The determinants and effects of board nomination committees

This article assesses the corporate governance-related antecedents of nomination committee adoption, and the impact of nomination committees’ existence and their composition on board independence and board demographic diversity. We conducted a longitudinal study of board composition amongst 210 Swiss public companies from January 2001 through December 2003, a period during which the Swiss (Stock) Exchange (SWX) introduced new corporate governance-related disclosure guidelines. We find firms with nomination committees are more likely to have a higher number of independent and foreign directors, but not more likely to have a higher number of female board members. Further, the existence of nomination committees is associated with a higher degree of nationality diversity but is not related to board educational diversity. We also find that nomination committee composition matters in the nomination of independent and foreign, but not of female directors. Our results suggest that understanding different board roles and composition require a multi-theoretical approach, and that agency theory, resource-dependence theory and group effectiveness theory help to explain different aspects of board composition and effectiveness. Finally, the article discusses the concept of diversity and appropriate ways to study diversity in a boardroom context.

Committees for ethics in research involving human subjects

In Brazil since October 1996 there have been guidelines for research involving human subjects. Now human subjects know when their treatment is part of research. Deceit is no longer tolerated. But is not enough to say we offer an explanation to the potential subject and we offer a choice before he or she is confronted with an informed consent form. As in all professional activity, scientific investigation needs social controls. In Brazil, the ultimate responsibility of an investigation lies on the investigator, but in every institution where research is carried out there is a Committee for Ethics in Research. All Committees are subordinated to the National Commission of Ethics in Research, which is submitted to the Brazilian Institute of Health. During 2005 around 17,000 protocols involving 700,000 human subjects were revised by 475 Committees distributed all over the country. Approximately 7,000 people are now working in these Committees.

Reinventing development: utopias devised by committees and seeds of change in the real world

Includes bibliography

The behavior of brazilian senators: analyzing the exchange of votes inside the fixed committees during the 52nd legislature

Using the method of Social Networks Analysis, we’ll try to see if politicians swap votes between them seeking support for their projects, to this end, we’ll first map the behavior, activities and contacts of the Senators of the Brazilian Federative Republic within all the fixed committees which had some vote during the 52nd Legislature, then we can see the most popular and central Senators to each committee. After this analysis we wish to answer the following question: did logrolling exist in the Brazilian Senate? Previously the empirical analysis and response to the problems posed, we’ll present the necessary theoretical introduction understood by reviewing the literature on relevant subjects, whether they are purely theoretical with respect to the exchange of support, or analytical about the Brazilian political system.