Corporate Board: Role, Duties And Composition, Volume 12, Issue 1, 2016

The recent issue of the journal Corporate Board: Role, Duties and Composition is devoted to the issues of corporate board practices and pays attention to problems of corporate reputation, corporate rights, interrelation of corporate governance and innovation etc.

More detailed issues are given below:

Anthony O. Nwafor explores the principle on the enforcement of a corporation’s right of action which is encapsulated as the rule in Foss v Harbottle has continued to attract discombobulating academic and judicial comments in defining the scope and exceptions to that rule. The paper argues that the statutory interventions in jurisdictions under discussion only borders on derivative action which is an exception to the rule. The effect of those statutory provisions on the rule itself is not too significant as would justify the suggestion that the rule is now extinct. Thus, the paper concludes that the rule in Foss v Harbottle remains the principal approach to the enforcement of a corporation’s right of action.

Hasan Mohamed Hasan Al-Mannaei and Allam Mohammed Mousa Hamdan aim to assess corporate governance and innovation in selected listed companies at Bahrain Bourse. The study sample included 39 companies in the year 2013. The study built one Linear Regression Model to study the relationship between corporate governance and innovation. After testing the first hypothesis, there is an accepted level of corporate governance in selected listed companies at Bahrain Bourse. And after testing the second hypothesis, there is no relationship between corporate governance and innovation in selected listed companies at Bahrain Bourse, whether the corporate governance is strong in selected listed companies at Bahrain Bourse or not, it has no relationship to Innovation. In Kingdom of Bahrain the innovation is weak due to the fact that Bahrain imports innovation from other countries. The study recommends that all companies listed in Bahrain Bourse to send their employees for special courses on corporate governance, which shows its benefits and to increase their awareness and advises to conduct a workshop of innovation in companies listed in Bahrain Bourse by professional institutes.

Nuria Reguera-Alvarado and Francisco Bravo analyze whether the number of appointments of directors influences corporate reputation. For that, we focus on a sample of US firms listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) for the period 2007-2010 and we examine a total of 30,813 directors. Our results indicate that there is a curvilinear relationship between the number of directorships of board members and corporate reputation. These findings shed some light on the value of boards of directors and also have implications for companies in the selection of board members.

Jimmy A. Saravia and Silvia Saravia-Matus extend the Transaction Cost Economics (TCE) theory of the equity governance structure by introducing a (hitherto absent) full analysis of the key TCE issue of bilateral dependency between the firm and its shareholders. In addition, the paper discusses the implications of the analysis for the topic of corporate governance and firm performance. We find that when bilateral dependency holds contractual hazards are mitigated as predicted by TCE, but that when it does not contractual safeguards are altered to the disadvantage of shareholders and managerial discretion costs increase as reflected by lower firm valuation. Importantly, our study documents for the first time a class of transactions where business relationships persist indefinitely even though transaction costs are not minimized.

Zaini Rohmad, Agung Nur Probohudon, Waskito Widi Wardojo and Agung Wibowo discuss good governance model for conflict resolution around water tourism area in Indonesia. This paper developed structural factors that influence water tourism such as the population, economic development, regional generated revenue, real-time sector revenue, poverty rates, and water management which is the focus of the study affected the rising of the water conflict. This study is field research qualitative study. The objects in this research are water tourism stakeholders which are composed of three different water tourism management in Karanganyar, Central Java, Indonesia, namely Grojogan Sewu, Jumog and Peblengan. This study conducted in Karanganyar as a district that has a natural beauty with huge potential to further develop its natural attractions. The data sampling is done by observation and interview. From the result of this study it can be concluded that (1) there needs to be a clear explanation for the villagers near the water tourism area that the natural resources of water needs to be preserved and used moderately ; (2) a communication needs to be established between the stakeholders and those using the water resource, for the sake of the villagers’ welfare as well as the economic improvement; (3) the government, both the regional government as well as the central government need to make regulation to keep the condition of the nature without ignoring the possibility of conflict ensuing because of water usage by the villagers; (4) increasing the role of the villagers in managing the water resource so that there will be no prolonged conflict in the future.

Tariq Tawfeeq Yousif Alabdullah, Sofri Yahya, Mohamed Ibrahim Nor and Firas Qassim Majeed aim to investigate the mechanisms of corporate governance in companies and to delineate their effect from the perspective of two variables: the financial performance of firms; and an examination of executive turnover. An analysis on theoretical grounds of these two variables is made with respect to non-financial companies specifically in the context of the country of Jordan. The study has examined the structure of the board of directors and its effects on the financial performance (financial leverage) of the non-financial Jordanian companies. Evidence suggests that the corporate governance mechanisms such as increasing the board size has a positive effect on reducing the level of financial leverage, thus leading to enhanced levels of financial performance.

To browse and order papers from the issue please visit this link.