Search results for " GOVERNANCE"

Towards E-Government in a Sub-Saharan African Country

2006

ABSTRACT The use of information communication technologies (ICT) in governance is growing rapidly in many parts of the world. Developing countries in Africa are also making efforts to harness the new technology. In this paper, we provide useful insights regarding the impediments and initiatives of e-government in Nigeria, a Sub-Saharan African (SSA) country. The main problems facing the emergence of e-government in Nigeria have their roots in socioeconomic inadequacies that have plagued several countries in the SSA region. Some of the problems discussed include poor organizational skills, attitudinal problems, inadequate infrastructural support, and poor or unavailable human capital resourc…

How do community development activities affect the construction of rural places? : A case study from Finland

2019

Community‐based development practices have been seen as the prevailing paradigm for rural development. Rural community development practices are employed especially through local non‐governmental organisations, such as village associations, to ensure that rural communities are vital and attractive places to live. In this article, we explore how community development practices affect and shape rural places. The data were collected in three Finnish villages that each have an active village association and that have adopted community development practices as their method of keeping their village viable. According to the results of our study, the impacts of community practices on rural places c…

Moral Governance: Politicians, Ownership, and Control

2009

We investigate upon the influences exerted by politicians on the Board and on ownership structure, as an application of political power to corporations. We characterize moral governance as the joint result of these efforts on managerial turnover and ownership turnover. We comment upon two Italian clinical cases of private, listed firms in which politicians enter the scene when a major event occurs (i.e., reorganization, merger, and acquisition activity). Our model could serve as a guideline and checklist for insiders to interact with politicians. We suggest this could be of interest in countries where there is a common level ground – such as in Europe – but with different cultures on the ro…

Boards of directors: composition and effects on the performance of the firm

2018

This paper analyses the structure of boards of directors and its impact on business performance, which is approximated by economic profitability and the Tobin’s Q ratio. We focus on three basic aspects of boards that have been reviewed in the recent reform of the Good Governance Code: the size of boards, their independence and their diversity. For the study of diversity, we use an index that integrates not only the gender of board members, but also their age and nationality, since these are factors that can influence the knowledge, experience and skills of the directors. The results confirm a high degree of compliance with the recommendations of the Good Governance Code, and suggest that th…

Ownership, Board Compensation and Company Performance in Sub-Saharan African Countries

2013

In countries with weak institutions, board governance becomes more important. This study uses a unique dataset from listed sub-Saharan African companies to examine the relationship between ownership composition and board compensation. It further analyses the association between board compensation and company performance. The findings indicate that board ownership and chief executive officer ownership are positively associated, whereas state ownership and concentrated ownership are negatively associated with board compensation. There is no evidence of a significant association between chairperson ownership or foreign ownership and board compensation. Finally, there is a negative but not sig…

Researching European Union Agencies: What Have We Learnt (and Where Do We Go from Here)?

2017

This review article, with a clear political science and public administration bias, takes stock of the existing literature on EU agencies and suggests a future research agenda. The article reviews studies on EU agencies' organization, tasks, proliferation and location in the political-administrative space. Whether the advent of EU agencies tends to underpin a basically intergovernmental, transnational or supranational order has potentially huge consequences for the distribution of power across levels of government, for the degree of policy uniformity and pooling of administrative resources across countries, for the role of genuinely European perspectives in the policy process, and for accou…

Determinants of Board Structure in Microfinance Institutions: Evidence from East Africa

2013

This study investigates the association between the unique characteristics of microfinance institutions and board structure. The agency and resource dependence theories provided theoretical guidance for this study. Using a panel dataset of 63 microfinance institutions in East Africa, we found that the presence of regulations and international influence is associated with larger boards, while the presence of founders is associated with small boards and less board independence. There is a higher level of board gender diversity in microfinance institutions managed by founders. There is greater diversity of nationalities in microfinance institutions that are internationally influenced. The imp…

China’s urban century. Governance, environment and socio-economic imperatives

2019

Responsabilidad Social en las empresas de Economía Social: un análisis comparativo sobre del tejido productivo de la Comunidad Valenciana

2018

Este trabajo realiza un análisis de las prácticas de Responsabilidad Social Empresarial (RSE) interna de las empresas de Economía Social en la Comunidad Valenciana, y su comparativa con el conjunto de empresas de la Comunidad. A través del citado análisis se pretende ofrecer evidencia empírica para fundamentar el superior compromiso de las empresas de Economía Social con su entorno laboral, medioambiental, con sus grupos de interés y con el Buen Gobierno. La literatura académica al respecto, centrada básicamente en el ámbito de las cooperativas, ha venido constatando cómo la propia naturaleza y principios de actuación de las empresas de Economía Social constituyen el substrato básico de una…

Founding family leadership and industry profitability

2008

Published version of an article from the journal: Small Business Economics In this article, we argue that firms in high-margin industries can benefit from founding family influence. Specifically, in more profitable markets, the influence of the founding family provides an additional corporate governance-monitoring function. The sample consists of 294 firm-year observations from 98 publicly traded companies headquartered in Sweden, representing approximately half of all non-financial traded firms. Our support that the effect of family leadership in publicly held firms should be assessed in relation to the intensity of industry competition