Search results

This paper aims to review progress to date in the UK on Government strategy to increase the number of women on company boards. It includes discussion on the proposed quota system and the factors that inhibit women's progress despite the acknowledged special qualities they can bring to the boardroom.

The paper is a critical review of the current situation in the UK and rest of Europe, leading to recommendations for the way ahead.

Corporate culture in top companies is gradually changing and some, albeit slow, progress has been made. However more impetus is required and suggestions are included as to future additional strategies.

Additional suggestions, apart from the Government strategy, are given to improve women's career development in companies, in the educational system and in society in general.

The paper puts forward practical suggestions to assist women's career development and visibility to enable more qualified and experienced women to be strong candidates for board appointments.

THAT WAS a bold experiment that was sponsored by the NatWest Bank and which is reported in our news pages. They selected sixteen out of several hundred applicants, gave them a grant of £2,000 each and sent them off on a fact‐finding mission to Europe.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of the revised Code of Corporate Governance 2017 (CCG-2017) clauses pertaining to board independence, mandatory inclusion of female directors, audit committee (AC) chair independence and directors’ expertise on earnings manipulation.

Using an unbalanced panel of 323 listed companies from 2015 to 2019, this study uses panel data regression models with a robust methodology called difference-in-differences to tackle the potential endogeneity.

This study’s findings show that, as compared to the pre-CCG-2017 period, board- and AC-related variables increased significantly in the post-CCG-2017 period. Furthermore, financial experts on the board and board independence have a negative effect on discretionary accruals (DAs), whereas female directors and DAs are positively related, as is real activity manipulation. The AC-related variables, such as AC independence, expertise in AC, and AC chair independence, are significantly different from the preperiod to the postperiod, whereas their relationship is not according to the hypotheses of the study. Moreover, these results are robust to additional analysis of the alternative proxies for female directorship and the endogeneity problem.

The findings of this study have implications for regulators and practitioners who are concerned with the functions of the board of directors (BOD). The findings of this research study show that earnings management (EM) may be reduced by independent and expert directors. However, board gender diversity is not reducing the EM. Therefore, the decision to appoint female directors to the board should be based on their business and professional attributes rather than simply filling quotas or blindly adhering to regulations. Moreover, the findings of this research may assist the regulator in encouraging listed firms to enhance board governance via independence, diversity and competency, which are useful for effective monitoring.

This study fills a gap in the literature by providing the first evidence of country-specific regulation (CCG-2017), concerning the BOD and AC-related clauses on EM in Pakistan, which is missing in the relevant literature general and in Pakistan in particular.

Virtual Reality (VR) refers to the computer generation of realistic three‐dimensional artificial worlds in which humans, typically equipped with head‐mounted 3D displays, interactive gloves and even whole‐body suits, can be ‘immersed’, and are free to explore and interact with graphical objects in real time, using such natural skills as looking from different angles, moving, pointing, grasping, listening and talking. The early history behind the emergence of VR is short and incredibly intense and characterized by a small group of familiar names. As one of the key figures, Myron Krueger has described it, ‘…Like particles in a fission reaction, personnel from one project disband and reappear with new affiliations’. That reaction continues today, with a reproduction of the American experience in Europe.

Asserts that a lot of research has been carried out in the area of directorship theory but little attempt has been made to apply this across cultures. Sets out to explore directorship theory from a cross‐cultural perspective, comparing and contrasting leadership theory and practice in Romania and Britain. Aims to reveal the mechanisms by which leadership at board level is socially constructed in each country. Explores the factors which influence its construction in both countries.

Amidst the backlash against gay rights in the U.S., a rapidly expanding number of companies are instituting inclusive policies. While in 1990 no major corporations provided health insurance for the partners of lesbian and gay employees, by early 2004, over 200 companies on the Fortune 500 list (approximately 40%) had adopted domestic partner benefits. This study of Fortune 1000 corporations reveals that the majority of adopters instituted the policy change only after facing pressure from groups of lesbian, gay, and bisexual employees. Despite such remarkable success, scholars have yet to study the workplace movement, as it is typically called by activists. Combining social movement theory and new institutional approaches to organizational analysis, I provide an “institutional opportunity” framework to explain the rise and trajectory of the movement over the past 25 years. I discuss the patterned emergence and diffusion of gay employee networks among Fortune 1000 companies in relation to shifting opportunities and constraints in four main areas: the wider sociopolitical context, the broader gay and lesbian movement, the media, and the workplace. Next, using the same wide-angle lens, I explain the apparent decline in corporate organizing since 1995. My multimethod approach utilizes surveys of 94 companies with and without gay networks, intensive interviews with 69 networks and 10 corporate executives, 3 case studies, field data, and print and virtual media on gay-related workplace topics. By focusing on not simply political but also broader institutional opportunities, I provide a framework for understanding the emergence and development of movements that target institutions beyond the state.

When the economy takes a nosedive, a more sinister type of business is likely to flourish — industrial espionage — reports ex‐Fraud Squad member, Vincent Carratu. The threat comes from companies who are determined to outwit competitors in a contracting market and from aggrieved employees who fall prey to the cash incentives of selling secrets. Carratu, who now heads one of Europe's biggest investigation agencies, pinpoints some of the security loopholes which are all too easy for the industrial spy.

INDUSTRIAL relations within BOC gases division have to be good, not just for the company's sake but for the entire British economy.

The purpose of this paper is to explicate the role of institutional entrepreneurs who use accounting technology to accomplish change within a privatised telecommunications company.

The case study method is adopted. The authors draw on recent extension to institutional theory that gives greater emphasis to agency including concepts such as embeddedness, institutional entrepreneurs and institutional contradiction.

As part of the consequences of new public management reforms, we illustrate how institutional entrepreneurs de-established an older state-run bureaucratic and engineering-based routine and replaced it with a business- and accounting-based routine. Eventually, new accounting routines were reproduced and taken for granted by telecommunications management and employees.

As this study is limited to a single case study, no generalisation except to theory can be made. There are implications for privatisation of state sector organisations both locally and internationally.

The paper makes a contribution to elaborating the role of institutional entrepreneurs as agents of change towards privatisation and how accounting was used as a technology of change.

Senior management largely unsatisfied with HR function, Flexi‐time perceived to hamper career prospects, 81% of European companies to standardize HR in 2006, CEOs should see HR as a priority for the future