The impact of employee perceptions of organizational corporate social responsibility practices on job performance and organizational citizenship behavior: evidence from the Chinese private sector

This paper examines the impact of employee perceptions of organizational corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices on their job performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Hierarchical regression analysis on two-wave data from 184 supervisor/subordinate dyads from three organizations located in Zhejiang Province, South-East China, revealed that employee perceptions of CSR toward social and non-social stakeholders strongly influenced their OCB. However, employee perceptions of CSR toward employees, customers and government influenced neither their job performance nor OCB.

A cross-cultural construct of the ethos of the corporate codes of ethics: Australia, Canada and Sweden

The objective of this paper is to develop and describe a construct of the ethos of the corporate codes of ethics (i.e. an ECCE construct) across three countries, namely Australia, Canada and Sweden. The introduced construct is rather unique as it is based on a cross-cultural sample seldom seen in the literature. While the outcome of statistical analyses indicated a satisfactory factor solution and acceptable estimates of reliability measures, some research limitations have been stressed. They provide a foundation for further research in the field and testing of the ECCE construct in other cultural and corporate settings. We believe that the ECCE construct makes a contribution to theory and practice in the field as it outlines a theoretical construct for the benefit of other researchers. It is also of managerial interest as it provides a grounded framework of areas to be considered in the implementation in organizations of corporate codes of ethics.

Family control and corporate cash holdings: Evidence from China

This study examines the effect of family control on the cash holding policy in China. We find that family firms with excess control rights tend to have high cash holdings that are tunneled rather than being invested or paid to shareholders. We further show that the incentive for controlling families to hold cash and for tunneling is exacerbated by the agency conflict between controlling and minority shareholders, i.e., it is weakened after the Chinese Non-tradable share (NTS) reform and strengthened by the presence of multiple large shareholders who probably play no monitoring role in Chinese family firms. Furthermore, family firms’ incentive to hold cash for tunneling is influenced by the unique characteristics of Chinese firms in the following ways: the incentive is stronger when the family founder has one child and face family succession problem, and when the founder has political connections and directly involves in firm’s management; while it is weakened by family founder’s social interpersonal trust with other entrepreneurs through their membership of Chambers of Commerce. Overall, we argue that family firms in China tend to hold high levels of cash for tunneling, which harms firm value, while the severe controlling-minority shareholder agency conflicts and unique Chinese family characteristics only make this situation worse.

Capital structure and corporate performance: evidence from Jordan

This study is to investigate the effect which capital structure has had on corporate performance using a panel data sample representing of 167 Jordanian companies during 1989-2003. Our results showed that a firm’s capital structure had a significantly negative impact on the firm’s performance measures, in both the accounting and market’s measures. We also found that the short-term debt to total assets (STDTA) level has a significantly positive effect on the market performance measure (Tobin’s Q). The Gulf Crisis 1990-1991 was found to have a positive impact on Jordani an corporate performance while the out break of Intifadah in the West Bank and Gaza in September 2000 had a negative impact on corporate performance.

Corporate governance and corporate finance practices in a Kuwait Stock Exchange market listed firm: a survey to confront theory with practice

Purpose– This paper aims to explore the issue of corporate governance mechanisms by including the importance of stakeholders, primary objectives of the firm and the ownership of top financial managers of listed firms in Kuwait in the survey tool. It attempts to investigate whether theory aligns with the behaviour of financial managers in practice in an emerging market case.Design/methodology/approach– A survey was developed to focus primarily on the current corporate finance practices implemented by CFOs in listed companies in Kuwait. The target respondents are listed firms in the Kuwaiti Stock Exchange (KSE). The survey includes questions on topics that are closely related to capital budgeting, capital structure, cost of capital and dividend policy. For example, the survey asks the managers how they estimate their cost of equity (CAPM or other methods) and whether the impact of the weighted average cost of equity is taken into consideration in their capital structure choices.Findings– A surprising number of firms are now widely using IRR for decision making. CAPM is also in use, whereas WACC remains the most popular method used. There is some support for the “bird‐in‐hand” dividend theory in the tax‐free environment. Firms in Kuwait do not have any particular source of capital structure choices when it comes to how best to finance their projects as is the case in the US market. Firms in Kuwait are consciously striving for maximizing profits and those managers are regarded as their most important stakeholders. This may indicate the existence of agency problems.Research limitations/implications– The limitation of this study lies in the absence of empirical investigation on how corporate finance decisions may affect firms' performance in Kuwait. Hence, empirical validation will be performed by the authors in the next stage of this research, which will form the basis for further research. Empirical validation for the impact of corporate governance on performance is needed.Practical implications– This research may benefit managers and decision makers in many aspects, including having an understanding of applying popular and the most suitable corporate finance and corporate governance techniques in the management of their companies. In this research, the authors have identified the gap between practice and academia.Originality/value– To the best of the authors' knowledge, this is the first study to examine comprehensively major areas of financial policies and practices and corporate governance in an emerging market case, especially in the Middle East. Kuwait provides a unique institutional setting in its taxation system. Therefore, this study will make a contribution to the general literature in this field.

Ethical transnational corporate activity at home and abroad: A proposal for reforming continuous disclosure obligations in Australia and the United States

Multinational Corporations establish operations in states with lower legal and ethical standards in areas including the environment, wages, labor standards, human rights, corruption, and company taxation. Corporate law scholars cannot be indifferent to the horrific consequences of these lax standards. From contributing to rapes and violent incidents stemming from trade in conflict minerals in the Congo to the killing of workers due to poor conditions in garment manufacturing units in Bangladesh, multinational corporations exploit conditions in developing countries abroad without disclosing their actions at home. We advance a normative argument to clarify and strengthen the existing model of disclosure-based regulation to hold MNCs accountable. We argue that, since the core expectations held by shareholders of companies are the same whether they are operating within our borders or externally, a harmonization of disclosure obligations imposed by law would be a more flexible and less costly solution. We posit that a broader reading of the disclosure obligations of companies under existing legislation like the Reg. S-K in the United States, the continuous disclosure rules under * Dean and Professor of Law, University of Newcastle Law School. Sandeep Gopalan would like to thank Terrie Troxel, Jack Tatom, Professor Bill Wilhelm, and the Networks Financial Institute at Indiana State University College of Business for their valuable support in conducting research for this article. We are also grateful to Audrey Son, Bassam Khawaja, and the editorial staff of the Columbia Human Rights Law Review for their excellent editorial work. ** Solicitor and doctoral candidate, University of Newcastle Law School. 2 COLUMBIA HUMAN RIGHTS LAW REVIEW [46.2:1 the Australian Corporations Act 2001, and listing rules such as those adopted by the Australian Securities Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange would require the disclosure of material corporate practices outside our national borders.