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The purpose of this study is to explore whether the level of language content matching (LCM) between the chair and the CEO varies with their firm's financial performance.

This study examines a sample of 119 Australian firms and 476 annual letters to shareholders produced by the firms' chairs and CEOs over a four-year period. Chair–CEO LCM is measured by calculating the similarity score between the chair's and CEO's written text to shareholders within each firm year, while firm profitability is measured by return on assets. Univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests as well as three multivariate linear models are used to examine the research question.

The results show that the profitability of the firm is significantly associated with the level of chair–CEO LCM. When a firm is profitable, there is a lower level of chair–CEO LCM than when the firm is unprofitable and that profitability is related to a lower level of chair–CEO LCM. Firm size is positively and significantly related to the level of chair–CEO LCM. These findings are supportive of the view that the written communications of the chair and CEO are the outcome of strategic considerations and depend on a firm's specific economic situation.

Future studies may consider alternative approaches to measure textual similarity.

LCM may provide insights into management techniques that may be used to explain firm performance and provide a signal to external stakeholders, such as shareholders and fund managers.

This study provides new insights into the letters written by the chair and the CEO to explain or justify their firm's financial performance. Rather than focus on a single letter, this study examines the level of LCM between the shareholder letters of two different people in a firm (the chair and CEO) and finds that the extent of chair–CEO LCM is varying with firm performance and size. The findings of this study suggest that LCM is an important dimension of the communications of a firm's chair and CEO.

This study examines the association between firm profitability and the “voice” of the CEO measured through tones they convey in their annual letter to shareholders. The paper examines whether the tones corresponds to a firm's profitability and the extent to which CEO tone varies with changes in profitability.

The authors analyze 187 Australian CEOs communications in 748 annual letters to their shareholders between 2010 and 2013. Two-word lists created by previous researchers are used to assess tones for their positive-negative plurality, uncertainty and use of modal words. Firm profitability is identified using return on assets. The authors examine the relationship between profitability and tones using simple ANOVA as well as a linear mixed model and then a change (differences) model. The change model captures any inertia or genre effect in the CEO letter to shareholders.

Using both the level and change model, the authors find that firm profitability is associated with CEO's tones that are more optimistic and less pessimistic. The authors also find that the use of negative words has more communicative value than positive words or “net” positive words. The authors also observe some genre effect when CEOs use strong modal words.

The sample is restricted to a selection of Australian firms that had the same CEO for the fiscal years 2010–2013; which reported in each financial year and which survived the global financial crisis. Generalizing the findings to other periods, types of firms, or to CEOs with shorter tenure, might be questionable. This study was conducted in Australia, which may limit the applicability of the findings to other jurisdictions.

The significant link between firm profitability and CEOs' use of positive, net positive and negative words implies that investors may place reliance on the use of these tones in the CEO's annual letter to accurately reflect the profitability of the firm.

The study extends the existing literature by examining whether a change in firm profitability is linked to a change in CEO tone. It concludes that even in periods of general financial stress, shareholders should be confident that CEOs' letters to shareholders provide credible information that corresponds to firm performance.

Recent corporate scandals such as WorldCom, Enron, and others suggest a failure of corporate governance, that is, of the allocation of power and its lawful use and accountability within the corporation.

This chapter presents a game theoretic model for analyzing the power dynamics among the three groups responsible for oversight in the Anglo-American corporate model – namely the Board of Directors through its audit committee, corporate management, and the external auditors.

The chapter shows, among other findings, that the current governance structure results in an extreme imbalance of power among the three groups that not only permits but even induces management to conceal necessary financial data and often to ignore the long-term interests of the firm.

The chapter also derives changes in principles of governance that can right such imbalances and prevent defalcations from taking place through institutionalizing effective ex-ante checks and balances of power in addition to the ex post measures that come into play only after a wrong has been committed and which are the case with recent exchange rules and Congressional enactments.

None.

No prior analysis along these lines.

This paper explores how INGOs communicate their activities and achievements. In doing so, the study seeks to increase our understanding of INGOs' accountability practices.

This paper uses thematic analysis to analyse 90 ‘leaders’ letters' (the letters that many charities include at the beginning of their Annual Reports and Accounts), published by 39 INGOs between 2015 and 2018.

This paper argues that within the Annual Report letters under consideration, INGOs' accountability practices focus on quantitative, process-driven, output reporting. In doing so, it is the actions and agency of INGOs that are primarily emphasised. INGO constituents are largely excluded from representation. Donors are presented only as contributors of financial capital. Drawing on field theory, the paper argues that this representational practice means INGO constituents are almost irrelevant to INGOs' representational and accountability communication practices.

This paper is indebted to previous important work and, building on such scholarship, seeks to contribute to the ongoing conversation about INGO accountability. While reinforcing some prior knowledge, the findings here also differ in the understanding of how donors are portrayed. The paper extends previous analyses by using field theory to show that the INGO field as considered here is a space in which representations of accountability are based on organisational and transactional factors, and does not value the humanity of INGOs' constituents. This connects to operations of power, between donors, INGOs, and constituents, and reinforces inequitable power within the development system.

Drawing on institutional theory, this study aims to analyse the regulation of executive remuneration as espoused in the United Kingdom (UK) codified corporate governance principles, focussing on sources of advice to decision-makers, the nature of the advice sought and given, and interaction of those involved in the process.

A qualitative research design was used. Data were assembled from interviewing non-executive board/remuneration committee members; institutional investors; external remuneration consultants and internal human resources (HR)/reward specialists. Results were analysed in accordance with the Gioia technique.

Tensions inherent in the interpretation of corporate governance codes are illustrated. Emphasis on independent advice combined with constraints on decision-makers' capacity to navigate the nuances of a complex field and reputational concerns risks standardised instead of bespoke remuneration approaches aligned with corporate contexts.

There is a role for internal HR advisors to add value through their potential to reduce the gap within remuneration committees between institutional contexts and independent decision-making, facilitating more strategic human resource management inspired executive remuneration.

Application of institutional theory indicates the relevance of balancing external with internal sources to secure advice that is horizontally and vertically aligned within an organisation to meet the letter and spirit of corporate governance norms. Extending the explanatory power of institutional theory, care is needed though not to overlook the normative underpinnings of professional advisors' own value sets.

Proper empirical tests of the effect of blockholders’ monitoring incentives on corporate governance are scant in the literature because the relationship between ownership structure and enforcement of corporate governance mechanisms is bidirectional. This study aims to address the endogeneity issue by examining the effect of blockholding on executive turnover–performance sensitivity, using the split-share-structure (SSS) reform in China as an exogenous shock to blockholders’ monitoring incentives.

This study uses a logit model for estimating the change in executive turnover–performance sensitivity around the SSS reform. Sub-sample analysis is conducted to examine whether the impact of SSS reform on the turnover-performance sensitivity is stronger for firms with more contestable blockholders who might consider stock liquidity, risk sharing and diversification in their monitoring/trading decisions.

Top executive turnover, defined as CEO or board chair turnover, becomes less sensitive to firm operating performance after the reform, mainly for firms with contestable blockholders prior to the reform. Stock liquidity and blockholders’ demand for diversification can explain the impact of contestable blockholding. Moreover, blockholding is sensitive to firm operating performance after the reform but not before it.

With few exceptions, most studies in the blockholding literature focus on the effect of blockholder monitoring on firm value. Examining an exogenous shock to blockholding, this paper provides a set of new evidence for the impact of blockholding on executive turnover–performance sensitivity. The results call for more evidence of the impact of blockholding on executive turnover from other markets.

Corporate Social Reporting (CSR) assumes that the companies are socially conscious to discharge their social obligations for the well being of the society. Now business enterprises are under pressure from stakeholders to report to them, as to what extent they have been successful in protecting their interests. Thus, it is essential for them to adopt social accounting practices and report to interested parties as to what extent they have discharged the social responsibilities delegated to them. This study reveals that most of the listed companies in Bangladesh did not provide any information regarding the environment, human resources, community, and consumers in 1996‐97. Though some progressive companies disclosed some information, that information was not at all adequate in discharging social responsibilities. All the information provided by these companies was qualitative in nature and the disclosure level was very poor.

This study aims to investigate how three critical governance decisions by foreign firms impacted their survivability post-initial public offerings (IPO): the choice of CEO (founder vs non-founder); the power the founder CEO wields relative to the board in terms of CEO duality; and board size.

This study uses data from 86 foreign firms that completed IPOs in the US market between 2000 and 2008 and adopts a Cox proportional hazards model to examine how the founder, founder CEO duality and board size influence foreign firm delisting post-IPO.

A founder CEO or a founder CEO with duality (i.e. when a founder CEO is also chair of the board of directors) does not support a foreign firm’s survival post-IPO. Expectedly, board size has a negative impact on post-IPO firm survivability; however, founder CEO duality positively moderates this negative relationship. Therefore, founder CEO duality plays a positive indirect role in the context of post-IPO firms with large boards.

First, while the benefits of CEO duality have been empirically ambiguous, this study clarifies how founder CEO duality manifests its positive impacts in foreign listings. Second, by focusing on board cognition, this study confirms the negative impact of large boards, but highlights that this can be mitigated by governance leadership structure. Finally, despite organizational life-cycle theorists’ advocacy of the replacement of founder CEOs with professional CEOs in sizable ventures, this study shows the benefits of their retention when the board is large.

AS ALWAYS, at this the beginning of a New Year, we are incurably optimistic. Our credo can be summed up in one word: chiliasm, a belief that times will get better.