using a “method theory” taken from the discipline of management to provide an explanation of the change in management accounting. In respect of the previous literature, it provides two main contributions, namely, the proposal of a model useful both to interpret and manage learning processes; the effect of learning style on management accounting routines change.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the business model and the strategic intent to adopt an open collaboration initiative influence the perceived quality of collaboration outcomes.

This paper presents a framework to analyze the role of the strategic dimension and the operational dimension in open collaboration initiatives through multiple case studies in three companies to understand how the open collaboration initiative was deployed and how was the level of the alignment between these two dimensions.

The studied cases revealed that when an open collaboration initiative starts in the strategic dimension and there is an alignment between the organizational dimension and operational dimension, the collaboration outcomes are clearer and more traceable.

The study highlights the need to consider the involvement and the internal alignment between strategic and operational dimensions when deploying an open collaboration activity if they want to achieve all the benefits.

The presented framework can help managers to evaluate and understand how open collaboration activities are deployed within the company.

The study shows that when an open collaboration initiative is planned, its results and benefits can be extended to local communities by developing them.

This study aims to analyze the open collaboration initiative’s contribution to the overall organizational performance through the alignment between the organizational dimension and operational dimension perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of independent non-executive directors (INEDs) in Malaysian public listed companies (PLCs), other than the control role prescribed by agency theory and reformatory documents such as the Malaysian Code of Corporate Governance.

A qualitative research design, consisting of face-to-face interviews with 27 company directors of Malaysian-owned PLCs, was instigated.

The interviews revealed that INEDs do more than just monitor their executive counterparts. Apart from the control role, INEDs of Malaysian companies provide a conduit for mitigating uncertainties in the environment and perform invaluable services to the host companies.

This research utilized interviews. Generalizations may be an issue when interviews are used as the method of inquiry. Also, the sample is not random as access to many of the interviewed directors depended on recommendations. In addition, respondents were consciously selected in order to obtain various board positions that include independent and non-independent directors.

There are limited studies using qualitative research design in investigating INEDs’ performing other roles apart from the control role of the board in developing countries. Many of previous studies and literature in this area of corporate governance were predominantly based upon experiences of western economies.

In order to deepen our knowledge of governance of family firms, the purpose of this paper is to focus our attention on the relation between family owners who are members of the board of directors and firm performance. Also, this study sheds more light on how the generation in charge of the family firm affects that relationship, as generational involvement may be a unique predictor of governance behavior in these firms.

The authors applied a cross-sectional ordinary least squares regression model to test the hypotheses on a sample of 313 non-listed Spanish family SMEs. The authors suggest the possibility of a non-linear relationship between the percentage of ownership by family members of the board of directors and firm performance, and specifically, the authors propose an S-shaped effect that implies two breakpoints.

The authors find not only that an inverted U-shaped relationship exists, but also an S-shaped relationship between family board members’ ownership and firm performance in family SMEs. Nevertheless, the results are different in comparing first-, second- and later-generation family firms.

This is one of the few empirical studies that examine the relationship between family board ownership and firm performance in the context of non-listed family SMEs. The authors consider that the influences of family directors on the board of directors as well as the concentration of family ownership on the board of directors are worth studying in non-listed family SMEs. Moreover, previous studies have focused mainly on large listed family firms but not on unlisted ones.

This paper aims to demonstrate gender diversity in the structure of corporate governance and test the effect of diversity on the firm performance suffering from financial distress.

The paper is quantitative using a sample of 467 public firms in Indonesia. Data were analyzed into statistics descriptive and the hypothesis was tested using the test of logistic regression.

The preliminary results of the paper demonstrate the number of firms employing women and men in the structure of corporate governance of 13% on the commissioner board, 7% on the director board and 5% on the audit committee. Based on the test of effect, this paper further found that firms employing women and men (gender diversity) in the structure of the board of commissioners, tend to suffer from financial distress lower than firms only employing men (non-gender diversity).

This paper is not an effort to make the proportion of voices of women equal to men, however the representation of women at least exists in the structure of corporate governance as part of workforce diversity and inclusivity. In addition, this paper is considered not to use panel data with the purpose of avoiding repetitive data because of the use of a nominal scale in the logistic regression model.

The finding of the paper is addressed to deliver insights into the current conversation on the issue of women's day with the theme of Each for Equal and to firms in positioning women in the structure of boardrooms.

This paper extends the limited scholarly work on the nexus between gender diversity and financial performance. The framework of social identity theory and the tenet of corporate governance are elaborated to disclose the finding that firm shareholders tend to benefit from gender diversity in the structure of the commissioner board.

The purpose of this paper is to verify the relations of the board of directors with the code of business ethics (CBE) of Brazilian publicly traded companies.

As for the methodology, data were collected from companies that traded shares in Brasil, Bolsa e Balcão (B3) through the Comdinheiro database and codes of ethics or business conduct. For this, in relation to the dependent variable, indexes were elaborated to represent the CBE (CBEI). To represent the independent variables of the board of directors, the following variables were selected: size of board, gender of the president, independence, chairman/CEO, age and number of meetings.

With that said, the results show that the size of the board, the independence and the number of meetings explain the informative content of the CBE. Also, the accumulation of positions of president and CEO negatively influences CBEI, so the research suggests that non-accumulation of positions reduces agency conflicts, generating transparency of CBEI, according to Agency Theory.

Considering the analysis of this research, it is important to highlight that the results should not be generalized because of the limitation of the sample period and because it was only for the Brazilian companies. However, they cannot be invalidated, given that, because of the robustness of the econometric models, it was possible to make inferences about the relations of the board of directors and the CBE of companies that trade in Brasil, Bolsa e Balcão (B3).

The relations identified in this study between the board of directors and the CBE imply the involvement of top executives, so that the CBE be closer to the characteristics of the business, while the values must be transmitted with clear language, avoiding misunderstandings and conflicts that may be used by individuals in bad faith, with the purpose of apologizing for illegal acts of company.

The board’s characteristics seek to support corporate responsibilities, fulfilling a diversity of issues in the operational scenario, including influencing the information content of the CBE. Besides being an expression of the organizational culture, because it evidences the rules of behavior and values of the company.

The business ethics, which in this research is represented by the CBE, is a factor in which there is evidence in international studies that there are relations with the board of directors. In this context, the present study seeks to verify the relationship between the board of directors and the CBE of Brazilian publicly traded companies.

The aim of this paper is to examine the effect of structural and demographic board diversity as well as board tenure on family firms' environmental performance, by analyzing the differences between family and non-family businesses and within family firms.

Tobit regressions are applied to investigate the effect of independent directors, CEO non-duality, board gender diversity and board tenure on environmental performance. The study also controls for other board and firm characteristics, as well as for time, industry and country-fixed effects. In doing so, the authors rely on a sample of non-financial listed firms from France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Portugal over the period 2014–2021.

The authors find that women on the board positively influence environmental performance and this effect is significant only in family firms, although board tenure negatively moderates the relationship. Board independence significantly affects environmental performance only in non-family firms. A strong presence of family directors has a negative effect on family firms' environmental performance, especially when directors' turnover is low.

This paper examines the unexplored relationship between structural board diversity and environmental performance in family companies. This study provides empirical evidence on the association between gender diversity and family firms' environmental performance focusing for the first time on a European setting. Moreover, this study provides evidence of a different effect of board tenure in family and non-family businesses.

This study examines the propensity to innovate in automation of family firms (FFs) based on the socio-emotional wealth (SEW) perspective.

This study’s analysis is based on three aspects. First, the authors consider three main non-economic goals and priorities of FFs: the family’s relationship with employees (read as to care for their satisfaction and well-being); the inner pride of building and maintaining the family and firm image and reputation; and the inner feeling to be socially responsible. Second, the authors consider how these goals and priorities vary among FFs according to four dimensions: family ownership, the presence of family members on the board of directors, the involvement of young successors, and the presence of founding and later generations. Finally, the consequences of automation are considered: lower firm employment, lower employees’ satisfaction and well-being, and higher firm productivity. The analysis is based on a sample of 4,150 Italian firms.

The analysis revealed that FFs are less prone to innovate in automation than non-FFs. Specifically, family ownership, the presence of family members on the board of directors, and the presence of founding generation are negatively associated with innovation in automation. Instead, the involvement of young successors and the presence of later generation are positively associated with innovation in automation.

To the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first investigation that, based on SEW, examines how FFs act on the decision to innovate in automation, thereby providing empirical evidence.

To gain insight into factors enhancing or obstructing implementation in various school-settings, which is vital for widespread dissemination and sustainable integration of school-based health-promoting interventions.

A mixed methods multisite comparative case study to investigate (factors influencing) the implementation of health-promoting activities in twelve Dutch primary schools. Data were collected during three school years (2019–2022) through observations, questionnaires and interviews.

The project resulted in the implementation of small, incidental activities. Important reasons for the limited implementation were lack of commitment and bottom-up involvement. School directors and teachers were not involved early on in the project, which limited project support and commitment. On school level, directors largely carried project responsibility themselves, hindering project sustainability and integration. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) made that schools had difficulties forming long-term visions and plans. Other observed barriers included limited perceived necessity to change, high workload and high staff turnover. Important facilitators were the presence of a process coordinator and sharing experiences from other schools.

This research provided valuable insights into (factors influencing) the implementation of health-promoting initiatives in diverse, real-world school contexts. More extensive support is needed to create commitment, bottom-up involvement and a project vision. Furthermore, empowering in-school champions and/or school-wide project groups is desirable to decrease schools' dependence on long-term external support. The findings can be used by various stakeholders throughout development, adoption and implementation and can facilitate widespread dissemination and sustainable integration of school-based health-promoting interventions.