Going Overboard? On Busy Directors and Firm Value

Abstract The literature disagrees on the link between so-called busy boards (where many independent directors hold multiple board seats) and firm performance. Some argue that busyness certifies a director’s ability and that such directors are value enhancing. Others argue that “over-boarded” directors are ineffective and detract from firm value. We find evidence that (1) the disparate results in prior work stem from differences in both sample composition and empirical design, (2) on balance the results suggest a negative association between board busyness and firm performance, and (3) the inclusion of firm fixed effects dramatically affects the conclusions drawn from, and the explanatory power of, multivariate analyses. We also explore alternative empirical definitions of what constitutes a busy director and find that commonly used proxies for busyness perform well relative to more complex alternatives. Highlights ► The disparate busy director findings result from different samples and methodology. ► Including firm fixed effects results in a constant negative relation. ► The common busy director definition is as informative as more intense alternatives

Emergent quality of service - a bacterial approach

A possible model for future network quality of service control is proposed. This is based on a community of bacterial strains, each organism handling network requests in the same way as bacteria metabolise energy sources. This model makes use of the unique methods that bacteria use to transfer and share genetic material, to create a more robust solution to the service provision problems associated with future data networks

Adaptive management of an active services network

The benefits of active services and networks cannot be realised unless the associated increase in system complexity can be efficiently managed. An adaptive management solution is required. Simulation results show that a distributed genetic algorithm, inspired by observations of bacterial communities, can offer many key management functions. The algorithm is fast and efficient, even when the demand for network services is rapidly varying

Japanese Teachers Busyness and Recognition of Official Busyness

戦後から現在に至るまで、わが国の教師は多忙な職業であるとされてきた。しかしながら、教師の担う職務が非常に多様な内容であることから、その多忙の内実と時代的な変化は詳しく整理がなされていない。本研究は戦後のわが国の義務教育の変遷を昭和20～30年代、40年代、50年代、60年～平成10年ごろの4つに区分し、時代ごとの教師の多忙はどのような量的・質的変化があったのかを検討し解決の課題を考察することを目的とする

Multiple board appointments and firm performance in emerging economies: Evidence from India

The relation between multiple directorships, busy directors and firm performance has been researched predominantly in the context of developed economies, notably the US. This paper extends the existing literature on multiple directorships in two ways; first, by providing additional evidence on its effect on firm performance, but with respect to an emerging economy, India, and secondly, by suggesting an alternative measure of directorial "busyness" that is more general in its applicability compared to those that have been applied in the existing literature. Using a sample of 500 large firms from the Indian corporate sector for the year 2002-03, the paper finds multiple directorships by independent directors to correlate positively with firm value thereby supporting the "quality hypothesis" that busy directors are likely to be better directors, a result that is different from the existing evidence on busy directors. Multiple directorships by insider directors are, however, negatively related to firm performance. Estimation of group and non-group companies separately reveals that the quality effect of independent directors persists for the former but disappears for the latter. In general, the results suggest that the relation between "busy" directors and firm performance may depend on the institutional context and on the type of directorMultiple Directorships, Busy Directors, Firm Performance

Smart Bike Sharing System to make the City even Smarter

These last years with the growing population in the smart city demands an efficient transportation sharing (bike sharing) system for developing the smart city. The Bike sharing as we know is affordable, easily accessible and reliable mode of transportation. But an efficient bike sharing capable of not only sharing bike also provides information regarding the availability of bike per station, route business, time/day-wise bike schedule. The embedded sensors are able to opportunistically communicate through wireless communication with stations when available, providing real-time data about tours/minutes, speed, effort, rhythm, etc. We have been based on our study analysis data to predict regarding the bike's available at stations, bike schedule, a location of the nearest hub where a bike is available etc., reduce the user time and effort

Provision of quality of service for active services

A novel approach to quality of service control in an active service network (application layer active network) is described. The approach makes use of a distributed genetic algorithm based on the unique methods that bacteria use to transfer and share genetic material. We have used this algorithm in the design of a robust adaptive control system for the active nodes in an active service network. The system has been simulated and results show that it can offer clear differentiation of active services. The algorithm places the right software, at the right place, in the right proportions; allows different time dependencies to be satisfied and simple payment related increases in performance

Yuppie Kvetch? Work-life Conflict and Social Class in Western Europe. WP239. May 2008

Recent debates on time-use suggest that there is an inverse relationship between time poverty and income poverty (Aguiar and Hurst, 2007), with Hammermesh and Lee (2007) suggesting much time poverty is ‘yuppie kvetch’ or ‘complaining’. Gershuny (2005) argues that busyness is the ‘badge of honour’: being busy is now a positive, privileged position and it is high status people who work long hours and feel busy