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This study aims to develop a conceptual framework for the role of chief financial officer (CFO) in an ever-changing environment. As previous research focused on responding to specific crises, there have been theoretical and practical gaps in the role of CFO. The study's goal is to fill a critical gap by developing a comprehensive and integrated set of roles to assist the CFO in a constantly changing environment.

Using a grounded theory approach, semi-structured interviews and observations were conducted with 21 CFOs from various industries in Thailand, including foreign multinational corporations and domestic companies with international operations. CFOs were asked how they frame their roles in the face of an ever-changing environment and how they prepare for the future.

The iCFO model is developed, which identifies the critical “core” roles of the CFO in securing the business foundation, as well as the “future opportunities” roles that function as growth engines for long-term business strength. The research delves into the importance of integrity, ethical mindset and corporate governance in the role of the CFO. The iCFO model is designed to help guide future research and provide practical applications for CFOs in both domestic and international contexts. The term “core” refers to the CFO’s primary responsibilities, which include driving profitability, managing risks and optimizing business performance. The “future opportunities” component focuses on the roles that CFOs can play in strengthening the future of business by optimizing investment efficiency, driving digital transformation and being the CEO’s business partner. The findings also emphasized “integrity,” which must encompass all decisions, actions or recommendations made by the CFO.

The study offers unique perspectives on an emerging economy, providing new insights. Through interviews with 21 CFOs, it contributes empirical evidence on the development of roles in accounting and finance, emphasizing good governance practices. The findings highlight the integrated role of the CFO and their self-reflection on their value within the company. Significantly, the study's implications are relevant and applicable to a global audience, particularly in developing economies that prioritize growth. Future studies could incorporate integrated thinking into the iCFO model to address social, environmental and economic factors, making it more universally relevant. Additionally, exploring the adoption of the chief value officer context in developing markets could enable CFOs to expand their focus beyond financial metrics, embracing a comprehensive approach to value creation. By integrating these concepts into the iCFO model, CFOs can effectively drive sustainable and impactful business outcomes on a global scale.

This paper provides a review of literature on associated practices, challenges, and proposed solutions to bridging the relationship gap between training practitioners and chief financial officers (CFOs).

This is a descriptive research paper based on a multidisciplinary and critical review of existing literature discussing the relationship gaps between the training function and chief financial officers.

Available literature suggests a relationship gap exists between the training function and chief financial officers. As a result, both functions interpret the value of workplace training differently, leading to misalignment in their respective operations. The lack of relationship between the functions may result in defunding of the training function, which can adversely affect an organization’s financial performance. Although CFOs and training functions have the same goal of creating organizational value, an opportunity exists to create a stronger partnership between finance practitioners and training practitioners, leading to increased investment in training and ultimately improved organizational value.

This article presents contextual research findings and may not fit all settings, but offers a comparative account of challenges associated with relationship challenges between the training function and CFOs. A paucity of research exists on the relationships between training and CFOs.

This paper has real and practical implications for learning and development, finance, and human resources practitioners. The findings seek to encourage training practitioners and CFOs to build stronger relationships and jointly define measurement and reporting practices. This research aims to provide an informed perspective on practices to help executives better understand the value of workplace training, leading to an increase of the investment in training, and ultimately changing the categorization of training spend from a cost to an investment.

This paper provides original insights and reviews newly published studies regarding relationships between the training function and chief financial officers, the development of workplace training valuation approaches, the associated challenges faced, and proposed solutions. This paper will be of value to human resources, learning and development, and finance, assisting practitioners in thinking differently about approaches to quantifying the value of workplace training.

With the accelerated global adoption of integrated reporting, this paper aims to understand the role of practicing accountants in integrated reporting.

Using the case study approach, data was collected from semi-structured interviews in six international organisations that have adopted integrated reporting. Institutional work provided the theoretical insights for this study.

The study found that accountants were an indispensable part of the integrated reporting process because of their strength and knowledge in corporate reporting. However, despite having the potential to engage, it was noted that accountants currently do not apply their key reporting skills in the integrated reporting context. It was observed that accountants’ roles were limited to carrying out their traditional routine financial reporting activities including reporting on the financial aspects of the report, developing key performance indicators and assisting with assurance related tasks.

This study adds to the limited literature by providing a comprehensive understanding of how accountants are currently involved in integrated reporting. This study suggests that accountants are seeking to maintain their existing institutional practices.

A need for accountants to move beyond maintaining their institutional roles and engage more extensively in integrated reporting is emphasised.

Through its focus on human agency, this study applied institutional work to integrated reporting, thereby expanding literature on integrated reporting and the roles performed by accountants in this process. This study also contributes to the conceptualisation of maintaining institutions strategies through the development of the cooperative strategy.

This study aims to examine the relationship between the educational background of Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) from reputable universities and financial reporting quality (FRQ). Educational background is divided into two categories: an undergraduate degree from a reputable university and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) degree from a reputable university.

This study uses data from all companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2019, except for financial companies, and obtains 2,583 research samples. The least-squares regression analysis model was used in this study.

This study finds that the educational background of CFOs with a bachelor’s degree and CFOs with an MBA from reputable universities has a positive and significant relationship with FRQ. This study also performs an additional analysis with high-low growth and high-low tech and robustness testing with coarsened exact matching method and Heckman to corroborate the results.

This study provides a theoretical contribution to the literature on the relationship between CFOs’ educational background and FRQ in Indonesia. It is also expected to contribute to the implementation of company policies, management and educational institutions in Indonesia.

This study provides a novel measurement of CFO reputation, measured using the ranking of CFO alumni from reputable universities and its association with FRQ.

This paper aims to review empirical research on the relationship between institutional ownership (IO) and board governance (85 studies).

Based on agency and upper echelons theory, the heterogeneous monitoring function of specific types and the nature of institutional investors on board composition, compensation and chief executive officer (CEO) characteristics will be focused.

The author found that most studies have referred to archival studies, analyzed the impact of board governance on IO, focused on CEO characteristics, neglected IO heterogeneity and advanced regression models to address endogeneity concerns. In line with the theoretical framework, the relationship between total IO and board governance is heterogeneous. However, specific types such as foreign, dedicated and pressure-resistant institutions represent active monitoring tools and push for increased board governance.

The author provided useful recommendations for future research from a content and methodological perspective, e.g. the need for analyzing the impact of IO on sustainable board governance and other characteristics of top management team members, e.g. the chief financial officer.

As many regulatory bodies implemented regulations to promote shareholder rights and board governance, this literature review highlights the connections of both corporate governance mechanisms. Managers should conduct a careful and timely investor analysis and change the composition and compensation of the board of directors in line with institutional investors’ preferences.

This analysis makes useful contributions to prior research by focusing on IO and board governance, whereas the author structured the heterogeneous variables and results within the structured literature review. The authors guides researchers, regulatory bodies and business practice in this corporate governance topic.

This paper examines how “strategic” chief financial officers (CFOs) with an elite MBA (i.e. elite CFOs) influence (1) stock market reaction to CFO hiring announcements (ex ante measure) and (2) post-hiring firm performance (ex-post measure).

This paper utilizes a comprehensive, proprietary database with information about the educational qualifications and prior professional experience of 1,340 CFOs hired during the period 1994–2014. For each CFO, the authors hand-collected data on the CFO's prior experience as well as CFO's educational profile. The authors also identified the date of CFO hiring from financial press articles. To evaluate performance, the authors consider two different, yet complementary performance measures: (1) the stock market reaction, a priori measure and (2) a traditional measure of performance, which is a post-facto metric related to firm performance.

The results show that hiring CFOs with scarce and strategic human capital elicits a positive market response and leads to significant improvement in firm performance. Further, firms with greater managerial discretion benefit more from hiring elite CFOs. The results hold after controlling for chief executive officer (CEO), CFO, top managment team (TMT), and board characteristics.

This study shows converging and mutually consistent results about what specific types of CFO human capital create firm value and, more importantly, show that such value-creation is only in the case of small firms and high growth firms. The study also advances the stream of literature that contrasts the relative benefits of specialist versus generalist qualifications.

This paper aims to examine whether the cooperation between female chief financial officers (CFO) and the proportion of female directors would impact investment efficiency. The investigation is grounded in the increasing number of female top managers globally and the notion that female tends to cooperate more with other female than with male.

This study uses publicly listed firms in Bursa Malaysia from 2016 to 2020, which yielded a sample of 2,022 firm-year observations. The authors used multivariate ordinary least square regression to test the relationship, and to correct for the selection bias, the Heckman selection and PSM test were used.

The authors find a positive relationship between female CFOs and investment efficiency. A higher proportion of female directors accentuates this result. The findings support the homophily argument that similar characteristics (gender) promote cooperation. This shows that cooperation between female CFOs and directors improves investment efficiency. The results suggest that the improvement in investment efficiency could relate to higher managerial discretion for female CFOs and their ability to collaborate with female directors. These results are robust to a series of additional endogeneity tests. The findings have important implications for policymakers and firms to encourage more appointments of females in top management positions.

By highlighting the cooperation between female CFOs and female directors, this study contributes to the understanding that cooperation among females improves investment efficiency.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether female chief financial officers (CFOs) are associated with the occurrences of financial reporting fraud. This study offers new theoretical and empirical evidence on whether firms with more female CFOs are more (less) likely to engage in financial reporting fraud.

This study is based on a sample of US-listed firms from 2011 to 2021. The authors speculate that female CFOs play a weaker role in the occurrences of financial reporting fraud. So, firms with a proportional number of female CFOs should be less likely to commit financial reporting fraud.

The data provide support for the predictions of this study. This study suggests a negative and significant association between the dummy variables for female CFOs and the occurrences of financial reporting fraud. The authors find that this association is contingent on governance mechanisms [e.g. ownership structure, politically connected CEOs and firms' conditions that do (or do not) invest in a gender-diverse board].

This study offers different perspectives on the impact of female CFOs on the occurrences of financial reporting fraud. The results of this study are distinguishable from prior studies. This study moves the analytical focus from the macro level (gender diversity or female corporate leaders) to the micro level (female CFOs) to understand firms' propensity to commit financial reporting fraud. Additionally, this study is based on factual financial reporting fraud cases, considering the US firms' fraud characteristics.

Research on leaders’ knowledge management systems focuses exclusively on how leaders gather and disseminate knowledge in collaboration with external actors. Not much is known about how leaders address the psychological aspects of employees and strategize internal communication. In addition, while previous work has treated high uncertainty as a default feature of crisis, this study aims to propose that perceived uncertainty varies in experience/meaning and has a crucial bearing on the relative balance of cognitive/emotional load on the leader and behavioral/psychological responses.

The authors contribute by qualitatively examining the role of leader knowledge systems in designing communication strategies in the context of the COVID-19 crisis by investigating communication characteristics, style, modes and the relatively unaddressed role of compassion/persuasion. In this pursuit, the authors interviewed 21 C-suite leaders, including chief executive officers, chief marketing officers, chief financial officers, chief human resource officers and founders, and analyzed their data using open, axial and selective coding, which were later extracted for representative themes and overarching dimensions.

Drawing from grounded theory research, the authors present a framework of knowledge systems and their resultant communication with employees in high uncertain and low uncertain crises. The authors highlight interactions of a set of concepts – leaders’ preparedness, leaders’ support to employees tailored communication adapted to perceived uncertainty, leading to enhanced trust – in the achievement of outcomes related to balancing operational and relational systems with employees. The findings suggest that a structured process of communication helps employees mitigate any concern related to uncertainty and feel confident in their leadership.

The research has implications for leaders in managing their knowledge systems, for human esources practitioners in designing effective internal communication programs, as well as for scholars in knowledge management, communication and leadership.

This study aims to explore the relationship between risk governance characteristics (chief risk officer [CRO], chief financial officer [CFO] and senior directors [SENIOR]) and regulatory adjustments (RAs) in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development public commercial banks.

Using principal component analysis (PCA) and regression models, the research analyzes a representative data set of these banks.

A significant negative correlation between risk governance characteristics and RAs is found. Sensitivity analysis on the regulatory Tier 1 capital ratio and the total capital ratio indicates mixed outcomes, suggesting a complex relationship that warrants further exploration.

The study’s limited sample size calls for further research to confirm findings and explore risk governance’s impact on banks’ capital structures.

Enhanced risk governance could reduce RAs, influencing banking policy.

The study advocates for improved banking regulatory practices, potentially increasing sector stability and public trust.

This study contributes to understanding risk governance’s role in regulatory compliance, offering insights for policymaking in banking.