Ownership Structure, Board Composition and Investment Performance
Eklund, J., Palmberg, J. & Wiberg, D. (2009). ”Ownership Structure, Board Composition and Investment Performance”. Journal of Corporate Ownership and Control, 7(1): 120-130.
Eklund, J., Palmberg, J. & Wiberg, D. (2009). ”Ownership Structure, Board Composition and Investment Performance”. Journal of Corporate Ownership and Control, 7(1): 120-130.
In this paper the relation between ownership structure, board composition and firm performance is explored. A panel of Swedish listed firms is used to investigate how board composition affects firm performance. Board heterogeneity is measured as board size, age and gender diversity. The results show that Swedish board of directors have become more diversified in terms of gender. Also, fewer firms have the CEO on the board which can be interpreted as a sign of increased independency. The regression analysis shows that gender diversity has a small but negative effect on investment performance, and the same holds for CEO being on the board. The analysis also show that board size has a significant negative effect on investment performance. When incorporating all the explanatory variables into one equation however, the negative effect of larger boards dilutes the effect of gender diversity and having the CEO on the board.
Related content: Working Paper No. 129
Eklund, J., Palmberg, J. & Wiberg, D.
2009
2020
Female board representation is increasingly debated in research and practice. This paper problematises how board representation as such may not be the issue, but rather how well nested the women are: that is, whether there is a difference in board members’ representation on multiple boards between women and men and how this affects the woman’s influence, or power, on a particular board. This paper relates such representations not only to whether women hold several board positions, but also to the shape of the network that the multiple representations create. The paper points at how the power of women on boards varies with (1) the existence of few or many interlocks on the board, (2) the number of representations held by the female board member, (3) the fragmented or large network that the female board member is part of, and (4) whether the network consists of direct or indirect links.
2019
Open innovation has rendered increased interest both in practice and research, and has expanded from dyadic transfers of ideas, to ecosystem levels. Knowledge is at the heart of open innovation, and this paper describes and discusses knowledge-transfer linkages for open innovation. It does so based on a literature review. The paper links together open innovation research with general management research to categorise and discuss linkages among parties in terms of their openness and how they relate to knowledge management. Conclusions indicate that openness needs to be considered in different dimensions that also links to different knowledge management outcomes. The paper’s contribution consists of how it connects open innovation research to the general management literature, and how it builds a practical understanding of how linkages between firms can be categorised to aid firms to consider which mechanisms they may choose and why.
2019
What is the role of innovation policy for accomplishing renewal of mature industries in Western economies? Drawing upon an unusually rich dataset spanning 9752 digitized archival documents, we categorize and code decisions taken by policymakers on several levels while also mapping and quantifying the strategic activities of both entrant firms and incumbent monopolists over a decade. Our data concerns two empirical cases from Sweden during the time period 1980–1990: the financial sector and the telecommunications sector. In both industries, a combination of technological and institutional upheaval came into motion during this time period which in turn fueled the revitalization of the Swedish economy in the subsequent decades. Our findings show that Swedish policymakers in both cases consistently acted in order to promote the emergence of more competition and de novo entrant firms at the expense of established monopolies. The paper quantifies and documents this process while also highlighting several enabling conditions. In conclusion, the results indicate that successful innovation policy in mature economies is largely a matter of strategically dealing with resourceful vested interest groups, alignment of expectations, and removing resistance to industrial renewal.