Manuscript Type: ReviewResearch Question/Issue: Using a systematic literature review approach, we survey 192 cross-national comparative studies published in 23 scholarly journals in the fields of accounting, economics, finance, and management for the period 2003 to 2014. The purpose is to synthesize and appraise the extant empirical research on the interplay between country-and firmlevel governance mechanisms and the effects on firm outcomes. Particular focus is placed on studies that examine firm economic performance. Research Findings/Results: We identify and distinguish between two groups of cross-national governance studies. The first type compares macro, country-level outcomes and the second compares three different firm-level outcomes: economic performance, governance mechanisms, and strategic decisions. We compare the theoretical frameworks used and further analyze the country-level factors and firm-level governance attributes that have been combined to investigate their interplay and the effects on firm outcomes. We find substantial variation in the use and measurement of country-level factors as well as a variety of causal forms used to explain the combined effects of country-and firm-level governance mechanisms. This wide variability precludes comparison, and consequently prevents identifying consistent patterns of influence between country-level governance factors and firm-level governance mechanisms and/or performance. We identify research gaps and provide fruitful directions for future research on this topic. Theoretical Implications: The cross-national governance research has been guided mainly by an economic perspective focusing on international differences in the effectiveness of specific governance mechanisms. Few comparative studies have integrated an institutional perspective or examined the external forces that drive the diffusion and use of specific governance mechanisms. Such integrative framework would improve the understanding of cross-national differences in the salient dimensions of country-level governance factors and how they mediate the effectiveness of firm-level governance mechanisms. Practitioner Implications: Our results reveal that firm-and country-level governance mechanisms have been interacted and combined, either to address various agency problems or to compensate for a weak national environment. This calls for regulators and investors to consider national governance factors when assessing firm-level governance practices.
Manuscript type EmpiricalResearch Question/Issue This study investigates the interplay between country-level governance quality and the capital structure choice at the firm level in Brazil and Chile. We examine the association between a firm's ownership concentration and its debt maturity structure and whether country-level governance quality influences this association.Research Findings/Insights Using a large firm-level dataset from Brazil and Chile for the period 2008-2013, we find a positive association between low ownership concentration and debt maturity. However, this association becomes negative when the largest shareholder has high ownership concentration. This result suggests that long-term debt and ownership concentration act as substitute monitoring mechanisms. Moreover, debt maturity is inversely related to our aggregated index of country-level governance quality, suggesting that in countries with governance systems that effectively protect debt holders, firms with high benefits of control (high ownership concentration) will use debt with shorter repayment periods in order to benefit from frequent monitoring by debt holders. Overall, our results support the view that financial markets tend to pressure firms with high benefits of control or greater agency conflict to make a tradeoff between the benefits of control and the cost and maturity structure of debt financing.Theoretical/Academic Implications This study contributes to the research on comparative corporate governance and capital structure. We also respond to recent calls to bridge the gap between under-and over-socialized views of corporate governance by examining the interplay between firm-and country-level governance variables. Our findings suggest a substitution effect between monitoring by equity holders and by debt holders, and that country-level governance quality exerts a disciplinary influence over a firm's choice of debt maturity structure.Practitioner/Policy Implications Investors seeking to enter emerging markets such as Brazil and Chile can benefit from considering national governance factors that enhance debt holders' external monitoring effectiveness. Because our findings show the importance of considering and improving the quality of country-level governance, they are also useful for policy makers aiming to reform corporate governance practices in emerging markets.
We all should trust science is a common saying among scientists, but also among practitioners and society. However, science is facing a credibility and trust crisis (Bergh, Sharp, Aguinis, & Li, 2017), and we are aware of such a crisis, at least, since 2000 (Millstone & Zwanenberg, 2000). In the last few years, we have seen an increasing discussion about how to counterattack this credibility and trust crisis (Peng, 2015). One idea is getting more and more traction over these past few years: Open Science (OS). First of all, what is Open Science (OS)? The very first important aspect of discussing Open Science (OS) is to define what it is. To the best of my knowledge, there is no single definition, but one can argue that it is a community movement to make research (and all its environment and cycles) available and accessible to anyone. It is a commitment that comes from researchers to the public (including universities, funding institutions, and other researchers) to disseminate freely and openly the inputs and outputs of research in an understandable, reusable, and informative manner, and to allow reproducibility 1 .
Este estudo identificou o papel do ambiente nacional (Macroeconomia, Desenvolvimento Financeiro e Qualidade Institucional) e das características dos setores de atividade (Munificência, Dinamismo, Concentração, Ciclo de Vida, Dispersão da Eficiência Tecnológica, Dispersão da Qualidade dos Produtos, Poder de Barganha dos Clientes e Poder de Barganha dos Fornecedores) sobre o endividamento de 612 companhias abertas de sete países da América Latina (Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Colômbia, México, Peru e Venezuela). Para fins de comparação, estende-se a análise, também, a 847 companhias dos Estados Unidos. O período estudado é o de 1996-2009 e, para a análise, utiliza-se o Modelo Linear Hierárquico, que permite controlar os efeitos de acordo com o nível das variáveis (país, setor, tempo e firma). Os resultados sugerem que o Desenvolvimento Financeiro facilita o acesso a recursos de terceiros e que a Qualidade Institucional é negativamente relacionada com a Alavancagem das empresas. Encontraram-se, também, evidências de que a Qualidade Institucional pode promover o desenvolvimento assimétrico entre o mercado acionário e o de crédito.
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