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The study aims to explore how the monitoring and resource provision function of board of directors impact the association between ownership concentration and small- and medium-sized enterprise (SME) initial public offering (IPO) underpricing in the context of an emerging economy like India.

The sample comprises 390 SME IPOs listed on Bombay Stock Exchange SME platform and National Stock Exchange EMERGE (EMERGE is the NSE new initiative for SMEs to raise the funds from investors) in India. To test the moderating impact of the board monitoring role and resource provision role, the study employs hierarchical moderated regression subject to the fulfillment of assumptions.

The findings divulge that ownership concentration significantly reduces underpricing, hinting towards the operationalization of alignment of interest hypothesis. With regards to moderating relationship, the study found that while board resource providing role negatively moderates the relationship between ownership concentration and SME IPO underpricing, board monitoring function fails to cast any significant impact on the relationship between ownership concentration and SME IPO underpricing.

The present study ignores larger firms listed on the main platform which have complex decision-making than smaller firms. Besides, it is confined to only a single country, i.e. India. Extending the study to other countries with similar institutional characteristics would have validated the findings. Furthermore, the moderating impact of other organizational factors like firm age, lifecycle of firm and change in technology would form an interesting avenue for future research.

The findings of the study have practical implications for managers in designing the adequate board structure that significantly reduces underpricing. It thus further advices the issuers on focusing more on strengthening the resource provision role of board of directors for achieving higher rewards. The findings are helpful to policymakers in framing such policies that enhance the resource-oriented role of board of directors and resource accessibility for SMEs. Furthermore, the results advise the investors to be relatively assured about the SMEs whose board exercises its resource provision role emphatically. Accordingly, findings are helpful to investors in making investment decisions in alternative market settings characterized by the concentrated ownership structure.

The study furthers the debate on the importance of two prominent roles played by board as a moderating variable in the underexplored context of IPO underpricing of small and medium-sized firms in India.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the motives for granting additional remuneration to majority managers in Tunisian limited liability companies. The theoretical explanation is based on the tax avoidance hypothesis on the one hand and on the conflict of interests hypothesis on the other hand.

The sample used consists of 48 Tunisian limited liability companies throughout the period ranging from 2015 to 2020. The authors use the panel data with the generalized method of moments (GMM) estimate in first difference.

The results provide evidence of a positive relationship between the accounting performance of the company and the granting of additional remuneration to majority managers, alongside their share in profits. What is more, there is a positive relationship between the change in the company's accounting results and the granting of additional remuneration to majority managers, alongside their share in profits. Likewise, the tax avoidance carried out by the firm is positively and significantly correlated with the granting of additional remuneration to majority managers, alongside their share in profits.

The results may help corporations consider their future growth opportunities. This is in a context where the approach to tax avoidance and conflict of interests occupies a central place in the assessment of the granting of additional remuneration to majority managers, alongside their share in profits.

This article is motivated by the low number of works in the context of granting additional remuneration to majority managers, alongside their share in profits. It makes a substantial contribution to the academic literature through adding to the limited body of research on tax avoidance and conflict of interests in a corporate context.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between political connections, financing decisions and cash holding.

Based on historical data from 181 active non-financial firms listed on Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Stock Exchange Markets during the period of 2009–2016, this study uses ordinary least squares and dynamic system-generalized method of moments to test the research hypotheses. The final data set comprises a total of 1,448 firm-year observations from ten major non-financial industry classifications.

This study finds a positive relationship between political connections and each of internal financing proxied by retained earnings ratio and external financing proxied by short- and long-term debt to total asset. The findings also show a positive relationship between political connections and cash holding.

The findings of the study provide a better understanding of the role of politically connected directors in financing decisions and cash holding in the GCC. Investors can consider the presence of royal family members in the board of directors when making investment decision. Policymakers are encouraged to develop more effective policies that encourage listed firms to provide information on the political positions of the board of directors, managers and major shareholders/owners of companies.

This study contributes to the literature by providing empirical evidence on the relationship between political connections and financing decisions by focusing on the GCC region. This study also highlights that boards in connected firms in the GCC have lower monitoring role owing to political interventions, and that connected firms face higher agency problems as they have weak governance and boards compared with non-connected firms.

This study aims to examine the association between related-party transactions (RPT) and tax avoidance. The study further investigates whether government ownership improves scrutiny of tax aggressiveness activities among Taiwanese group companies.

The authors used 16,061 firm-year observations derived from the Taiwan Economic Journal Database (TEJ) from 2005 to 2021. The authors applied GLS fixed-effect regression. Additional tests, such as a difference-in-difference examination, propensity score matching (PSM) analysis and other tests were performed to obtain more robust results.

The results show different consequences between eliminated and non-eliminated RPT toward tax avoidance. RPT enhances tax benefits aligned with the efficient contracting hypothesis. Under varying degrees of government control, this paper empirically reveals that government ownership has a role in mitigating tax avoidance. This implies that government control improves corporate governance by balancing opportunistic and efficiency-based tax avoidance.

This paper provides substantial practical implications since using the strategy of reducing taxes through RPT will result in greater tax savings at the business group level. Therefore, RPT is beneficial for enhancing business efficiency. Furthermore, government control increases corporate governance quality, which could lead to balancing tax aggressiveness activity.

Using a unique setting for RPT reporting in Taiwan, this paper divides RPT into eliminated and non-eliminated RPT. The findings offer significant insight for policymakers, investors and managers regarding the utilization of RPT to enhance efficiency in business groups. Additionally, this paper highlights the role of government control in preserving a harmonious balance in tax planning practices.

This study explores a novel conception of corporate social responsibility (CSR) hybridity and investigates its effect on returns following CSR announcements and the moderating role of aspirational CSR talk.

Based on an event study of 136 Chinese companies’ CSR announcements, this study empirically insights into an overall tension between the short-term firm performance (FP) loss and medium-term FP success of CSR hybridity.

First, CSR hybridity has a negative impact on short-term FP. Second, although there is positive effect on medium-term FP, this influence is not permanent. Third, aspirational CSR talk has a moderating role on the positive relationship between CSR hybridity and FP. These results point to the unique features of hybridity that require time to diffuse the impacts.

First, by adopting new concept of CSR hybridity, this study contributes to the literature by considering better solutions to integrate strategic CSR. Second, by investigating the complexity of the CSR hybridity–FP dialogue, the results provide insights into the questions of why and when organizations could be incentivized to adopt hybrid CSR approaches. Third, this study contributes to the CSR–FP and stakeholder literature by demonstrating that aspirational talk is key in CSR’s medium-term success. The implication of this is a growing pressure on companies’ CSR communications with investors through managerial talk that depicts organizational ambitions for CSR engagement.

The theoretical basis for the case is information asymmetry and signaling theory, with buybacks providing a mechanism for reducing information asymmetry between management and investors. The controversy surrounding buybacks has led to political and regulatory scrutiny, which, consistent with evidence from academic research, may affect corporate behavior.

The compact case is based on secondary, public information about stock buybacks. All sources used are cited in-text, with full citations included in the references section at the end of the teaching note.

Stock buybacks, a means of providing returns to shareholders, have recently received increased scrutiny by politicians, media and shareholder activists. Proponents have argued that buybacks result in efficient allocation of capital by returning funds to shareholders, whereas opponents have criticized buybacks for enriching executives, providing tax advantages to shareholders and contributing to income inequality. Corporations did not curtail their use of buybacks after the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 imposed an excise tax. The case frames the buyback debate in current events and focuses on the buyback activity of Apple. The case provides students the opportunity to analyze alternative ways that companies can provide returns to shareholders, evaluate impacts of buybacks on corporate stakeholders and appraise the reasons for, and implications of, current controversy regarding buybacks.

This compact case is appropriate for upper-level undergraduate or graduate courses in financial accounting, tax and finance. This case provides an opportunity to analyze and evaluate stock buyback decisions in the context of the current controversy related to buybacks.

This study aims to examine the effects of agency cost on auditor choice. This paper also deals with the moderating role of the board’s financial expertise (Bfe) and the status of the internal control (Intecon) system on the relationship between agency cost and auditor selection.

This study’s sample consists of 1,040 firm-year observations of Iranian nonfinancial companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange from 2012 to 2019. The information required for this research is mainly extracted from Comprehensive Database of All Listed Companies (in Iran Stock Exchange). Data from 130 companies were obtained during the research period. This study used logistic regression to test the hypotheses.

The findings indicate that companies with higher agency costs choose the auditor from lower classes. As the proportion of financial expert members on the board increases, the intensity of this relationship will be reduced. Companies with higher agency costs choose the auditor from the lower classes, but the higher the ratio of financial expert board members, the more these companies will choose high-quality auditors. However, findings showed that the status of the Intecon system has no moderating effect on the relationship between agency costs and auditor selection.

The results of this study can expand the existing literature on the relationship between auditor selection and agency costs and the factors affecting this relationship, especially the Bfe and Intecon. This research has significant suggestions for regulators, stakeholders, shareholders and analysts in emerging economies that may encounter similar contextual implications.

This paper studies the relationship between CEO pay-performance sensitivity and CEO pay for luck as well as the asymmetric benchmarking of CEO pay in which good luck is rewarded but bad luck is not penalized symmetrically. We further explore the impact of the regulatory changes on executive compensation taking effect in the 2000s on CEO pay for luck and asymmetry.

In this study, we examine the relationship between CEO pay-performance sensitivity and CEO pay for luck and the asymmetric benchmarking of CEO compensation. The sample consists of DJIA component companies over a 71-year period from 1950 to 2020. CEO pay-performance sensitivity is measured by both delta and Jensen-Murphy pay-performance sensitivity.

We find that an increase in CEO pay-performance sensitivity as measured by both delta and Jensen-Murphy pay-performance sensitivity leads to an increase in the degree of CEO pay for luck but tends to reduce the level of CEO pay for luck asymmetry. In addition, we find that the major pay-related regulatory changes in recent years have mitigated the degree of CEO pay for luck and pay asymmetry, in which CEO pay structure and the associated CEO pay-performance sensitivity are major mechanisms through which the regulatory changes take effect.

Our findings provide empirical evidence supporting the argument that both optimal contracting and rent extraction should be considered as important determinants of CEO compensation.

When a firm designs the pay packages for its CEO to align CEO wealth to firm performance, CEO pay-performance sensitivity is expected to improve. However, the improved CEO PPS can also lead to an increased CEO pay for non-performance (Luck), which is an undesired outcome from the shareholder view. Therefore, a firm should thoroughly consider various advantages and disadvantages when compensating its top executives. Third, pay-related regulations have indeed achieved some intended outcomes such as the diminished pay for luck and asymmetry, but they also exacerbated the positive relationship between CEO pay-performance sensitivity and the asymmetric benchmarking of CEO pay. It seems that executive pay-related regulations cannot achieve perfect outcomes without side effects. Continuous reforms and regulations on corporate governance should be a dynamic process under various changing situations.

This study contributes to the literature on executive pay for luck and asymmetry in several ways. First, our study is among the few studies empirically testing the relationship between CEO pay-performance sensitivity and pay for luck and asymmetry. We find that CEO pay-performance sensitivity tends to increase the degree of CEO pay for luck but reduce the level of asymmetric benchmarking of CEO pay. These findings partly support the rent extraction theory grounded on the managerial power hypothesis and partly support the optimal contracting theory. Our findings confirm that the optimal contracting theory and the rent extraction theory are both important for explaining the practices and historical trends of CEO compensation.

Press reports have indicated that firms frequently underprice restricted stock and employee stock options. I test for underpricing of stock and options.

I examined a sample of 5,333 private firm stock and option issuances between 1985 and 2017. I tested for underpricing using two approaches: assuming investors have no special market-timing ability and assuming instead they have perfect market-timing ability.

I find evidence of widespread stock and option underpricing by private firms before they go public reflecting large discounts that exceed reasonable compensation for lack of marketability. Unreported underpricing is more frequent in the last pre-IPO private equity transactions that offer the last opportunity to give such discounts before the stock is publicly traded, but the discounts are greater in the earlier pre-IPO transactions where unreported discounts are presumably tougher for the SEC to detect. Underpricing is still detected even when the actual DLOMs are tested against a benchmark that assumes investors have perfect market-timing ability.

Firms frequently underprice restricted stock and employee stock options. Firms tend to underprice stock options more frequently than restricted stock, but restricted stock tends to be priced at deeper discounts when recipients are assumed not to have any special market-timing ability.

Private firms issue restricted stock and options as incentive compensation. Lowballing the valuation transfers wealth from outside stockholders to employees/insiders. Wealth transfers take place through the issuance of equity claims to employees/insiders before firms go public. I found that more than a quarter of the DLOMs exceed the theoretical maximum by, on average, between 16% (median) and 20% (mean). This finding raises two questions worthy of investigation. First, to what extent do the frequency and magnitude of DLOMs above the theoretical maximum depend on whether a board of directors obtains an independent appraisal of a stock’s fair market value? Second, if DLOMs above the theoretical maximum are observed even when the stock is independently appraised, how do appraisers justify such large DLOMs?

The wealth transfers that take place through the issuance of equity claims to employees/insiders before firms go public benefit employees/insiders at the expense of outside shareholders.

My paper is the first to furnish evidence of widespread stock and option underpricing by private firms before they go public; demonstrate that the unreported underpricing is more frequent in the last pre-IPO private equity transactions that offer the last opportunity to give such discounts before the stock is publicly traded and show that the discounts are greater in the earlier pre-IPO transactions where unreported discounts are presumably tougher for the SEC to detect.

The purpose of this study was to leverage agency theory to examine the impact of board attributes on cash flow management in Ghana’s financial institutions.

Data for the study was collected from the annual published financial statements of selected financial institutions, which were obtained from their respective websites. The sampling technique used was purposive, resulting in the selection of 15 financial institutions in Ghana, of which 10 were listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange and 5 were non-listed. The study covered a period of 10 years, ranging from 2011 to 2020. The two-step generalized method of moments estimation was used to determine the relationship between the board attributes and cash flow management.

The study found that board size had a positive and significant influence on net cash flow from operating, investing and financing activities. The study also discovered that the proportion of nonexecutive directors had a positive and significant influence on net cash flow from operating, investing and financing activities. In addition, it was revealed that the proportion of female directors on the board exhibited a positive and significant influence on net cash flow from operating activities but a negative and significant influence on net cash flow from investing and financing activities.

The study recommends increasing female representation on corporate boards to 25%, as women bring valuable skills, knowledge and experience that positively impact the financial institutions’ cash flows.

This study focused on the impact of board attributes on cash flow management within Ghana. It explored how corporate governance affects strategic decisions related to cash flow management, contributing original insights to this field of research.