Social and scientific issues in the acceptibility of radiation risks

Ionising radiation hazards are perhaps the most documented and regulated occupational and environmental hazard. In the radiological protection field a single expert advisory organisation has had an unusually large influence on the international standard setting process. This is the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP). Two common, and opposing views, exist over the formulation of protection recommendations by the ICRP. The first, and most widely accepted, is that its recommendations are scientifically determined. The second view, is that its recommendations are politically or socially determined. Neither of these analyses adequately accounts for the complex process in which protection recommendations are formulated. A third view, provided by studies of the origins of scientific controversy, suggests that both science and social factors are important in the assessment and limitation of risk. The aim of this thesis is not simply to examine the origin of controversy. Issues of equal, if not more, importance are the resolution of controversy, the formation of consensus and the maintenance of expert authority and influence. These issues form the central focus of this thesis. The aim is to assess the process through which the ICRP formulates its radiological protection recommendations and comment on the extent that these are influenced by the affiliations of its members. This thesis concludes that the ICRP's recommendations have been shaped by a complex relationship of scientific and social considerations, in which a socio-technical commitment to nuclear energy has played a key role. The Commission has responded to new scientific data by making complex changes to its philosophy and methods of describing risk. Where reductions in numerical limits have been applied they have been accompanied by practical measures designed to limit the impact of the change and provide continuity with the old limits and flexibility in the application of the new recommendations.

Corporate governance, managers' independence, exporting, and performance of firms in transition economies

Using data on 157 large companies in Poland and Hungary, this paper employs Bayesian structural equation modeling to examine the relations among corporate governance, managers' independence from owners in terms of strategic decision making, exporting, and performance. Managers' independence is positively associated with firms' financial performance and exporting. In turn, the extent of managers' independence is negatively associated with ownership concentration, but positively associated with the percentage of foreign directors on the firm's board. We interpret these results as indicating that concentrated owners tend to constrain managerial autonomy at the cost of the firm's internationalization and performance, but board participation of foreign stakeholders enhances the firm's export orientation and performance by encouraging executives' decision-making autonomy.

Corporate governance and finance in Poland and Russia

This book provides a comparative analysis of the emerging corporate control structures in the transition economies. It details characteristics of corporate governance in the two largest transition economies: Russia and Poland. It explores what kind of ownership structures are emerging in these two countries and to what degree they are they path-dependent and conditional on the initial choice of privatisation methods - fast ownership transfer through the mass privatisation programme and loans-for-equity scheme in Russia, and a more 'organic' growth of the new private sector in Poland. It examines the directions of the subsequent, post-privatisation, secondary ownership flows in both countries and the impact of the government on corporations, implied both by the residual shareholding of the state and by its regulatory and administrative actions.

Corporate governance, managers' independence, exporting and performance of firms in transition economies

Using data on 157 large companies in Poland and Hungary this paper employs Bayesian structural equation modeling to examine interrelationships between corporate governance, managers' independence from owners in terms of strategic decision-making, exporting and performance. It is found that managers' independence is positively associated with firms' financial performance and exporting. In turn, the extent of managers' independence is contingent on the firm's corporate governance parameters: it is negatively associated with ownership concentration, but positively associated with the percentage of foreign directors on the firm's board. We interpret these results as an indication that (i) risk averse, concentrated owners tend to constrain managerial autonomy at the cost of the firm's internationalization and performance, (ii) board participation of foreign stakeholders, on the other hand, enhances the firm's export orientation and performance by encouraging executives' decision-making autonomy.

Corporate governance and accounting conservatism:evidence from the banking industry

Research Question/Issue: In this paper, we empirically investigate whether US listed commercial banks with effective corporate governance structures engage in higher levels of conservative financial accounting and reporting. Research Findings/Insights: Using both market- and accrual-based measures of conservatism and both composite and disaggregated governance indices, we document convincing evidence that well-governed banks engage in significantly higher levels of conditional conservatism in their financial reporting practices. For example, we find that banks with effective governance structures, particularly those with effective board and audit governance structures, recognize loan loss provisions that are larger relative to changes in nonperforming loans compared to their counterparts with ineffective governance structures. Theoretical/Academic Implications: We contribute to the extant literature on the relationship between corporate governance and quality of accounting information by providing evidence that banks with effective governance structures practice higher levels of accounting conservatism. Practitioner/Policy Implications: The findings of this study would be useful to US bank regulators/supervisors in improving the existing regulatory framework by focusing on accounting conservatism as a complement to corporate governance in mitigating the opaqueness and intense information asymmetry that plague banks.

Corporate governance and the central factors influencing the roles of public and private sector board directors in the United Kingdom

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Corporate governance and the timeliness of corporate internet reporting by U.K. listed companies

This study is an examination of the timeliness of corporate internet reporting by U.K. companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE). The research examines the significance of several corporate governance and firm-specific characteristics as potential determinants of the timeliness of corporate internet reporting. Our primary analysis provides evidence of a significant association between timely corporate internet reporting and the corporate governance characteristics of board experience and board independence. Our findings provide evidence that boards with less cross directorships, more experience in terms of the average age of directors, and lower length in service for executive directors provide more timely corporate internet reporting. We find that board independence is negatively associated with timely corporate internet reporting. Follow-up analysis provides additional evidence of a significant association between the timeliness of corporate internet reporting and board experience. The evidence indicates that role duality and block ownership are associated with less timely corporate internet reporting. Our findings also reveal strengths and weaknesses in the Internet reporting of U.K. listed companies. Companies need to voluntarily focus on improving the timeliness dimension of their corporate internet reporting so that the EU and U.K. accounting regulators do not replace recommendations with regulations. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Empirical studies of corporate governance in China

The thesis aims to provide empirical studies towards Chinese corporate governance. Since China initially established its stock exchange system in the 1990s, it has gone through different stages of changes to become a more market-oriented system. Extensive studies have been conducted in Chinese corporate governance, however, many were theoretical discussion focusing on the early stages and there‘s a general lack of empirical analysis. This paper provides three empirical analysis of the Chinese corporate governance: the overall market discipline efficiency, the impact of capital structure on agency costs, the status of 2005- 2006 reform that substantially modified ownership structure of Chinese listed firms and separated ownership and control of listed firms. The three empirical studies were selected to reflect four key issues that need answering: the first empirical study, using event study to detect market discipline on a collective level. This study filled a gap in the Chinese stock market literature for being the first one ever using cross-market data to test market discipline. The second empirical study endeavoured to contribute to the existing corporate governance literature regarding capital structure and agency costs. Two conclusions can be made through this study: 1) for Chinese listed firms, higher gearing means higher asset turnover ratios and ROE, i.e. more debts seem to reduce agency costs; 2) concentration level of shares appears to be irrelevant with company performance, controlling shareholders didn‘t seem to commit to the improvement of corporate assets utilization or contribute to reducing agency costs. This study addressed a key issue in Chinese corporate governance since the state has significant shareholding in most big listed companies. The discussion of corporate governance in the Chinese context would be completely meaningless without discussing the state‘s role in corporate governance, given that about 2/3 of the almost all shares were non-circulating shares controlled by the state before the 2005-2006 overhaul ownership reform. The third study focused on the 2005-2006 reform of ownership of Chinese listed firms. By collecting large-scale data covering all 64 groups of Chinese listed companies went through the reform by the end of 2006 (accounting for about 97.86% and 96.76% of the total market value of Shanghai (SSE) and Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE) respectively), a comprehensive study about the ownership reform was conducted. This would be first and most comprehensive empirical study in this area. The study of separated ownership and control of listed firm is the first study conducted using the ultimate ownership concept in Chinese context.

Rotating the boards:corporate governance

Can companies resolve groupthink issues and improve their performance by turning over their boards more often, ask Mark Rogers and Amir Satvat.