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This paper raises a challenge for those who assume that corporate social responsibility and good corporate governance naturally go hand-in-hand. The recent spate of corporate scandals in the United States and elsewhere has dramatized, once again, the severity of the agency problems that may arise between managers and shareholders. These scandals remind us that even if we adopt an extremely narrow concept of managerial responsibility - such that we recognize no social responsibility beyond the obligation to maximize shareholder value - there may still be very serious difficulties associated with the effective institutionalization of this obligation. It also suggests that if we broaden managerial responsibility, in order to include extensive responsibilities to various other stakeholder groups, we may seriously exacerbate these agency problems, making it even more difficult to impose effective discipline upon managers. Hence, our central question: is a strong commitment to corporate social responsibility institutionally feasible? In searching for an answer, we revisit the history of public management, and in particular, the experience of social-democratic governments during the 1960s and 1970s, and their attempts to impose social responsibility upon the managers of nationalized industries. The results of this inquiry are less than encouraging for proponents of corporate social responsibility. In fact, the history of public-sector management presents a number of stark warnings, which we would do well to heed if we wish to reconcile robust social responsibility with effective corporate governance.

This paper evaluates whether the agency problem in public administration shapes Spanish municipalities' tax policy. To this aim, we have considered 2,431 Spanish municipalities for the period from 2002 to 2013. We find significant evidence of tax mimicking of neighboring municipalities, in both property tax and car tax. However, incumbents are not signaling their competence through tax competition. Rather, expenditure spillovers explain this interaction. Municipalities seek to have the same services and infrastructures as their neighbors. The fact that there is not tax benchmarking does not mean that the agency problem is not present in Spanish municipalities. The agency problem is one of the reasons corruption is so widespread among Spanish municipalities. Regarding the further policy implications of our findings, legislation should direct municipal governments' decisions towards the real needs of their constituencies.

This article documents that blockholders with both ownership and management control in family firms have different goals compared to blockholders with only ownership (but no management) control. We theorize and find evidence that family controlled and family managed (FCFM) firms negatively moderate the relationships between internationalization and governance mechanisms, while family controlled and nonfamily managed (FCNFM) firms do not. The findings indicate that family owners in FCFM firms have greater opportunities to reap private benefits of control indicating the presence of secondary (principal-principal) agency problems, while these problems are mitigated in FCNFM firms. In emerging economies like India where family firms are ubiquitous, they highlight the need to recognize differing blockholder influences on internationalization-governance relationships and to develop more nuanced theorizing for understanding them.

This paper measures enterprise digital transformation by the method of text analysis and empirically tests the impact of enterprise digital transformation on the executives' corruption. We find that the higher degree of digital transformation of enterprises, the lower the probability of corporate executives' corruption. This conclusion is still valid under a series of robustness tests. The mechanism test shows that the impact of enterprise digital transformation on the governance of executives' corruption is mainly realized by reducing the degree of information asymmetry and alleviating the agency problem. Further research finds that both proportion of institutional investors and internal control can strengthen the reducing effect of digital transformation on the probability of corporate executives' corruption. The research conclusion of this paper reveals the governance effect of enterprise digital transformation on corporate executives' corruption, and provides effective experience for the central government and enterprise anti-corruption actions.

We analyze the value of investor relations (IR) strategies to IPO firms. We find that firms that are less visible and have inexperienced management tend to hire IR consultants prior to the issue date. IR consultants help create positive news coverage before an IPO, as reflected in a more optimistic tone of published media. Their presence is associated with higher underpricing at the IPO date but with lower long-run returns. IR-backed IPOs also exhibit disproportionately higher insider-related agency problems, as IR-induced higher underpricing tends to occur primarily in IPOs where underwriter and venture capitalist agency conflicts are more severe. These findings suggest that the IR programs of IPO firm are mostly short-term oriented and facilitate the ulterior motives of some insiders (underwriters and venture capitalists) targeting higher first-day returns.

We examine whether analyst coverage influences corporate fraud in China. The fraud triangle specifies three main factors, i.e. opportunity, incentive, and rationalization. On the one hand, analysts may reduce the fraud opportunity factor through external monitoring aimed at discouraging managerial misconduct, which can moderate agency problems. On the other hand, analysts may increase the fraud incentive factor by pressurizing managers to achieve short-term performance targets, which can exacerbate agency problem. In either case, the potential influence of analysts on the fraud rationalization factor may be more pronounced among firms that are more dependent on the capital market for corporate finance. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms, we show a negative association between corporate fraud propensity and analyst coverage, and that this effect is more pronounced among non-state-owned enterprises, which are more reliant on the stock market for external funding. These findings suggest that analyst coverage contributes to corporate fraud deterrence in emerging economies characterized by weak investor protection. The main policy implication is that further development of the analyst profession in emerging economies may benefit investors and strengthen business ethics.

Despite the prevalent role of guanxi in conducting business in Chinese, it is unclear whether interpersonal guanxi fosters interfirm trust. Taking a contingency approach, this study examines how institutional (government–market relationship and Buddhism influence) and individual (relative role performance and the span of partner control) factors moderate the association between interpersonal guanxi and interfirm trust. Based on a paired survey between salespersons and sales managers and two secondary datasets, this study finds that interpersonal guanxi is positively associated with interfirm trust. Moreover, this positive eifect is stronger when firms operate in regions with strong government–market relationships and strong Buddhism influence. In addition, the positive relationship is weaker when guanxi resides in boundary spanners who have relatively high role performance, but becomes stronger when boundary spanners have a broad span of partner control. These findings highlight the situations in which guanxi at an interpersonal level is more or less likely to foster interfirm trust.

The main objective of this research is to shed more light on how ESG may be seen as a valuable investment for family firms. We study the impact of ESG performance on the value of family firms by considering the moderating role played by financial constraints and agency costs. Using an international sample of 254 firms that belong to the 500 largest family-owned firms worldwide over the period 2015–2021, we report that the overall ESG score is positively associated with firm value. Among the three ESG components, we find that environmental and social performances have a positive and statistically significant impact on firm value. However, we find no evidence of any significant effect of governance score on firm value. More importantly, we also find that the impact of ESG performance on firm value is lower under the presence of financial constraints and agency costs.

Labor capital plays a critical role in shaping enterprise competitiveness and in the allocation of macroeconomic resources, while the prominent of carbon risk significantly influences corporate labor allocation patterns. In this paper, utilizing data sampled from China’s A-share listed companies between 2012 and 2021, the impact and mechanism of corporate carbon risk on labor investment efficiency have been examined. The results reveal that carbon risk significantly inhibits labor investment efficiency. Moreover, environmental uncertainty, agency problems, and managerial ability are the primary channels through which carbon risk can affect corporate labor investment efficiency. Additional tests reveal that the impact of carbon risk on labor investment efficiency is more pronounced in firms with lower competitive positions and more severe financing constraints. The detrimental effect of carbon risk on labor investment efficiency is particularly evident in firms characterized by labor underinvestment, high labor intensity, high pollution, and non-high-tech industries. The findings of this study can provide valuable insights for policymakers to improve carbon risk management, enhance labor investment efficiency, and optimize the institutional mechanisms for factor market allocation.

Existing studies of exit delay typically focus on rational, behavioral, or organizational explanations in isolation. We integrate these different theoretical explanations, develop testable hypotheses for each, and examine them using the population of US banks between 1984 and 1997. Banks' exit behavior is not consistent with theories emphasizing the option value of avoiding reentry costs. Patterns of exit do, however, support models of rational delay under ability uncertainty. Controlling for this source of rational delay, we find evidence of delay due to behavioral bias—firms discount negative signals of profitability relative to positive signals—and organizational considerations—delay increases with the separation of ownership and control. These results demonstrate that all three sets of theories are necessary to describe exit behavior.