Meta Auditing

VERY IMPORTANT
This book is a heartfelt tribute to my great friends, professors, and lifelong mentors: Robert C. Clark, Martha Minow, Richard A. Epstein, Guido Calabresi, Thomas Sargent, Lawrence Lau, Thomas C. Südhof, Harold E. Varmus, Edvard Moser, Ariel Furstenberg, Carlos Zambrano Encalada, Santos Vera Sandoval, Román Faustino Fernández Adriano, Federico Fernández Adriano, Robert Langer, Enrique Verástegui Peláez, Luis Alberto Pinchi Fasanando, Joachim Frank, Luis Amparo Grimaldo Zapata, Óscar Santamaría Barreto, and Víctor Raúl Yactayo Castillo; as well as Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Sonia Winer, Roger Petersen, Janet Yellen, Ricardo Gelpi, Alberto Barbieri, Dennis Thompson, Sally Kornbluth, Ítala Andrea Preguntegui Garrafa, Magda Portal, Dalia Elizabeth Zurita Espinoza, Jhanela Brigite Aguirre Obando, Josefina Miró Quesada Gayoso, Daniel Chapán, Daniel Elía, Miguel Aguilar, Teresa Zamudio Ojeda, Richard Lovera Herrera, Martín Isla, César Chambergo Rojas, Jesús Rojas, Ángel Atuncar Gutiérrez, Leandro Vergara, Ana Arias, Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, José Carlos Mariátegui La Chira, Luis Alberto Félix Sánchez Sánchez, Bernardo Houssay, César Milstein, Luis Federico Leloir, Tomás Várnagy, and Francisco Miró Quesada Cantuarias.
It also pays homage to the brilliant and inspiring educators of youth and distinguished legal scholars Miguel Ángel Ciuro Caldani and Martha Minow.
Above all, it is dedicated to Jesus Christ and Almighty God, Hashem, to whom I will always give thanks for His blessings and protection in difficult times.
Shalom!
Respectfully,
Luis David Fernández Zambrano
חשוב מאוד
ספר זה הוא מחווה מכל הלב לחבריי הגדולים, לפרופסורים ולמורים שלי לחיים: רוברט סי. קלארק, מרת'ה מינאו, ריצ'רד א. אפשטיין, גוידו קלברזי, תומאס סרג'נט, לורנס לאו, תומאס סי. זודהוף, הרולד א. ורמוס, אדווארד מוסר, אריאל פורסטנברג, קרלוס סמבראנו אנקלדה, סנטוס ורה סנדובל, רומן פאוסטינו פרננדס אדריאנו, פדריקו פרננדס אדריאנו, רוברט לנגר, אנריקה ורסטגי פלאס, לואיס אלברטו פינצ'י פסאננדו, יואכים פרנק, לואיס אמפרו גרימלדו ספאטה, אוסקר סנטמריה בארטו, וויקטור ראול יקטאיו קסטיו; וכן לאדולפו פרס אסקיבל, סוניה וינר, רוג'ר פטרסן, ג'נט ילן, ריקרדו ג'לפיי, אלברטו ברבירי, דניס תומפסון, סאלי קורנבלות, איטלה אנדראה פרגונטגי גארפה, מגדה פורטל, דליה אליזבת סוריטה אספינוזה, חנלה בריגיטה אגירה אובנדו, חוספינה מירו קסאדה גיוסו, דניאל צ'פן, דניאל אליה, מיגל אגילאר, תרזה זמודיו אוחדה, ריצ'רד לוברה הררה, מרטין איסלה, ססאר צ'מברגו רוחאס, חסוס רוחאס, אנחל אטונקר גוטיירז, לאנדרו ורגרה, אנה אריאס, ויקטור ראול היה דה לה טורה, חוסה קרלוס מריאטגי לה צ'ירה, לואיס אלברטו פליקס סאנצ'ס סאנצ'ס, ברנרדו הוסיי, ססאר מילשטיין, לואיס פדריקו ללויר, תומאס וארנאגי, ופרנסיסקו מירו קסאדה קנטואריאס.
הספר גם משבח את המחנכים המבריקים והמעניקים השראה לדור הצעיר ואת המשפטנים הדגולים מיגל אנחל סיורות קלדאני ומרת'ה מינאו.
ומעל לכל, הוא מוקדש לישוע המשיח ולאלוהים הכול יכול, השם, אשר אליו אודה תמיד על ברכותיו ועל הגנתו בזמנים קשים.
שלום!
בכבוד רב,
לואיס דוד פרננדס סמבראנו

Differences in employee overall job satisfaction between public and private sector organizations have long been a topic of organizational academic debate. This study looks at the differences and the relationships between organizational characteristics and employee overall satisfaction between the State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) and the Non-State-Owned Enterprises (Non-SOEs) in Vietnam. The purpose of this study is threefold: 1) to examine the differences in organizational characteristics in 7 components including purposes, structure, leadership, relationships, rewards, helpful mechanisms, and attitude toward change; 2) to examine the differences in employee overall satisfaction; and 3) to explore the relationship between organizational characteristics and employee overall satisfaction between the two sectors. The sample includes 20 SOEs and 20 Non-SOEs with a total of 860 employees. The findings empirically reinforce existing organization behavior literature: employee satisfaction is to some extent shaped by the settings of their organizations. Limitations and future research opportunities are also identified.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in Russia has undergone fundamental political and structural changes. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which Russian firms use Western management accounting and control systems (MACS) at two different points of time to see the possible diffusion of Western MACS. In contrast to focusing on the diffusion of specific MACS techniques (e.g. Innes and Mitchell 1995, Malmi 1999), Russia as a European market economy with enormous potential provides a unique setting for studying the diffusion of the whole range of Western MACS in transitional circumstances. In addition, our study contributes to very limited or even non-existent literature on management accounting in Russia. Our results are based on two questionnaires to samples of 100 Russian firms conducted at the interval of two years. The results show that the use of MACS is not as widespread in Russia as it is in other Western countries, but that especially the use of formal controls such...

This study focused on proprietors and business development managers of the 367 tour companies in Kenya members of Kenya Association of Tour Operators (KATO). The sample size was 256 proprietors and business development managers who were selected randomly from the population. To collect primary data a semi-structured questionnaire with both close-ended and open-ended questions was used. A pre-test was conducted to increase the reliability and validity of the data collection tool. The data collected was then analyzed using descriptive statistics. The researcher further employed a multivariate regression model to study the relationship between entrepreneurial management and growth of small and medium tour companies in Kenya. The study established that entrepreneurial management influences growth of business in the tour companies to a great extent. The study has also illustrated that resource gap identification, opportunity commitment, and social capital development and growth orientati...

This doctoral thesis focuses on the relationship between the owners and managers as well as the associated governance mechanisms within the context of limited companies. The key interest here concerns the differences between various types of owners: public sector entities, such as the state or a municipality, differ from private sector owners in terms of their characteristics and preferences. Questions regarding public sector ownership were again highly topical in Finland during fall 2019, when disputes concerning collective bargaining in the state-owned mail company Posti Oyj eventually led to the resigning of the Finnish Government. This was not the first time that the challenges and tensions related to the governance of state-owned companies were discussed in the public sphere: other recent examples have related to, for instance, Arctia Shipping, which operates Finnish icebreakers, and Finavia, which governs and operates airports in Finland. It is hence evident that public ownership includes challenging questions that require further investigation. This doctoral thesis aims at enhancing our understanding of the questions related to ownership and governance of limited companies. The main aim is to explore how publicly and privately owned limited companies differ when examined from the perspectives of ownership steering, corporate governance as well as other types of oversight. The research setting in this doctoral thesis is based on the classical agency theory, which describes the problematic relationship between the agent and the principal, caused by information asymmetry between the parties. The aim of ownership steering, corporate governance and other types of oversight is to ensure that the management of the organization, i.e. the agent, operates according to the interests of the owner, i.e. the principal. At the same time, it is important to acknowledge that all the key actors within any organizational governance, that is, the chief operating officer (CEO), the board and the owner, need to follow the stipulations set in the relevant regulation concerning limited companies. In the Finnish context this implies for instance that the owners have no right to intervene in the day-today management of the company, as this task belongs solely to the CEO and the board. The results presented here show that good corporate governance mechanisms often depend on the context and that they may differ according to the main owner x Steering and Monitoring Model of State-Owned Enterprises

─ Abstract─ The studies on ownership structure provides us with several testable hypothesis as well as empirical evidence from different countries. The study describes the main characteristics of ownership identities of the Turkish manufacturing companies listed on the Istanbul Stock Exchange (ISE) and examines the impact of ownership identity on performance. The identity of the owners has implications for their objectives and the way exercise their power, and this is reflected in company strategy.

In a number of States, new legal " benefit " or " purpose " corporate forms are introduced to promote stakeholder-oriented companies. If it is too early to know empirically if this legal framework will work, we can build upon what we know on corporate governance to predict whether it is likely to work or not. In this paper, we present a mapping of the theories on corporate governance and derive some tentative predictions for purpose-driven corporations. We find that theories make diverging predictions, and in a paradoxical way: agency theory is seen as a shareholder-oriented theory, but it supports the new legal forms while stakeholder theory does not. This reordering of the field reveals that theories may overlook the possibility of a legal change. Our work thus contributes to suggest an empirical test of the theories with the purpose-driven companies, but it also opens further avenues to reappraise the theories of corporate governance.

The party politics of the reformation in Finnish regional administration in the 1990's The large administrative reform in Finland began in the late of 1980's. The next decade was a special period in the whole history of Finnish administration because of big changes. The needs for this large reformation were a result from changes in domestic and foreign conditions of operation during the 1980's and the 1990's. These needs were directed also to the Finnish regional administration system. This article deals with party political aspects of the reformation in Finnish regional administration in the 1990's. It has been said that before the 1990's the reform politics was too much related to desires of political parties. In the last decade needs to reorganize

We examine how board leadership influences the frequency of supervisory board meetings, and how meeting frequency, in turn, affects firm performance. Utilizing a 10-year longitudinal dataset of German and Indonesian listed firms, we find that CEOs in both countries are more likely to foster lower board meeting frequency. However, in Germany, chairmen and female independent directors are more likely to promote higher board meeting frequency, while in Indonesia, affiliated directors and female independent directors have no significant influence. More frequent board meetings lead to better firm performance in Indonesia but not in Germany.

Prior studies have provided some inconclusive findings regarding the effect of independent directors (INEDs) on firm performance. Drawing insights from the theories of resource dependence (RD), human capital (HC), and social capital (SC), this research argues that the mere presence of INEDs (motivation) is insufficient but rather the appointed INEDs need to have sufficient HC and SC (ability) in the forms of knowledge, expertise, and connection to effectively perform their roles. This study extends prior research by investigating the effects of INEDs’ financial knowledge (as indicator of INEDs’ HC) and INEDs’ external directorship (as indicator of INEDs’ external SC) on firm performance. A total of 300 non-financial firms listed on Bursa Malaysia in the year 2013 were selected using stratified random sampling method. Results indicated that INEDs’ financial knowledge does not have any relationship with firm performance. In contrast, an inverted U-shaped relationship between INEDs’ ex...

This course focuses on the design and implementation of innovative corporate and businesses unit strategies that create sustainable competitive advantage in increasingly uncertain and complex environments. Participants will learn how shareholders (owners) and stakeholders (others with interest) can ensure that managers develop and implement strategic decisions in the best interests of the shareholders (owners) and not be primarily self-serving (working for the best interests of managers only, to the detriment of stakeholders).

This research paper explores the corporate ethical issues surrounding the Murdoch's Phone Hacking Scandal, which involved the British tabloid newspaper, News of the World, and its parent company, News Corporation (now known as 21st Century Fox). The scandal, which emerged in 2011, exposed illegal phone hacking practices used by the newspaper to obtain sensitive information about public figures, celebrities, and crime victims. This case study examines the ethical dimensions of the scandal, the role of key stakeholders, and the consequential influence on the media industry and News Corporation's reputation. The paper also analyzes the responses and measures taken by the company to address the ethical breach and restore public trust.

According to the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA), 70% of accidents on board were caused by human error, and almost one-fifth of these accidents have been related to inadequate supervision. Therefore, the aim of this study is to investigate which of the safety factors can influence the quality of safety supervision. For this purpose, a questionnaire with 24 statements was distributed to professional seafarers. Two exploratory factor analyses were conducted to identify the underlying factor structure. The first analysis yielded one factor, quality of safety supervision, and the second analysis yielded four factors, namely: safety communication, safety training, safety compliance, and safety rules and procedures. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was applied to examine the influence of seafarers’ demographic characteristics and the four identified factors on the quality of safety supervision. The results revealed the following two statistically significant predictors of ...

This article examines organizational integrity and moral climates in business. It argues that an organization with integrity has several characteristics that distinguish it from individual integrity and that some central characteristics of individual integrity are less important for organizational integrity. It identifies the norms and values that contribute to a moral climate and considers the role of incentives as they support or inhibit organizational integrity. It also evaluates whether for-profit organizations can still have organizational integrity and remain profitable.

Suomen pankkihistoria on tunnetusti värikästä. Pankkeja on syntynyt, kaatunut ja yhdistynyt toisiinsa. Eräs varhainen draama, joka oli omassa lajissaan ensimmäinen, koettiin jo 1910-luvulla. Silloin tapahtui Helsingin Osakepankin nurkanvaltaus. Vastikään julkisuuteen tulleet ruotsalaiset arkistolähteet valottavat sitä uudesta näkökulmasta. Wallenbergien HOP-operaatioiden avaintekijöitä olivat Skandinaviska Enskilda Bankin (SEB) toimitusjohtaja Marcus Wallenberg vanhempi ja varatoimitusjohtaja Joseph Nachmanson.

In the light of corporate financial scandals, there is an ever increasing attention on corporate governance issues. As the investors look for emerging economies to diversify their investment portfolios to maximize returns, they are equally concerned about governance factors to minimize risks in these economies. The Government of Nigeria and other stakeholders have therefore directed their effort in enhancing Corporate Governance in various organizations. This became the motivation of this study, which is focused on examining the relationship between Corporate Governance and Financial Performance of multipurpose Cooperative Societies in Lagos State Nigeria. A cross sectional research design was used for the research study, with the aid of secondary data. The purposive sampling techniques were adopted for the study. Two (2) multipurpose Cooperative Societies were selected based on the availability of their financial statements. The data obtained were analyzed using the STATA software. From the analyses, it was established that, Corporate Governance has no significant effect on the financial performance of these multipurpose Cooperative Societies. However, it impacted positively on diligence of procedures, records kept and conduct of daily business. The researcher however opined that the radical improvement noticed in the level of governance and financial ethics introduced by the various regulatory authorities should be maintained at all levels of stewardship in organizations.

Dynamic changes in operations and technology has influenced tremendous developments and changes within the maritime and shipping industry. As a global industry a number of measures have been put in place to realise consistency and uniformity in training of seafarers for shipboard operations. However, challenges have arisen in mobility and transitions of seafarers across the industry notably the challenges faced by seafarers post seagoing careers. The dissertation presents a critical analysis of the phenomenon through a descriptive and analytical methodology to ascertain the gaps in seafarers training which need to be addressed to enhance suitability of seafarers for onshore jobs. This is approached through a specific case of the Kenyan seafarer. In addressing the phenomenon, the dissertation shall present a proposed framework for programme specifications and reference standards for both Technical and academic training to ensure harmonious transition from technical training to academic training for the seafarers.

As the major shareholder, Malaysian Government in 2004 has embarked on the Government linked Companies (GLCs) transformation policy program that mainly emphasizes on enhancing the corporate governance mechanisms of the State owned Enterprises (SOEs) in order to enhance effectiveness of the board. The paper aims to examine the impact of corporate governance mechanisms as embedded in the transformation program on the practice of earnings management. In particular, the study uses data for two periods of time (pre and post transformation), and examine whether the period of post transformation policy has experienced any improvement of board monitoring role in curbing earnings management activities. The main findings show that there is an increase of earnings management activities in post transformation period. Further, the findings revealed that all corporate governance mechanisms have little impact to curb earnings management activities except for board meetings and leadership structure in the post transformation period. The board meetings and separate role of two top positions in the companies were shown to have negative impact on earnings management post transformation policy and that relationship do not hold for the period pre transformation policy. Although the study has shown positive preliminary impact of tightening corporate governance in GLCs, scope to expand the research was also discussed.

The presence of board members with good governance attributes is value-relevant since it influences investors’ investment decisions. The value relevance is expected to improve with the newly introduced extended audit report to disclose key audit matters (KAMs). KAM disclosure provides information about issues faced by external auditors in the auditing of a company’s financial statement. Since the disclosure of KAM involves discussion and negotiation between the board and external auditor, it gives an indication that board value relevance can be affected by KAM disclosure. Using 931 firm-year observations from firms listed on the Bursa Malaysia between 2016 and 2019, this study re-examined the value relevance of the board and whether such value relevance improves with the disclosure of KAMs. The findings indicated that some board attributes influenced investors’ reactions negatively. The disclosure of KAM served as both an indirect mediator and a complementary mediator to increase th...

, was not a good day for financial markets, yet it was an interesting one for corporate governance. A few days earlier, the U.S. Treasury had taken over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, after American Insurance Group (AIG) had already requested financial support from the U.S. government to keep it solvent. 1 In the early afternoon of September 14, Lehman Brothers, until then a highly profitable investment bank and one of Wall Street's most venerable brands, filed for bankruptcy. Lehman's collapse-which many consider to be a major trigger of the Great Recession-came after earlier on in the day, a Treasury official had indicated that the government would not support Lehman financially. 2 During the 2009 World Economic Forum in Davos, an intriguing question was raised: Would we be in this mess today if it had been Lehman Sisters-that is, if women had been at the helm? 3 Meanwhile, on the same day, Bank of America announced its impending purchase of Merrill Lynch, another financial powerhouse that was now essentially bankrupt as well. New information, however, indicated that Merrill Lynch could have even bigger losses, leading to the bank contemplating calling off the deal. Ken Lewis, Bank of America's CEO, had become so concerned that he went to DC in December to meet with Ben Bernanke, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and James Paulson, then-Treasury Secretary, for guidance. Both of them, Lewis said, were "firmly of the view that terminating or delaying the closing. .. could result in serious systemic harm." 4 Bank of America ended up buying Merrill Lynch but without full disclosure to its shareholders about its condition. Larry Ribstein, among others, wondered whether that omission-which may also be a breach of basic fiduciary duties-could be justified due to a "national interest" that may supersede shareholders' best interests and right to full disclosure. 5

As the major shareholder, Malaysian Government in 2004 has embarked on the Government linked Companies (GLCs) transformation policy program that mainly emphasizes on enhancing the corporate governance mechanisms of the State owned Enterprises (SOEs) in order to enhance effectiveness of the board. The paper aims to examine the impact of corporate governance mechanisms as embedded in the transformation program on the practice of earnings management. In particular, the study uses data for two periods of time (pre and post transformation), and examine whether the period of post transformation policy has experienced any improvement of board monitoring role in curbing earnings management activities. The main findings show that there is an increase of earnings management activities in post transformation period. Further, the findings revealed that all corporate governance mechanisms have little impact to curb earnings management activities except for board meetings and leadership structure in the post transformation period. The board meetings and separate role of two top positions in the companies were shown to have negative impact on earnings management post transformation policy and that relationship do not hold for the period pre transformation policy. Although the study has shown positive preliminary impact of tightening corporate governance in GLCs, scope to expand the research was also discussed.

This paper provides a discussion of endogeneity as it relates to finance and accounting research. We discuss the textbook solutions: two-stage least squares, instrumental variables, differenced generalized method of moments (GMM) and system GMM and provide a unifying framework showing how they are related. We consider the limitations of these techniques and then detail a state-of-the-art solution, utilizing a natural experiment as a way of mitigating endogeneity and building stronger theory.

We describe how the mix of an actor's moral sentiment, and other rational factors and non-rational behavioral biases impact the decision making process as to whether to invest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) or not. We take into account three aspects of CSR investment that the decision maker weighs up rationally: (i) moral sentiment; (ii) exposure to risk and risk management; (iii) changes that would be required in corporate structure or production processes; and (iv) long term versus short term considerations. These aspects are moderated by four non-rational behavioral biases that different actors may hold to differing extents, namely: attitude to risk, statusquo bias, subjective discounting, and myopic loss aversion. This study is descriptive and theoretical in nature and draws together knowledge from various fields, such as ethics, strategy, behavioral investing, and investing in CSR.

The aim of this study is to examine the impact of board characteristics and firm performance. Specifically we test the effects of board meeting, board independence, board size and directors accounting expertise on firm accounting performance. The paper uses both financial and non-financial data from annual reports of the 700 public listed firms in Malaysia for the year 2009. The result shows that board independence does not affect firm performance, whilst board size and board accounting/financial expertise are positively associated with firm performance. Board diligence in terms of board meetings is found to have an adverse effect on firm performance. These findings provide some implication for future research on the effectiveness of board directors on firm performance.

This study focused on proprietors and business development managers of the 367 tour companies in Kenya members of Kenya Association of Tour Operators (KATO). The sample size was 256 proprietors and business development managers who were selected randomly from the population. To collect primary data a semi-structured questionnaire with both close-ended and open-ended questions was used. A pre-test was conducted to increase the reliability and validity of the data collection tool. The data collected was then analyzed using descriptive statistics. The researcher further employed a multivariate regression model to study the relationship between entrepreneurial management and growth of small and medium tour companies in Kenya. The study established that entrepreneurial management influences growth of business in the tour companies to a great extent. The study has also illustrated that resource gap identification, opportunity commitment, and social capital development and growth orientation influences growth of business of the small and medium tour companies in Kenya to a great extent. The study recommends that firms should in place mechanism to seek to establish slack in performance as a result of resources inadequacies, seizes any promising business opportunity, develop social capital to ensure business growth and continuity, and effect changes in the management systems employed in search of growth.

A shareholder theory of firm and a stakeholder theory of firm may differ in their respective evaluation method of firm performance. Both theories however recognize the importance of value creation as the economic role of firms as institutions. The New Institutional Economics (NIE) emphasizes incentives alignment, while also viewing stakeholder engagements as methods to expand the boundaries of firms. The difference in performance evaluation between the two approaches can be reduced if stakeholders, while formulating incentive alignment, also evaluate the mechanisms of establishing a common currency value. The concomitant development of stakeholder engagement, incentive alignment, and value currency creation is argued to be an evolutionary process with the efficiency implications of the two theories tending to converge.

The paper aims to examine the impact of the relationship between the elements of corporate governance and environmental reporting of public listed companies in Malaysia. This study adopts a cross sectional analysis by examining the 2010 annual reports of 254 public listed companies and using content analysis as the method to measure the extent of environmental reporting and compared with various corporate governance measures. Regression analysis was used to examine the relationship between Corporate Environmental Reporting (CER) and independent variables of Corporate Governance (CG) namely independent non-executive directors, audit committee composition, female director, duality, managerial and government ownership. Analysis found a significant relationship between the extents of environmental reporting with government ownership. In contrast, the extent of CER is insignificant with relation of independent non-executive directors, audit committee composition, female director, duality...

Noin 30 vuotta sitten eduskunnassa tapahtui kummia. Tutkijavetoisen kansalaisverkoston tukemana, yksittäisen kansanedustajan aloitteesta ja vastoin perustuslakivaliokunnan (PeV) toiveita-täysin poikkeuksellisella tavalla siis-synnytettiin uusi ja uudenlainen valiokunta. Vaikka sen omaksumat tehtävät ja toimintatavat eivät lainkaan muistuttaneet perinteistä valiokuntatoimintaa ja herättivät epäilyä, valiokunta alkoi herättää huomattavaa kansainvälistä huomiota ja muodostui ajan myötä jopa eräänlaiseksi eduskunnan käyntikortiksi.

The goals of this dissertation are to examine the existing philosophical literature on group agency and collective responsibility and to demonstrate that this literature fails to sufficiently address the hierarchical organization of corporations, thereby severely limiting the applicability of this literature to real-world business situations. Where references to corporate hierarchy are made in the group agency and collective responsibility literature, they are incidental and descriptive only. This is in contrast to general business literature, business ethics literature, and organizational theory literature, which each highlight the importance of corporate hierarchy from their respective points of view. In this dissertation, the concept of the hierarchical organization of corporations is carefully examined to show how it identifies 1) the roles and tasks required to meet corporate objectives and 2) the relationships, both simple and complex, that are created between and among the roles specified in the corporate hierarchy. By integrating this understanding of corporate hierarchy into the philosophy of group agency and collective responsibility that are articulated in the existing literature, an account of corporate group agency and collective responsibility is produced that better describes and explains the operation of group agents by providing concrete ways to describe how they form corporate intent, make corporate decisions and carry out corporate action. Furthermore, explanations of group agency that integrate the concept of corporate hierarchy provide a ix clear way to articulate claims of individual responsibility in the setting of corporate collective responsibility. From this account of group agency, improvements to business ethics are also recommended. These improvements come from viewing corporations as hierarchically organized group agents and integrating organizational ethical principles into existing business ethics. In addition, the relationships created in hierarchically organized group agents entail ethical responsibilities for the individuals who are part of a corporate group agent, both leaders and those who carry out leaders' decisions; and ultimately, it is the fulfillment of the responsibilities on each side of this hierarchically defined set of relationships that leads to an optimally functioning corporate hierarchy, and correspondingly, a fully functioning group agent. The implications of this work on corporations for other types of group agents are also explored, leading to the prospect of a clearer articulation of obligations and responsibilities in these groups, through the integration of a concept of organizational structure (of which corporate hierarchy is one clear example) in the study of these group agents. And finally, a new question is posed and briefly examined: is some kind of organizational structure one of the necessary or sufficient conditions of group agency?

and the others for their contributions in making this research a success. Finally, my sincere thanks goes to my family, friends and the Class of 2016, especially the Shipping Management and Logistics class for their advice, love and support as well as making my stay at the Henrik Smith Residence an enjoyable one.

This paper discusses and explores three situations under asymmetric information. First, companies with a higher level of corporate governance provisions compensate the owner-manager with a higher managerial reward for information disclosed. Second, there are significant and positive relationships between information disclosed and corporate governance provisions, as well as between company value and corporate governance provisions. The higher proportion of a firm held by the largest owner(s) has negative impacts on information disclosed and shareholder rights as outside investors underestimate the companies' performance caused by insufficient effort of the owner-manager or by other factors. Third, audits improve moral hazard when outside investors are informed of bad company performance by underestimating the stock price.

In many countries, most of the government relies heavily on tax revenue to finance the government expenditures. In Malaysia, 78.8% of the source of revenue is from tax revenue and mainly contributed by the corporate income tax. The past literature has documented that good corporate governance could increase the firm's performances as well as tax compliance. Malaysia has published its own code of corporate governance in March 2000 and was revised in 2007, 2011 and 2012. Recently, in April 2016, the Security Commission released the recommended MCCG 2016. Thus, judging from the importance of maintaining tax collection, this paper aims to examine the importance of corporate governance in ensuring tax compliance among public listed companies in Malaysia. This study finds that corporate governance does influence tax compliance and multiple directorships is the most significant in influencing tax compliance.

The purpose of this study is to determine whether board independence and ownership have any influence on the decision on CSR disclosure. This study uses the proportion of pages in an annual report and a CSR disclosure checklist to measure the extent and quality of a firm's CSR disclosure. Multiple regression and logistic regression analysis are employed to test the hypotheses. The paper finds that boards of family owned firms are negatively associated with the level and the quality of CSR disclosure. The fact that board independence is not significant on CSR disclosure could be due to the fact that CSR initiatives are strategic in nature. Finally, firm's size, performance and leverage are found to have significant effects on CSR. This study was conducted among Malaysian top 100. The generalizability of the findings of this study is, thus, limited to Malaysian large firms. One of the major findings of this study is the ineffectiveness of the board of directors in ensuring firms discharge its social responsibility. Relevant authorities may need to come up with measures to ensure independent directors are effective. The study adds to the understanding of how ownership structure plays an influential role as oppose to independent board of directors on CSR disclosure in Malaysia.

An increase in the complexity of systems onboard ships in the last decade has seen a rise in the number of reported maritime cyber-attacks. To tackle this rising risk the International Maritime Organization published high-level requirements for cyber risk management in 2017. These requirements obligate organisations to establish procedures, like incident response plans, to manage cyber-incidents. However, there is currently no standardised framework for this implementation. This paper proposes a Cyber Emergency Response Procedure (CERP), that provides a framework for organisations to better facilitate their crew's response to a cyber-incident that is considerate of their operational environment. Based on an operations flowchart, the CERP provides a step-by-step procedure that guides a crew's decision-making process in the face of a cyber-incident. This high-level framework provides a blueprint for organisations to develop their own cyber-incident response procedures that are considerate of operational constraints, existing incident procedures and the complexity of modern maritime systems.

This paper examines the effect of internal corporate governance mechanisms on intellectual capital disclosure. Using data of 27 non-financial listed Tunisian firms, the current study provides evidence in support of the nonlinear relationship between corporate governance and Intellectual capital disclosure. The empirical results show that the structure and the way the board of directors' functions are systematically significant factors determining intangible capital disclosure. The empirical tests indicate that managers, majority shareholders as well as institutional shareholders have a significant effect on the informative transparency of intangible capital. These results seem to corroborate the view that an increase in corporate governance mechanisms has a positive effect on voluntary disclosure. Furthermore, tests of the nonlinear hypothesis show that an increase in the number of board members up to nine, and an increase in the number of majority shareholders up to 67% have a beneficial effect on intangible disclosure. However, as these variables increase beyond a turning point, the effect inverts and cuts off the improvement of voluntary disclosure of intangibles.

This paper deals with the moral hazard problem associated with the behavior of corporate managers. The stockholders (shareholders) cannot control ex ante the managers, because the latter's action is unobservable to the former, and the stockholders cannot oblige the managers to choose an action which is effective and benefit both parties. The stockholders may not modify the impact of action taken by managers if and only if they decide to condition the action payment to the final observable income. In the specific context of emerging markets listed companies in where the level of opacity and the inefficiency to monitor are very high, the revelation principle does not play correctly. Therefore, it is not interesting to the Agent to show his true type. In this Paper we will specifically deal with this type of problem within the framework of companies listed in the Casablanca Stock Exchange. Our approach consists to show the moral hazard issue existing between two parties: the stockholders (i.e., uninformed "Principal") and the manager namely the Chief Executive Officer (i.e., informed "Agent").

The books selected for review address improving corporate performance through better strategic planning and improved corporate governance. Kim and Mauborgne provide corporate leaders with a process to identify, create, and capitalize on expanded, uncontested markets. Green's new book is an insightful and comprehensive examination of corporate directorship in the post-Sarbanes-Oxley world.

All organizations confront the possibility of scandal; however, the reputational threat caused by scandal is exacerbated when these events are not properly addressed. Since scandals also have the potential to adversely affect organizational personnel, dilemmas arise regarding traditional ideas of employee agency. In this study, we conduct an experiment manipulating the severity of the reputational threat and its financial consequences for decision-makers, using actual corporate officers and internal auditors. One key question is this: “Are corporate decision-makers’ responses to potential scandals affected by whether they, as incentivized individuals (via stock options), have “skin in the game?” Findings indicate that corporate personnel believe corporations should respond aggressively to scandals having potential reputational consequences; however, they prefer not to proactively respond to reputational threats when expected personal gains are likely to be jeopardized. Internal audi...

How to Manage Corporate Reputation? The Effect of Enterprise Risk Management Systems and Audit Committees on Corporate Reputation Research on corporate reputation has generally argued that reputational risk, or risk of reputation loss, stems from all company risks. As companies use enterprise risk management (ERM) systems to manage all their risks, we analyse the effect of ERM system quality on corporate reputation. Furthermore, as audit committees are in charge of supervising ERM systems, we analyse the effect of audit committee characteristics (i.e. independence and independent members' knowledge and diligence) on corporate reputation through their effect on ERM system quality. Our results for a sample of listed Spanish firms support consultants' arguments that ERM system is a useful tool for managing corporate reputation. Our results also show that audit committee independence improves corporate reputation through the ERM system. Finally, our findings also reveal a positive relationship between the average educational level of independent directors of the audit committee and ERM system quality. These results provide evidence that ERM systems are platforms to manage corporate reputations and suggest the importance of the audit committee as a supervisor of ERM system and as guarantor of corporate reputation.

Lukuisat anekdootit muistuttavat siitä, että talouspolitiikka ei aina perustu (taloudellisesti) rationaaliseen harkintaan. kustaa ii adolfin valtakunnankansleri axel oxenstierna kirjoitti 30-vuotisen sodan aikana saksasta pojalleen kuuluisaksi tulleen lauseen: ”Oi poikani, jos tietäisit, kuinka vähällä järjellä maailmaa hallitaan”. Poliittisten näkökohtien ensisijaisuuteen viittaa Luxemburgin pääministerin jeanClaude junckerin tunnettu tokaisu: ”Tiedämme mitä pitäisi tehdä, mutta emme tiedä, miten tulisimme uudelleen valituiksi jos teemme sen”. oppimisprosessin hitaudesta kertoo vuorostaan john maynard keynesin toteamus, jonka mukaan: ”Tapahtuu, että valtiovarainministerit tekevät ainoan oikean päätöksen – mutta vasta kun ovat kokeilleet kaikkia muita vaihtoehtoja”. tämän kirjoituksen kannalta lohdullisempi on keynesin vastaus, kun häntä kritisoitiin kantansa muuttamisesta: ”Kun opin jotain uutta, saatan muuttaa mielipiteeni – hyvä herra, kuinka on teidän laitanne?”. tässä kirjoituk...

The presence of board members with good governance attributes is value-relevant since it influences investors’ investment decisions. The value relevance is expected to improve with the newly introduced extended audit report to disclose key audit matters (KAMs). KAM disclosure provides information about issues faced by external auditors in the auditing of a company’s financial statement. Since the disclosure of KAM involves discussion and negotiation between the board and external auditor, it gives an indication that board value relevance can be affected by KAM disclosure. Using 931 firm-year observations from firms listed on the Bursa Malaysia between 2016 and 2019, this study re-examined the value relevance of the board and whether such value relevance improves with the disclosure of KAMs. The findings indicated that some board attributes influenced investors’ reactions negatively. The disclosure of KAM served as both an indirect mediator and a complementary mediator to increase th...

The extent of voluntary corporate disclosure by companies in annual reports in recent years has increased due to various factors. A number of prior studies examined the relationship between ownership concentration and voluntary corporate disclosure. Their findings suggest there is less voluntary corporate disclosure in family owned and high shareholder concentrated firms. On the other hand, companies with low shareholder concentration are likely to have more voluntary corporate disclosure because of the principal to agent relationship. Though studies have examined the impact of ownership structure on the extent of voluntary disclosure, there is still a need to investigate the issue in the Pacific Island countries, such as Fiji. The ownership structure of the companies in Fiji is highly concentrated. This paper examines the relationship between ownership structure and the extent of voluntary corporate disclosure in annual reports of listed companies in Fiji. A content analysis approach suggests how the ownership structure affects the extent of voluntary corporate disclosure in Fiji.