Should a board hire a former or current CEO from another company to become the new CEO? In the past, companies tended to promote new CEOs from within, ensuring that the new chief executive had the vital firm-specific experience needed to succeed. Today, however, more boards tend to believe that someone who has successfully navigated […]
Read More… from Why Previous Experience of New CEOs Makes Matters Worse!
Parents will naturally have an impact on their children’s values. New research, however, is showing that the opposite is also true: children, and in particular daughters, are impacting their parents’ values and beliefs. The surprising influence of daughters was previously revealed in studies that compared the decisions of members of Congress and (in a separate […]
Previous research has explored the impact of life and career experiences and circumstances on CEO managerial styles. This past research shows a monotonic or unidirectional effect of a CEO’s life experiences on risk-taking. For example, CEOs rising from difficult economic circumstances might be more risk-averse while CEOs born in prosperous circumstances might be less risk-averse. […]
Read More… from The Connection Between Disasters and Less Risk-Averse CEOs
Theoretically, deferred compensation should keep executives from leaving the firm. One way to defer compensation is through unvested equity pay. After four or five years, the pay is vested. This deferred compensation plan punishes managers who leave early: they lose any unvested pay. Whether such programs actually help retention has been unclear. Some studies show […]
CEOs are responsible for knowing what is going on in their companies. No matter how large, complex or global the organization, CEOs do not have the luxury of pleading ignorance; it is their job to keep abreast of all the important facts and developments: what their employees and competitors are doing, what big new ideas […]
Read More… from Ensure the CEO Gets the Right Information at the Right Time
A new survey from Stanford University’s Rock Center for Corporate Governance on how investors use information from corporate proxy statements reveals deep dissatisfaction with corporate disclosure about executive compensation. The survey, based on responses from 64 asset managers responsible for a combined $17 trillion — show that even the largest and most sophisticated investors find the […]
Read More… from Investors Complain Proxy Statements Unclear on Executive Pay
The Stanford Graduate School of Business surveyed 924 directors of nonprofit organizations. Conducted in collaboration with BoardSource and GuideStar, the surveyed covered areas such as the engagement of directors, their understanding of a board’s obligations, and the governance structures and processes in place to help them fulfil their commitments. The results show that despite the […]
Read More… from Nonprofit Boards Need Better Skills and Resources to Do Their Jobs
Corporate board of directors are composed of executives (CEOs and CFOs) and non-executives. In the U.S. and the UK, the executives and non-executives are grouped on one board. In Europe, the executives form one board, and the non-executive members form a distinct ‘supervisory’ board. Together, the CEOs, CFOs and non-executive board members make up what […]
Read More… from Non-Executive Board Members More Risk Averse than Executives
Both agency theory and stewardship theory help explain organizational dynamics, although starting from very different assumptions. Agency theory describes the relationship between the shareholders (called ‘principals’) and the company’s managers and executives (called ‘agents’) as a collaboration between parties with different interests: principals are focused on the success of the company while agents are focused […]
Read More… from A Symphony of Agency and Stewardship Values Ensures Family Business Success
While corporations are engaging in socially responsible initiatives related to their industries or to benefit their communities (supporting organizations to help the needy, for example), some companies are going one step further, according to research from the University St. Gallen’s Institute for Business Ethics. These fearless companies are supporting controversial causes unrelated to their industries […]
Read More… from Corporate Political Advocacy: Support Non-business-related Causes
