Shareholder activism on sustainability issues has become increasingly prevalent over the years, with the number of proposals filed doubling from 1999 to 2013. We use recent innovations in accounting standard setting to classify 2,665 shareholder proposals that address environmental and social...

We examine the relationship between the board's IT expertise and firm innovation. Using a novel hand–collected dataset from biographies of directors, we find that the board's IT expertise has a positive influence on firm innovation – measured in terms of R&D expenditures and patents...

Internal audit (IA) is theoretically considered a key element of modern corporate governance. Surprisingly, the existing knowledge on IA and its relation to the internal corporate governance structure is miscellaneous and rare. Consequently, empirical findings on the internal audit function...

In this study, I empirically examine whether the managers of firms that overinvest have an incentive to subsequently distort financial information for keeping up with stakeholders' expectations about investment returns. Also, because CEO tenure is related to the capacity of the manager to...

We document and analyze board committee structures utilizing a novel dataset containing full board committee membership for over 6,000 firms. Board committees provide benefits (specialization, efficiency, and accountability benefits) and costs (information segregation). Consistent with these...

Purpose – This paper aims to examine the relationship between corporate governance, corruption and disclosure of forward-looking information in listed firms in two African countries, Botswana and Ghana.Design/methodology/approach – The study uses 174 firm-year observations between the period...

When the financial performance of nonprofit organizations is poor — more specifically, the ratio of reported program expense to total expense is low, managers of these organizations are found to misreport expenses in order to boost the ratio. This study examines whether three factors — the...

We explore how property rights protections across different regions in China affect the flow of proprietary information and managers' incentives to disclose details of financial and operating performance. Our focus on research and development spillovers as a proxy for information leakages to...

We analyze how ownership concentration and type, and board independence are related to corporate social performance (CSP). Drawing from agency, team production and stakeholder perspectives, we argue that the distribution of costs and benefits to shareholders and other stakeholders is crucial to...

This study investigates the determinants of firms' decision to impair goodwill under IFRS. Our empirical analysis is based on data for the years 2005 to 2011 for 8,110 non-financial firm-years and 1,358 financial firm-years from 21 countries where firms apply IFRS. We specifically investigate...