Pallab Kumar Biswas

Corporate Governance and Firm Performance: Theory and Evidence from Literature

This paper is an attempt to give a short description of the theoretical literature focusing on different conceptual models of corporate governance and empirical studies relating to whether good corporate governance leads to better firm performance. Majority of the literature has been found to focus on the relationship between shareholders, directors, and management. The findings of these empirical studies are mixed and as a result, it is often difficult for users to draw any firm conclusion on the relationship. On the other hand, studies undertaken considering the overall corporate governance mostly provide evidence of significant relationship between corporate governance and firm performance. However, whether better corporate governance causes higher firm performance is still remains a valid research question for reasons like ambiguity regarding the direction of causality.

Agency Problem and the Role of Corporate Governance Revisited

This paper is an attempt to identify various agency relationships that exist in the economic and business life and the related problems that often arise due to such relationships. It also identifies the role of various corporate governance mechanisms in mitigating the agency problems. Though no individual corporate governance mechanism is a perfect one, a careful selection of individual and/or combination of these is likely to serve a better purpose when factors like level of capital market development, legal system of a country are simultaneously considered.

Board Gender Composition, Dividend Policy and Cost of Debt: The Implications of CEO Duality

This study examines whether CEO duality affects the association between board gender composition, dividend policy and cost of debt among S&P 500 firms. Our results show that board gender composition positively impacts both a firm’s propensity to pay dividends and the level of payouts. However, this positive association is only present in firms without CEO duality. We find no significant association between board gender composition and cost of debt, but when we split the sample into firms with and without CEO duality, we find a positive association for the former and a negative association for the latter. Overall, these results suggest that CEO duality could undermine the role of board gender composition in influencing dividend policy and cost of debt.

Corporate Governance and Its Determinants in Emerging Countries: A Case Study of Bangladesh

This paper begins with a summary of the literature on ways of measuring corporate governance ‘quality’. It then considers three related research questions, all in the context of an emerging economy, Bangladesh, where corporate governance has been a major concern. The first question is which firms are the leaders, in the sense that they are the first to update their governance practices? The second question is, what factors best explain changes in firms’ governance practices over time? The third question is what best explains differences in corporate governance practices across firms at a given point in time? Using a self-constructed composite index of governance quality comprising 148 elements, it was found that a subsidiary of a foreign company scored the highest in 11 of the 13 years, suggesting that the need for external equity capital may not be the primary motive for an improvement in firm-level governance in Bangladesh. Four firm-level characteristics, namely firm size, growth opportunities (measured by the book-to-market ratio), volatility and leverage, are significantly associated with changes in governance quality from one year to the next, while stock volatility is not associated with cross-sectional differences in CG quality across firms at a given point of time.

Disclosures of Corporate Mission Statements in Bangladesh: A Supply Side Analysis

This paper discusses the purpose of mission statements and discusses their intended audiences. It also examines the theoretical rationale that leads to the disclosure of mission statements. The disclosure, length, and components of mission statements are also examined. Based on annual report, this study focuses on 14 specific components of mission statements. The study results show that 60 companies (35%) out of total sample of 171 listed public limited companies in Dhaka Stock Exchange are disclosing mission statements. The results also show that the companies are focusing more on customers, philosophy, financial goal, communities and products. 78% companies are somewhat focusing on MD stakeholders. Environmental disclosure has been found to be the least preferable component in the mission statement.