Corporate Governance, Disclosure Content and Shareholder Value: Impacts and Interrelationships from the US Banking Sector

The recent financial crisis was the largest shock to the financial system in decades. Its implications on banks' performance, corporate image and stakeholders' trust are of a high concern for all interested parties. Banks market capitalisation dropped significantly, risk levels increased and stakeholders’ confidence was shaken. This raises the importance of researching this particular area of primary concern to seek potential approaches intended to help banks to recover through increased disclosures, helping to rebuild trust and manage risk levels. Acknowledging societal needs and having effective dialogue with shareholders and stakeholders regarding banks' social profile as well as risk management practices is likely to reduce the uncertainty gap, shape banks' image and manage trust. These are indeed valuable in the wake of the financial crisis for bank continuity and enhancing shareholder value. I argue that effective corporate governance is likely to encourage more corporate social responsibility (CSR) and risk management (RM) disclosure, which in turn is expected to improve stock prices and reduce return volatility. The study examines potential solutions that assist in the management of the increasing risk levels, shaken confidence and falling market values resulting from the recent financial crisis. It contributes toward better understanding to the influence of internal corporate governance mechanisms on CSR and RM disclosure content and their substantive consequences on shareholder value. Examining a sample of US national commercial banks in the wake of the financial crisis indicates that boards with larger size, higher independence and CEO duality are inclined toward reporting a wider range of CSR and RM disclosures in annual reports, aiming to benefit the bank’s transparency and stakeholders’ long-term mutual relationship. Contrary to CSR disclosures, the number of audit committee financial experts was found to encourage better RM disclosure content implying the difference in influence on voluntary and mandatory disclosures. Insights into the desirable consequences CSR and RM disclosures content have on shareholder value are also evidenced. The study finds evidence supporting the association between CSR disclosure content and stock return indicating investors’ interest in, and consideration of, CSR information when valuing assets and building their trading decisions. The results also suggest that higher RM disclosure score reduces uncertainties of bank risk environment and provides investors with valuable information to assess financial assets and monitor management practices. This was reflected as an improvement to stock return and reduction to return volatility. Thus, effective corporate governance is more tending to enhance shareholder value through encouraging better CSR and RM disclosure content. Corporate governance should sponsor and introduce the perception of doing business responsibly and benefit from RM disclosure as a preventive tool assisting in the management of agency problems and bank risks. The economic consequences of CSR and RM disclosures imply that CSR engagement and reporting is an investment rather than an expense, and RM disclosure is a preventive tool rather than an exercise to comply with legislation requirement. Consequently, considering their content is important for better shareholder value

Nonparametric Econometric Methods and Application

The present Special Issue collects a number of new contributions both at the theoretical level and in terms of applications in the areas of nonparametric and semiparametric econometric methods. In particular, this collection of papers that cover areas such as developments in local smoothing techniques, splines, series estimators, and wavelets will add to the existing rich literature on these subjects and enhance our ability to use data to test economic hypotheses in a variety of fields, such as financial economics, microeconomics, macroeconomics, labor economics, and economic growth, to name a few

Problem Solving in Teams and Groups

This project was funded by KU Libraries’ Parent’s Campaign with support from the David Shulenburger Office of Scholarly Communication & Copyright and the Open Educational Resources Working Group in the University of Kansas Libraries.This textbook covers content relevant to COMS342: Problem Solving in Teams and Groups at the University of Kansas. Content in this textbook is adapted from The Open University, OpenStax, The Noba Project, and Wikipedia. Each chapter presents the source in the top header and each chapter has its own version of the Creative Commons (CC) license, noted at the bottom of the chapter. This book (commonly called an Open Educational Resource, OER) was made possible through a generous grant through the KU Libraries. Special thanks to Karna Younger, Josh Bolick, and William Hoffman for helping with this project. This textbook is designed with several purposes: 1.The primary purpose is to save students money. 2.Additionally this book is designed to cater the class reading content to the students’ needs. 3.Finally this book was created as a text that can easily change based on the needs of the course.University of Kansas Librarie

Resistance to change: a functional analysis of reponses to technical change in a Swiss bank

This thesis demonstrates the signal function and diagnostic value of user resistance in a software development project. Its starting point is the critical analysis of managerial common sense which negates resistance, or sees resistance to change as a 'nuisance' and as the manifestation of an individual or structural 'deficiency'; these notions prohibit change agents from appreciating the signal function of resistance to change in organisational processes. The first source of evidence is the literature on impacts, attitudes, and acceptance of information technology internationally and in particular in Switzerland. The second source is the tradition of psychological field theory which I reconstruct as the 'feeding the reluctant eater' paradigm, a form of social engineering. The third source is an empirical study of the semantics (semantic differential and free associations) of 'resistance to change' among management trainees in the UK, Switzerland and the USA (N=388). The thesis develops and investigates a concept of resistance that is based a pain analogy, and on the notions of self-monitoring and self-active systems. An organization which is implementing new technology is a self-active system that directs and energetizes its activities with the help of internal and external communication. The functional analogy of the organismic pain system and resistance to change is explored. The analogy consists of parallel information processing, filtering and recoding of information, a bimodal pattern of attention over time, and the functions of attention allocation, evaluation, alteration and learning. With this analogy I am able to generate over 50 hypotheses on resistance to change and its effects on organisational processes. The evidence for some of these hypotheses is explored in an empirical study of a Swiss banking group. The implemention of computer services between 1983 and 1991 is reconstructed in the central bank and 24 branches. Data includes the analysis of two opinion surveys (1985 n=305; 1991 n=326), documents (n=134), narrative interviews (n=34), job analyses (n=34), field observations and performance data (n=24). A method is developed to describe the varying structure of organisational information processing through time. The content analysis allows me to describe when in relation to the action, how intense, and in what manner 'resistance' becomes an issue between 1983 and 1991. The fruitfulness of the pain analogy is demonstrated (a) by shifting the analysis of resistance from structure to process and to that of an independent rather than to that of a dependent variable; (b) by shifting the focus from from motivation to communication; (c) by eroding the a priori assumption that resistance is a nuisance; and (d) by indicating the diagnostic value of "bad news" in organisational communication; resistance is diagnostic information; it shows us when, where and why things go wrong

The development and testing of an emotion-enabled, structured decision-making procedure

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Two contrasting forms of advice for decision-makers are to either follow one’s heart (emotions) or one’s head (reason). This is a false dichotomy – but how should decision-makers combine heart and head? Decisions can be fruitfully analysed as a set of components: a decision-problem embedded within an on-going situation, with values-at-stake, possible options-with-consequences, choice, action and review. Structured decision-making models (head theories) approach this multifaceted nature of decisions by a divide-and-conquer strategy with thinking tasks provided to help decision-makers clarify the decision-problem, identify important values-at-stake, find credible options, choose the most credible option, act effectively and fairly review the outcomes of the choice. Emotions are complex and can also fruitfully be analysed as a set of components: an appraisal of a situation’s implication for the actor’s goals and values, bodily and cognitive changes, phenomenological experience and desires. Emotions can both help and hinder decision making, so wise decision-makers should neither ignore nor rely upon emotions, but instead treat emotions as fallible resources. The complex nature of emotions implies that different emotion-enabled tasks might assist decision-makers for different components of the decision. On the basis of this analysis an emotion-enabled, structured, decision-making procedure was developed and investigated by taking ten participants with decision dilemmas through the procedure. This investigation, based on repeated use of the Hermeneutic Single-Case Efficacy Design, provided some initial support for the effectiveness of the model: participants found the procedure generally helpful (p < 0.005), had increased confidence in their final choice (p < 0.005), which at follow-up they were satisfied with (p < 0.005). The use of emotions as fallible resources was also investigated through tracing emotion-enabled changes in participants’ decision making. Suggestions for further development and investigation of integrating emotions into structured approaches are offered

Career success of disabled high-flyers

The aim of this qualitative study is to identify what factors a group of professional disabled people perceived had influenced their career success, and how they define career success. The study is based on subjective accounts of thirty-one disabled highflyers: men and women from different social and ethnic backgrounds, with congenital or acquired physical impairments, and hold occupational positions in Social Class I or H of the Registrar General's classification of occupations. This work looks at the extent to which the disabled high-flyers perceived career choice and progression, childhood, education, disability, and personality to be significant to their career development and success, and how they define success. Using the data collected from semi-structured interviews, this research provides an indepth insight of the journey travelled, by each of the thirty-one disabled people, from childhood to achieving career success in adulthood. The study shows that oldstyle careers, operating in stable and supportive organisations are sometimes more beneficial to disabled people than some forms of new careers known as `boundaryless' and which require more flexibility and moving from place to place. It indicates the existence of the `glass ceiling' in many sectors of the economic market, showing it to cause disabled people to redirect their original career choice. The study also shows that individuals with congenital disabilities were often likely to follow more of a boundaryless approach of career progression in order to meet their initial career aspirations. It also found that, disability was not only sometimes a causal attribute of re-directed career progression, but also, at times, a precursor of career choice and success. However being disabled was not always the cause of career change and re-direction. Several of the disabled people perceived their career to have developed much the same as that of their non-disabled colleagues. This thesis recognises the role of education in the career and life success of the disabled high-flyers. The advantages and disadvantages of mainstream and segregated education are highlighted. Although segregated education does indeed restrict the educational and therefore, occupational choices of young disabled people, it is nonetheless considered to be essential to the social, physical and psychological development of disabled children. This work offers the idea of link schools and partial integration to facilitate disabled students to achieve life goals at the rate of their nondisabled peers. The career orientation of the female disabled high-flyers, particularly those with childhood disability, was unlikely to be influenced by their gender. It seems that disability was the master status, overriding all other attributes, including gender. However this was not a negative thing. It was found that disabled women are not only capable of achieving a status equal to non-disabled women in the home, but also have the potential to compete with non-disabled men in the workplace and succeed in gender atypical careers

The institution as a learning system

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.The work reported here was carried out whilst the author was Head of Education and Training at the TSB of Birmingham and the Midlands. Ten studies were carried out. They were part of a new training operation and so their objectives and relationship to the work of the Department and the needs of the Bank are carefully described. The major influences on the work are reviewed from three perspectives: Psychological definitions of man; promoting learning at work; evaluating the learning enterprise. The studies were directed at establishing a method whereby managers can significantly influence the development of the learning competence of their staff, and at installing a management development system using the principles on which this method is based. The early part of the research dealt with the nature of learning in organisational settings and the role of education and training processes in achieving business results. The survey-based proposal to management about how to cost-effectively direct managerial learning was not taken up, and the sequence of studies was concluded by acquiring a detailed understanding of the rejection of the proposed learning philosophy. Whilst this work was in progress, the method for influencing the learning competence of subordinates was developed. It is based upon the philosophy of self- organisation of learning elaborated by the Centre for the study of Human Learning. Its utility for engendering significant revision of both the conceptualisation and practice of learning was confirmed.This study was supported by TSB of Birmingham

Governance frameworks for marine protected areas : proposals for Mozambique, Tanzania, and South África

Tese de doutoramento, Ciências do Mar, Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Ciências, 2011Transboundary networks of marine protected areas (MPAs) can assist states in meeting MPA coverage targets set internationally. However, their complexity requires a careful examination of the requirements of cooperation between states for the conservation of shared natural resources, as well as an interdisciplinary approach given the nature of the problem. A theoretical framework based on environmental governance was developed to guide this case study in two selected border regions of coastal East Africa. The findings suggest that transboundary MPAs are not always the most appropriate tool for marine conservation of coral reefs and Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins in the Moçambique. Tanzania and Mozambique-South Africa transboundary coastal regions. The three states have modern MPA governance frameworks, but these have important insufficiencies that would need to be addressed in the creation of transboundary MPAs. International environmental law provides an important legal foundation for the creation and management of transboundary MPAs, but a sub-regional approach may be more appropriate for cooperation. A regime exists between Mozambique and South Africa for transboundary MPA-making, but one is lacking between Mozambique and Tanzania, given the former state’s interest in hydrocarbon production overriding marine conservation concerns. Nevertheless, five options for cooperation in marine conservation are suggested, depicting an increasing degree of political commitment between the three states. MPA networks may be created to include community-based MPAs, making institutional interplay a potentially critical determinant of MPA success. However, its costs need also to be considered. Finally, it was found that the lack of delimited maritime boundaries between states does not necessarily hinder the creation of a transboundary MPA, particularly if there are no salient boundary issues at stake. States considering engaging in the creation and management of transboundary networks of MPAs with their neighbors are advised to consider the multiple aspects of such endeavors, as well as their implications.A criação de redes transfronteiriças de Áreas Marinhas Protegidas (AMPs) pode contribuir para que os Estados cumpram os objectivos internacionais de protecção das zonas marinhas sob sua jurisdicção. No entanto, a complexidade deste tipo de iniciativas requer uma análise cuidada dos requisitos governativos da cooperação entre Estados para a conservação dos recursos marinhos partilhados, assim como uma abordagem interdisciplinar em face da natureza do problema. Para guiar este estudo de casos em áreas transfronteiriças na África Austral, foi desenvolvido um enquadramento teórico baseado na governança ambiental, entendida aqui como resultando da combinação da teoria dos bens comuns e da teoria dos regimes. A teoria dos bens comuns forneceu o enquadramento analítico para fazer uma caracterização da situação existente em cada um dos locais de estudo. Esta tese centrou-se em duas áreas de estudo – as fronteiras entre Moçambique e a Tanzânia e entre Moçambique e a África do Sul – e em dois recursos marinhos específicos – recifes de coral e golfinhos-corcunda do Indo-Pacífico (Sousa chinensis). A teoria dos regimes suportou a análise do potencial de cooperação entre os países na criação de redes transfronteiriças de AMPs. A tese é composta por três partes. Da Parte I constam a Introdução (Capítulo 1), o enquadramento teórico (Capítulo 2) e a Metodologia (Capítulo 3), acima resumidas. A Parte II é formada por sete capítulos. Cada um destes capítulos consiste num artigo publicado, em impressão, ou submetido, os quais respondem à questão geral definida no Capítulo 1 e às questões específicas definidas no Capítulo 3. A Parte III consiste num capítulo único, Capítulo 11, onde são apresentadas as conclusões. No Capítulo 4, procedeu-se à análise das características ecológicas, ameaças e arranjos institucionais relacionados com os recifes de coral e os golfinhos-corcunda em cada uma das áreas de estudo. Os resultados sugerem que as AMPs transfronteiriças não são sempre a ferramenta mais adequada à conservação de recifes de corais e de golfinhoscorcunda do Indo-Pacífico nas áreas transfronteiriças costeiras Moçambique-Tanzânia e Moçambique-África do Sul. No Capítulo 5, foram comparados os enquadramentos nacionais de governança relacionados com as AMPs nos três países para identificar pontos em comum e diferenças Resumo e Palavras-Chave viii nos seus procedimentos institucionais, princípios e valores, assim como a medida em que estes afectam a criação e gestão de AMPs transfronteiriças. Conclui-se que, apesar da modernidade dos enquadramentos legais e de policy dos três países, subsistem importantes diferenças e insuficiências que os países precisam de ter em conta se decidirem criar AMPs transfronteiriças. No Capítulo 6, analisou-se em que medida o direito ambiental internacional pode contribuir para a criação e gestão de AMPs transfronteiriças na África Austral. Concluiuse que, globalmente, a Convenção das Nações Unidas para o Direito do Mar e a Convenção sobre a Diversidade Biológica são os instrumentos-chave para a criação de AMPS e redes de AMPs transfronteiriças. Regionalmente, a Convenção de Nairobi, e especificamente o seu Protocolo sobre Áreas Protegidas, e o Protocolo sobre Vida Selvagem da Comunidade de Desenvolvimento da África Austral, oferecem a base legal para criar e gerir redes transfronteiriças de AMPs. Concluiu-se ainda que é ao nível regional, e mais provavelmente aos níveis bilateral e trilateral, que uma abordagem política e legal será mais efectiva. No Capítulo 7, estudaram-se as perspectivas de criação de AMPs transfronteiriças recorrendo à teoria dos regimes. Concluiu-se que há um regime plenamente desenvolvido entre Moçambique e a África do Sul, o qual existe independemente do facto de ambos os países já terem proclamado uma AMP transfronteiriça entre eles. Por outras palavras, o “núcleo” do regime – ou seja, os seus princípios e normas – já existiam antes de os dois países terem declarado a AMP transfronteiriça, a qual veio a materializar as regras e procedimentos decisórios que também definem o regime. No caso de Moçambique e Tanzânia, não há um regime entre os dois países para a criação de AMPs transfronteiriças devido a princípios divergentes. No Capítulo 8, analisaram-se vários casos de conservação transfronteiriça marinha para propor cinco opções diplomáticas e de gestão para a criação de AMPs transfronteiriças entre os três países. As cinco opções apresentadas são: i) AMPs criadas e geridas independentemente nos dois lados da fronteira; ii) AMPs criadas e geridas independentemente, com mecanismos de partilha transfronteiriça de informação; iii) criação e gestão coordenadas de AMPs nos dois lados da fronteira; iv) estabelecimento conjunto de duas AMPs transfronteiriças nos três países; v) acordos diplomáticos e de gestão trilaterais/subregionais. Estas opções podem ser encaradas como um fim em si Resumo e Palavras-Chave ix mesmas, ou como passos no sentido de um crescente compromisso político entre os três países. No Capítulo 9, as redes transfronteiriças de AMPs são de novo trazidas para o centro da análise. O seu aparente eclipse nos capítulos precedentes explica-se pela revelação durante o trabalho de campo de que a criação de redes transfronteiriças de AMPs é vista por múltiplos actores como um passo posterior à criação de AMPs transfronteiriças. Este capítulo revisita esta ferramenta ao explorar as interações institucionais em redes de AMPs com AMPs geridas pelas comunidades. Procedeu-se à análise de dez dessas redes de AMPs, o que levou à conclusão de que as interacções institucionais consistem geralmente em trocas de informação e em questões de controle e autoridade. Estas podem ter influência sobre o sucesso das AMPs, mas os seus custos de transacção elevados aconselham a que a sua aplicação seja cuidadosamente avaliada. Finalmente, no Capítulo 10, explora-se o impacto da (não) delimitação de fronteiras marítimas sobre a cooperação entre Estados na criação de AMPs transfronteiriças. Esta linha de investigação é importante para o caso Moçambique-África do Sul, pois estes dois países ainda não delimitaram a sua fronteira marítima comum. Analisando três AMPs transfronteiriças, concluiu-se que, ao contrário do que é comummente entendido, a criação e gestão de uma AMP transfronteiriça não carece de fronteira marítima delimitada entre os Estados envolvidos, se não houverem questões de relevo relacionadas com a potencial fronteira marítima. Na Parte III da tese, consistindo no Capítulo 11, é apresentado um resumo das principais conclusões de cada capítulo da Parte II, sempre com referência à subquestão respectiva a que cada capítulo responde. É explicitado o contributo que a adopção de uma abordagem interdisciplinar deu à elaboração da tese e às suas conclusões, nomeadamente pela integração que faz da teoria dos bens comuns e da teoria dos regimes para aplicação ao estudo da conservação marinha transfronteiriça. São ainda referidos os contributos específicos da tese para o conhecimento científico, concretamente: a avaliação da adequação das AMPs transfronteiriças propostas para a conservação de recifes de coral e de golfinhos-corcunda em cada uma das áreas de estudo; a identificação de um regime completamente desenvolvido entre Moçambique e a África do Sul para AMPs transfronteiriças; a ausência de um regime entre Moçambique e a Tanzânia para AMPs transfronteiriças; a definição do contributo que a adopção de uma abordagem subregional/ trilateral para a criação de AMPs transfronteiriças nos três países pode dar para Resumo e Palavras-Chave x se observarem progressos neste domínio; a identificação de uma estratégia de conservação marinha transfronteiriça que comece com a criação de AMPs transfronteiriças como um primeiro passo para a criação de redes transfronteiriças de AMPs. A principal implicação destas descobertas para a policy consiste na necessidade de comparar a criação de AMPs com outros instrumentos de gestão marinha, de modo a avaliar adequadamente qual o instrumento que melhor se adequa às condições concretas e objectivas do contexto específico em que se planeia a sua implementação. Finalmente, são propostas novas linhas de investigação que não foram exploradas nesta tese por estarem fora do seu âmbito.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, SFRH/BD/28428/2006, SFRH/BD/43672/2008)Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT, SFRH/BD/28428/2006, SFRH/BD/43672/2008

Security Analysis: A Critical Thinking Approach

Security Analysis: A Critical-Thinking Approach is for anyone desiring to learn techniques for generating the best answers to complex questions and best solutions to complex problems. It furnishes current and future analysts in national security, homeland security, law enforcement, and corporate security an alternative, comprehensive process for conducting both intelligence analysis and policy analysis. The target audience is upper-division undergraduate students and new graduate students, along with entry-level practitioner trainees. The book centers on a Security Analysis Critical-Thinking Framework that synthesizes critical-thinking and existing analytic techniques. Ample examples are provided to assist readers in comprehending the material. Newly created material includes techniques for analyzing beliefs and political cultures. The book also functions as an introduction to Foreign Policy and Security Studies.https://encompass.eku.edu/ekuopen/1005/thumbnail.jp

Governments, banks and global capital : the emergence of the global capital market and the politics of its regulation

This thesis analyses the global capital market, as one of the most dynamic aspects of the world economy. Once the dollars have begun to circulate outside the US, the expansion of transnational banking could not be curtailed. In addition to Eurocurrencies, other external financial markets were created, providing a global structure for the whole range of instruments to be traded. Economic and political changes in the late 1970s and in the beginning of the 1980s contributed to a shift in financial logic of both intermediaries and investors: from credit markets, they have increasingly turned to securities. Computer banking networks spanned the globe and provided almost an instantaneousa ccesst o every corner of the world of finance. So, in the mid-1980s, a truly global capital market came into being. Global financial structure sent critical signals on several occasions, regarding its over-all stability and soundness. Regulation of such global structure has attracted immense attention world-wide, as cross-border capital flows epitomize basic dilemmae about the concept of market economy: to what extent efficiency-gains justify loose market regulation, or, to put it the other way, to what degree the regulation could be tightened (i. e. market stability over-emphasized) to avoid hampering efficiency. These questions have indeed become political choices, provoking hot debates on both the national and the international level. The International Relations' approach to the global environment has proved to be a necessary enlargement of classical economic analysis today. In this particular case, the Issue-Based paradigm and regime theory were the most appropriate analytical frameworks to be applied. The hyper-issue of an orderly market economy v. a socialist command economy links the issues like international control, capital rules, liberalization and market integrity. A wider policy-system for global capital flows has emerged, featuring many and diverse actors. Although priorities vary to a great extent, it can be concluded that the multi-centric structure emphasizes the values of efficiency and freedom, while the intergovernmental world still highlights the maintenance of order and stability. Although regime theory has provided a valuable framework for this analysis, it still fails to reflect changing reality of modern financial structures. Instead of concentrating exclusively on governmental actors and the intergovernmental world, regime theory should also be applied on processes which are going on in the other, multicentric world. For the time being, an intergovernmental regime for global capital market is beyond the reach. Contrary to that, a transnational, nongovernmental regime for capital flows has begun to emerge