Reginald Hooghiemstra

Corporate communication and impression management - New perspectives why companies engage in corporate social reporting

This paper addresses the theoretical framework on corporate social reporting. Although that corporate social reporting has been analysed from different perspectives, legitmacy theory currently is the dominating perspective. Authors employing this framework suggest that social and environmental disclosures are responses to both public pressure and increased media attention resulting from major social incidents such as the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the chemical leak in Bhopal (India). More specifically, those authors argue that the increase in social disclosures represent a strategy to alter the publics perception about the legitimacy of the organisation. Therefore, we suggest using corporate communication as an overarching framework to study corporate social reporting in which “corporate image” and “corporate identity” are central.

Say-on-Pay Votes: The Role of the Media

Abstract We investigate the association between the media coverage of firms’ CEO pay packages and subsequent shareholder voting on say-on-pay resolutions, and find that negative media coverage is able to predict shareholder discontent over say on pay. When we divide media coverage into coverage in the financial and business press versus coverage in the general press, we find that shareholder voting on say-on-pay resolutions is mainly associated with the articles from the financial and business press. This suggests that the media cannot be considered a homogeneous information source that is equally able to predict shareholders’ voting behaviors. As such, our findings have important implications for studies on the role of the media in corporate governance.

Corporate governance in the Netherlands

This article examines the overall acceptance of the best practice provisions contained in the Dutch corporate governance code and identifies those that receive comparably less agreement among 150 Dutch listed companies in 2004. The findings indicate a high level of compliance with the Code. Moreover, the extent of compliance is positively associated with company size. Provisions related to the remuneration of board members, independence of supervisory board members, and requirements with respect to internal control systems stand out when it comes to non-compliance. In addition, the nature and content of the explanations provided for non-compliance are remarkably similar across companies, which may indicate symbolic compliance with the Codes best practice provisions.