Search results

Non-financial reporting (NFR) is viewed as a major step towards organisational transparency and accountability. While the number of non-financial reports published every year has been growing exponentially over the last two decades, their quality and effectiveness in managing environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance have been questioned. Addressing these concerns, several jurisdictions, including EU Member States, introduced mandatory NFR regimes. However, the evidence on whether such regulation truly translates into enhanced ESG performance remains scarce. This paper aims to fill this gap in the literature by investigating the impact of the EU’s Directive 2014/95/EU (Non-financial Reporting Directive, NFRD) on the ESG scores of Polish companies.

Drawing upon institutional and strategic perspectives on legitimacy theory, the authors test the relationship between the introduction of the NFRD and the ESG scores derived from the Refinitiv database, using a sample of all those companies listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange whose disclosure allows for measuring ESG performance (yielding 171 firm-year observations from 43 companies).

This study’s findings show an improvement of ESG performance following the introduction of the NFRD. The difference-in-differences approach indicates that the improvement is larger for companies that are subject to the legislation when it comes to overall ESG performance, particularly for environmental and social performance. Nonetheless, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no significant effect is found for performance in the governance dimension.

This study investigates the role of transnational mandatory reporting regulation in the first years of its enactment. The evidence offers insights into the effects of disclosure legislation in the context of an underdeveloped institutional environment.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the links between company ownership structure and financial performance in the context of the largest Central European stock market. Using the framework of agency theory, the authors address the question of the expropriation effect by dominant owners and the effect of collusion between shareholders of different types on company performance.

The authors test hypotheses on the relations between ownership concentration and the involvement of different shareholders (state, CEO, industry and financial investors) vs return on assets (ROA). The authors adopt the panel model controlling for endogeneity and sector of operation and analyze the data from the unique sample of 495 Polish non-financial firms listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in years 2005-2014 with a total of 3,203 observations.

The authors identify a negative correlation between ownership concentration by the majority shareholder and ROA, which corresponds with the expropriation rationale of blockholders. The authors also observe negative effects due to ownership concentration by the second largest shareholder, supporting the notion of collusion. The results show that ownership by industry investors is associated with a higher ROA. Ownership by the CEO, state and financial investors proves to have no statistically significant effect on performance.

The paper further develops the nature of ownership-performance relations in the specific economic context of a post-transition, emerging European stock market, weak external corporate governance mechanisms, insufficient investor protection and significant concentration of share ownership. The results add to the understanding of monitoring vs expropriation effects by large owners and the collusion between different types of shareholders.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of socio-political interactions in determining the topos of sustainability reporting (SR) practice. For this purpose, this study harnesses pragmatic constructivism perspective to identify facts, possibilities, values and communication of SR practice.

This study adopts a systematic literature review approach using a sample of 167 articles from 54 academic journals.

The results of this study indicate that companies in their SR are driven by self-interest, treating disclosure as a mean in itself and neglecting its role in sustainability transition. In the light of the results, this study proposes three main avenues for further research: the interplay of institutional, organizational and individual factors as drivers for transparency; approaches to improve the quality of SR; and (3) sustainability impact of SR.

The past decade has seen a proliferation of literature on the practice of SR. One of the most influential streams in studies on SR has been grounded in socio-political theories with legitimacy, stakeholder and institutional theories on the front. Nevertheless, there is still no systematic and comprehensive overview of this rich literature. This study offers a comprehensive framework which conceptualizes SR as a social construct defined by the interplay between various, often conflicting institutional demands.

The purpose of the paper is to advance the understanding of the links between the presence of independent directors (IDs) on boards and the company value in the specific context of concentrated ownership. The authors apply the framework of agency theory to identify the monitoring effect of IDs in two legal systems – common law and civil law.

The authors test formulated hypotheses using a unique sample of 50 Mauritian and Polish companies listed during the years 2007 to 2015, amounting to a total of 394 observations adopting the fixed effect panel model.

The results of the panel model show a negative relationship between independent directors on boards and company value. Specifically, the effect remains negative for companies operating in the civil law system, whereas the stronger protection offered by common law offsets the effect of concentrated ownership, resulting in a non-correlation between independent directors on board and firm value.

This study expands the understanding of the value added by independent directors, addressing their monitoring role in the unfavorable context of concentrated ownership. It also reveals that different legal frameworks of civil law and common law may impact the monitoring performed by independent directors.

Coopetition is ubiquitous in the economy, but managing effectively this type of relationship between firms remains a challenge for many organizations. This paper investigates the coopetition within corporate groups and focus on factors that determine the simultaneous competition and cooperation between subsidiaries therein.

Drawing on a dataset of 121 corporate groups listed on the Warsaw Stock Exchange (WSE), this paper theoretically advances and empirically validates the impact of 18 factors which determine the coopetition relationship.

This study's findings confirm the importance of an organizational design among external and internal drivers of intrafirm coopetition. However, the role of an environmental uncertainty as a driver of intrafirm coopetition is not proven. Furthermore, the paper finds that internal determinants explain the phenomenon of coopetition between subsidiaries within a corporate group more than determinants related to the environment.

The paper contributes to the coopetition theory by empirical identification of drivers of intrafirm coopetition and advances the corporate groups studies by exploring internal relationships (cooperation and competition) and the determinants therein.

The purpose of this paper is to present the best practice initiative in Poland, presenting codes formulated in 2002 and 2005 and focusing on the recent document known asBest Practice of WSE Listed Companies. Moreover, the paper aims to present practical aspects of implementation of new code between January and April 2008.

The paper identifies the guidelines recommended in three versions of the Warsaw Stock Exchange code of best practice. Additionally it discusses companies' doubts and questions addressed to the Warsaw Stock Exchange, analyzes technical challenges referring to new system of reporting on companies compliance as well as raises some concerns regarding the content of the new code.

The paper shows that the codes of best practice attempted to address the most problematic issues of transitional Polish corporate governance. The recommendations content was adopted during the last eight years as the response to the changes in market environment and governance challenges. However, the new code addresses mostly the strategic plans of the Warsaw Stock Exchange rather than the corporate needs and its implementation and communication with listed companies leaves a lot of room for improvement.

The analysis addresses the needs for coherence between the crucial moments of development of corporate governance and the code of best practice. Moreover, it points out potential shortcomings in the process of the code implementation.

The paper is based on the documents prepared by the Warsaw Stock Exchange, companies remarks as well as author's experience of working at the Stock Exchange during the first three months of 2008 code implementation.

The paper refers to the development process of corporate governance and shareholder activism in transition economies. It identifies the existing corporate governance structure as well as main problems analysing conflicts in Polish corporations portraying the shareholders' fight for control over the corporations. The analysis of several selected shareholder conflicts, referring particularly to the fights of dominant and minority shareholders allows to point out main shortcomings of corporate governance in transition economies. The lack of standards for corporate behaviour, the poor legal system characterized by weak enforcement of investor protection rights (law in action), the practically non‐existent shareholder litigation as well as the development stage of the shareholder activism. Finally, the paper attempts to trace the development of shareholder protection and ethical behaviour presenting the process of setting high standards for the corporate activity with the reference to transparency, the treatment of minority shareholders and the managerial accountability as well as the monitoring role of authorities carried out by Polish Securities and Exchange Commission and non‐governmental associations or business initiatives (Polish Institutes of Directors, Polish Institute for Investor Relations).

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between compliance with corporate governance best practice and corporate performance within Poland.

The analysis is based on the regression of corporate governance compliance rating and corporate performance on a sample of Polish public listed companies for years 2004‐2006.

The research indicates that complying with corporate governance best practice in Poland is associated with lower return on investment (the whole sample). However, the tendency changes into negative but statistically insignificant for the second and third years, and positive but statistically insignificant when only rated companies are included in the research sample. The relationship between proxy of Tobin's q and corporate governance rating remains statistically insignificant and is negative for the whole sample and positive for first and third year as well as for rating companies.

The next step of research should include other performance variables (e.g. operating performance) methodological approaches into the analysis (e.g. event study) to test the relation.

Compliance with best practice of corporate governance, particularly in a transition country, may incur substantial costs, particularly during the first years of implementing new standards. Additionally, the main area for corporate performance improvement may be, for these countries, rooted in other aspects such as management or marketing, and not corporate governance.

The paper indicates that implementing corporate governance standards is a complex process in terms of costs, investor activism and companies awareness. Its importance increases along with the development of institutional regime as well as market participants’ skills and experience.