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Corporate foundations – entities established to regularize corporate giving at an arm’s length removed from the firm – command substantial resources, root companies in the nonprofit sectors of their host communities, indirectly augment perceptions of corporate responsibility, and help firms to deflect controversies in an attentive global media environment. Despite these important roles, relatively little research has examined the institutional and strategic factors that influence such proximate charitable giving by firms. Using systematic data on foundations linked to S&P 3000 firms in the health sector – a growing domain in which public trust in high-stakes products and services is critical – fixed-effects models illustrate the primary role of network influences on giving: corporate foundations give substantially more in years following higher contributions by other (noncorporate) foundations in the health sector in a firm’s headquarters locality and also following increased contributions by industry peers through their corporate foundations. Giving also appears to reflect strategic reputational concerns, in that foundation contributions increase significantly following controversies associated with the corporate parent’s products and/or services. By contrast, giving tends to decline as the presence of outside directors on a firm’s board increases, as well as when firms carry heavier debt loads. Combined, these findings suggest that corporate foundations serve as a strategic proxy for the firm, reflecting both a company's position in community and interfirm networks while also mitigating the threat of reputational challenges.

A key problem for Japanese government policy relates to developing alternate forms of financing and investment. This study recommends that further development of Japan’s corporate bond market will provide an alternate investment vehicle, though improved access by foreign market participants including borrowers, investors and investment banks is a necessary precondition to the development of this market. Concerted efforts must be made to ease Japanese investors’ excessive aversion to risk, which limits the development of the extensive high-yield markets that exist in the U.S. and are now developing in Europe.

Women's contributions to socio-economic development of many developed and developing economies have improved substantially over the years. However, women participation in economic development and contributions to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are still inadequate as a result of insufficient access to finance to enhance their business performance and other challenging factors such as infrastructure, government policy and enabling business environment. This study aimed to examine the financing issues faced with female entrepreneurs in Nigeria in terms of supply side finance gap that hinders their performance. Other specific objectives are to: establish reasons for external source of finance; identify various financial options available for female-owned businesses in Nigeria; investigate the effect of financial options on the performances of female-owned businesses in Nigeria. Survey research design was employed with administration of structured questionnaire on nine hundred and seventy five (975) female entrepreneurs of selected Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) from the population of nine million, six hundred and two thousand, two hundred and forty nine (9,602,249). Data analysis was carried out using descriptive statistics (frequency, percentages, mean, standard deviation) and inferential statistics of regression analysis. Results of the regression analysis at 5% significant level using two-tailed test for all the variables of financial options displayed significant effects on the performance of female businesses in Nigeria. It was recommended that more female-owned businesses should take the advantage of these financial options to enhance business performance as only 38% of them have successfully utilized these financial sources to bridge the finance gap.

In literature, a vast number of researches have tried to analyse the interaction between different financing methods and corporate governance. Some believe that good corporate governance companies are more successful in equity financing whereas others believe in positive relationship between corporate governance and debt finance. In this chapter, the authors analyse the interaction between sukuk financing and corporate governance. The authors first tried to differentiate between the financer and company's point of view in the financing decisions of different corporate governance quality companies, and then showed that, theoretically, there should be a positive relationship between murabahah sukuk and ijarah sukuk issuance and the corporate governance quality of companies in both types of views. The corporate governance characteristics of sukuk issuing companies in Iran are also analysed. The results from model estimation confirmed theoretical conclusion and corporate governance variables had positive and significant effects on the Sukuk issuance among Iranian Sukuk issuer companies.

We extend theories of the firm to the entrepreneurial finance setting and argue that R&D-focused start-up firms will have a greater likelihood of financing themselves with equity rather than debt. We argue that mechanisms which reduce information asymmetry, including owner work experience and financier reputation, will increase the probability of funding with more debt. We also argue that start-ups that correctly align their financing mix to their R&D focus will perform better than firms that are misaligned. We study these ideas using a large nationally representative dataset on start-up firms in the United States.