Search results

The purpose of this paper is to philosophically address the issue of managerial opportunism and to describe the paradox of the opportunistic executive, particularly when the CEO could be considered as a “criminal-to-be”.

It will be seen to what extent governance mechanisms really contribute to prevent managerial opportunism, particularly through compensation packages (“financial carrots”). Then, Oliver E. Williamson’s viewpoint will be analyzed on opportunism, as his theory has largely influenced the way agency theories actually define managerial opportunism. Williamson was thinking opportunism without referring to philosophical works. The gap in exploring three basic types of opportunism will be filled: the Smithian egoist, the Hobbesian egoist and the Machiavellian egoist.

The Smithian egoist tries to reach an equilibrium between self-interest and compassion, while the Hobbesian egoist is motivated by self-interest, desire of power and the attitude of prudence. The Machiavellian egoist is always searching for power and makes followers’ fear arising. The way governance mechanisms and structures should be designed and implemented could be quite different if the CEO actually behaves as a Smithian, Hobbesian or Machiavellian egoist. CEO’s propensity to commit financial crime could largely vary from one type to another: low risk (Smithian egoist), medium risk (Hobbesian egoist) or high risk (Machiavellian egoist).

Smith’s, Hobbes’ and Machiavelli’s philosophy was chosen because the agency theory sometimes refers to it, when defining the notion of opportunism. Other philosophies could also be analyzed to see to what extent they are opening the door to opportunism (for example, Spinoza).

The paper analyzes managerial opportunism from a philosophical viewpoint. Whether executives are Smithian, Hobbesian or Machiavellian egoists, their opportunism cannot give birth to similar behaviors.

The existing literature has focused heavily on investigating the effect of corporate social performance (CSP) on financial performance (FP) but has not paid sufficient attention to an inverse causation of the relationship. Moreover, while some of the literature argues that FP positively affects CSP, based on the slack resources theory, others have found negative effects of FP on CSP, supporting the managerial opportunism perspective. Thus, this paper aims to address the impact of FP on CSP. Further, this study examines the moderating role of franchising to better understand the relationship.

This study uses and expands the models derived from the CSP literature to confirm the effects of FP on CSP with the moderating role of franchising within the restaurant industry. Using two-way fixed effects models, it effectively addresses important problems embedded in the panel data.

The findings show a positive effect of FP on CSP, which is inconsistent with Park and Lee’s (2009) findings and supports the slack resources theory. Further, the interesting results show that the impact of FP on CSP diminishes as a firm franchises more, supporting the double-sided moral hazard framework of the agency theory.

This paper fills the lacuna in both the existing literature on the relationship between CSP and FP and the franchising. This study contributes to enhancing restaurant practitioners’ understanding of the double-sided moral hazard of agency theory unique to franchising context.

The purpose of this study was to provide an empirical investigation into the relationship between employee orientation and both financial performance and leverage.

The selected sample set consisted of German publicly listed and unlisted companies identified as a “Top Employer” by the Top Employers Institute for the period 2008-2010. The relationship between employee orientation and both financial performance and leverage was then examined for this sample set for the period 2007 and 2011, with the rating “Top Employer Germany” used as a proxy measure of employee orientation.

The findings show a strong correlation with trade-off, traditional human relations and managerial opportunism theory. It is shown that investments in employee-orientated activities, such as career opportunities, and secondary benefits and work–life balance, lead to reductions in financial performance, which in turn leads to higher levels of employee orientation. Furthermore, no statistically significant relationship between the level of employee orientation and company leverage was found which is in disagreement with stakeholder capital structure theories which propose that there is a negative relationship, where highly leveraged companies tend to invest less in employee-orientated activities which in turn lead to higher levels of leverage.

This is one of the first studies to provide an empirical investigation into the relationship between the level of employee orientation and both financial performance and corporate leverage. Most previous studies have focused on either financial performance or leverage. Furthermore, this is one of the first studies which has its geographical focus on Continental Europe. Most previous studies focused on the Anglo-American corporate environment.

Determining an optimal capital structure for a company is a multi‐facetted problem that has challenged and fascinated academics and practitioners for a long time. This study investigates capital structures used in different countries and industries and explores the different theories on capital structure that have been put forward to date. A trade‐off model, incorporating taxes and financial distress costs, is applied to determine the optimal capital structure for three companies listed on the JSE South Africa. One of the conclusions drawn from the results of this analysis is that great care needs to be taken in ensuring the reasonableness of the input data and the valuation model. Secondly, significant amounts of value can be unlocked in moving closer to the optimum level of gearing. Lastly, even when one is using a model such as the one illustrated, it may be preferable to try to operate within an acceptable interval rather than to try to attain the absolute optimum capital structure.

Considering the standards developed by the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB), this study aims to examine whether the link between material sustainability and financial performance depends on the extent to which the company is oriented toward stakeholders.

To test the predictions, 13,942 firm-year observations from 43 different countries are used, covering the period from 2010 to 2019. Using a hand-mapping approach to match the indicators suggested by the SASB with those of the ASSET4, the authors realize that there are 170 material sustainability indicators among 466 indicators of the ASSET4. The authors use three different methods to verify if the materiality matters, including the alphas obtained from the Fama and French factor models, comparing the average abnormal returns of the portfolios and the bootstrapped Cramer technique.

The findings show that companies investing in material sustainability activities perform better than those investing in immaterial activities. Also, consistent with the theoretical foundations, the authors find that the effect of investing in material sustainability activities is more pronounced in stakeholder-oriented countries than that in shareholder-oriented countries. The results are robust to a battery of sensitivity tests.

Owing to COVID-19 in late 2019, data from 2020 to 2022 have not been used to obtain reliable results.

The results obtained in the current research provide valuable guidance for investors to make investments considering the degree of materiality of sustainability activities in different industries. It also helps managers to increase the company’s financial performance, make efficient decisions related to investment in sustainability activities and find investment strategies on the material sustainability issues in their industries.

This study provides a clearer understanding of investment in sustainability activities in different industries by separating material and immaterial sustainability activities in stakeholder and shareholder-oriented countries, and the results obtained can change the perspective of investors and company managers regarding investing in such activities in different countries. Investing in more materiality sustainability activities than the immateriality dimension can be new opportunities for companies to achieve predetermined goals, help retain and attract business partners or be a source of innovation for new product lines or services. Internal morale and employee engagement may increase while increasing productivity and firm performance. This discussion opens the way for future research.

This study provides insight into the effect of investing in material and immaterial sustainability activities in different industries on the company’s performance in shareholder and stakeholder-oriented countries.

This study aims to explore the moderating role of corporate governance index between environmental disclosure and idiosyncratic risk.

Governance index constructed on the basis of principle component analysis (PCA) that comprised Board Duality (BD), Board Size (BS), Board Independent (BI) and Board Meeting (BM). Collected panel data of 103 nonfinancial companies listed in stock exchanges of Pakistan and India for the period 2013–2020. To address the issue of endogeneity, this study used generalized methods of moments (GMM).

This study revealed that corporate governance index negatively modifies the relationship between environmental disclosure and idiosyncratic risk for both Pakistan and India scenario. Findings of the study also disclosed environmental disclosure has positive significant impact on idiosyncratic risk in case of Pakistan, whereas it has a negative significant impact in case of India.

The major limitation of the study is availability of environmental disclosure data, future researchers may extend time period and add other emerging economies for analysis. Moreover, assumption of objectivity in the evaluation of environmental disclosure is another limitation of the study. Future research should examine the standard of environmental actions that businesses declare. This study used CAPM model to measure idiosyncratic risk, and future studies suggest measure idiosyncratic risk by using Fama & French four and five factors model for better results and robustness.

Study provides guidelines to investors for choosing stock for investment and also helpful for management to minimize agency problems through better governance mechanisms. Furthermore, study has deep implications for CEOs, portfolio managers, researchers and academics.

The study intended to empirically examine the moderation of Corporate Governance Index between the relationship of Environmental Disclosure and Idiosyncratic Risk.

The world economy has experienced several economic downturns, and each phase emphasised that no industry is immune to inappropriate risk-management practices. Against the backdrop of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, which had far more effects than a financial crisis, the existing paper reviewed the state of current research in the realm of corporate governance and risk-management practices.

This study rigorously followed a systematic approach in identifying, selecting and critically synthesising the existing literature on corporate governance and risk management. The review was carried out on the Web of Science and Scopus database until December 31, 2022. In total, 72 research works were examined and reviewed.

This systematic literature review showed that companies with strong governance mechanisms are less exposed to corporate risks. Several attributes, such as higher institutional ownership stakes, concentrated family ownership structures, lower CEO compensation and duality, higher presence of females in the management, better board dynamics in terms of independent boards and gender diversity are all strong mechanisms for mitigating risk. Additionally, socially responsible companies are better positioned to mitigate corporate risks. Furthermore, several themes emphasising the governance risk link have been identified to understand this domain further.

By analysing and synthesising existing corporate governance and risk-management themes, this study ascertained various research gaps that can be addressed in future studies. Furthermore, drawing on this paper's essential cues, researchers can significantly differentiate their work from existing ones in the field.

This study aims to explore the impact of controversial firms’ corporate sustainability assessments on their risk exposure according to the environmental, social and governance (ESG) paradigm.

This study conducts a cross-sectional study using the ordinary least squares approach to test how corporate social responsibility practices affect firms’ risk exposure, testing the three single impacts of ESG components and the impact of an overall ESG assessment. This study considers the largest Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500 stock market index companies and focus on a double-risk measurement – systematic and idiosyncratic – developing an empirical study on 132 controversial companies listed on the S&P index.

Empirical findings indicate that the overall ESG assessment and the environmental and social sub-dimensions decrease idiosyncratic firm risk. At the same time, no significant results are found according to the systematic risk component.

This study fits into the domain of risk management research, investigating whether additional and non-financial disclosures regarding sustainability issues decrease information asymmetries, improving investors’ decision-making and stakeholders’ relations. Prior literature has shown limited evidence on the relationship between corporate social performance (CSP) and firm risk based on controversial companies. The main contribution is to consider the controversy as an independent factor from the industry sector, given that the implications of CSP actions and practices are mainly firm-specific.

This paper aims to use the social impact hypothesis and the shift of focus hypothesis to examine what drives controversial industries to make philanthropic donations: sustainable development, which can in turn lead to higher firm performance or a better corporate image.

This study employed a sample of Chinese firms from 2008–2015 and conducted regression analysis to explore the motivations behind corporate philanthropy.

Philanthropic giving is positively and significantly related to all indicators of firm performance; the interaction term of controversial industries and philanthropic giving is also positively and significantly related to firm performance. The empirical evidence supports the social impact hypothesis.

The empirical evidence shows that firms engage in philanthropic giving, mainly in pursuit of their own interests. Hence, managers should consider the inherent characteristics of the company and then combine social interests with their economic interests to design a philanthropic strategy of their own, which can in turn contribute to sustainable development.

This paper empirically confirms that the social impact hypothesis holds for the philanthropic activities of Chinese firms. This is a rare finding in related studies.

This contribution aims to clarify the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) as an issue of governance and a strategic tool more than a mere communication activity, with a potential impact on both organizations and their economic and financial performance.

The paper provides an overview of the literature contribution on CSR and its impact on value, offering a new conceptual model useful both for managers and relevant stakeholders in assessing, through an integrated approach, the company performance.

The analysis focuses on how CSR investments can create value for companies and for stakeholders in general. This can occur if the related benefits exceed the related costs, generating a favorable balance toward what we called the virtuous cycle of CSR. This cycle is made up of four steps – decision, design, action and result – that define a potential value creation path that a responsible firm can take, assuming that it integrates a social agenda into its competitive strategy and assuming that the market appreciates real and effective social efforts of companies.

Because the descriptive chosen approach, the research could be enriched with a quantitative analysis to test the proposed propositions further.

This paper fulfils the need, identified in the major literature, of a temporary ceasefire on corporate social performance and its link to financial performance, focusing on tools and instruments that can practically modify the companies' approach to CSR and the evaluation processes of its impact on business, strategy and disclosure.