Manuscript type: EmpiricalResearch Question/Issue: This study examines the impact of employee stock ownership and board employee representation on firm performance. Research Findings/Results: Results drawn from a longitudinal analysis of a sample of 230 French firms over the period 2000-2005 provide support for an inverted U-shaped relationship between employee ownership and accounting-based performance measures. However, this relationship is not supported when a market-based performance measure is used. We also found that the inflection point of the inverted U-shaped relationship between employee ownership and firm performance does not depend upon the level of employee representation on the board. Theoretical Implications: This study addresses the inconsistency of results found so far in the literature examining the performance implications of employee ownership by proposing a theoretical framework and providing empirical support for the hypothesis suggesting that the relationship between employee ownership and firm performance is not linear, but indeed, has an inverted U-shape. Practical Implications: In a governance context characterized by a spectacular increase in employee ownership fostered by a pervasive support from both managers and government, our results suggest that performance implications of employee ownership are positive up to a certain point, after which the marginal effect of employee ownership on firm performance becomes negative. As a result, our findings suggest that managers and shareholders should be careful when launching and increasing the level of employee ownership to not go beyond specific inflection points.

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Manuscript Type: Empirical Research Question/Issue: Do the presence and independence of nominating committees within boards of directors affect the extent of rewards and sanctions provided by the labor market to directors with a reputation for being active in monitoring management?c org_814 557..574 Research Findings/Insights: Results drawn from a longitudinal sample of directors sitting on the board of 200 public French firms suggest that the stronger a director's reputation for being active in increasing control over management, the larger the number of his or her subsequent appointments to (1) boards with a nominating committee; (2) to boards with a nominating committee that excludes the CEO; and (3) to boards with a nominating committee dominated by non-executive directors. In contrast, we found that a director's reputation of being active in increasing control over management does not impact the number of his or her subsequent appointments (1) to boards without a nominating committee; (2) to boards with a nominating committee that includes the CEO; and (3) to boards with a nominating committee dominated by executive directors. Theoretical/Academic Implications: This study shows that the outcome of the power struggle between the CEO and incumbent directors during the candidate selection process determines the profile of directors who will ultimately obtain the board appointment. On the one hand, independent nominating committees are likely to reduce the influence of CEOs over the process of a director's appointment, and therefore are likely to increase the recruitment of directors with reputations for being active in exercising control over managers. On the other hand, nonexistence of nominating committees or presence of weak nominating committees under the influence of the CEO decouple directors' reputations for being active in controlling management from the likelihood of obtaining new appointments. Practitioner/Policy Implications: This study offers insights to policy makers interested in increasing the efficiency of the labor market for directors. More specifically, it highlights the conditions under which directors with a reputation of being active in increasing control over management are likely to be rewarded by the labor market for directors. These conditions include (1) the creation of a nominating committee; (2) exclusion of the CEO from this committee; and (3) domination of this committee by outside directors.

This study develops and tests a theoretical framework which suggests interactive dynamics, with strong performance implications, between the height of mobility barriers surrounding strategic groups and the extent of within-group multimarket competition. Empirical analysis drawn from a longitudinal sample of pharmaceutical firms indicates that within-group multimarket competition has strong positive effect on firm performance for strategic groups surrounded by high mobility barriers. As we move lower on the mobility barriers hierarchy, this effect decreases, becoming non-significant for groups surrounded by moderate mobility barriers and negative for groups surrounded by low mobility barriers. These findings highlight the conditions under which mobility barriers and multimarket competition have significant performance implications. In addition, our results suggest that mobility barriers and multimarket competition are not substitutive but complementary devices promoting mutual coordination within strategic groups. Finally, our findings point to the need to consider multimarket contacts as an aggregate property of strategic groups.

This study examines how multiple blockholder structures affect family firm performance. Building on arguments from both principal–principal agency and familiness perspectives, we suggest that asymmetrical distribution of voting power among family and nonfamily blockholders hurts firm performance. Further, we suggest that the larger the number of blockholder types, the stronger the negative effect of voting-power asymmetry among family and nonfamily blockholders on firm performance. We provide empirical support for our hypotheses using a longitudinal sample of 413 French family firms over the 1992–2012 period.