We define annual shareholder meetings as contentious if one or more ballot items are likely to obtain sufficient shareholder votes to induce a firm to implement governance changes. Using a sample of almost 28,000 meetings between 2003 and 2012, we find that abnormal stock returns over the 40-day period prior to contentious meetings are significantly positive and higher than prior to non-content...

The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether there is a correlation between the intellectual capital of employees, i.e. top managers (the agent) and the shareholder (the principal) value growth among Zimbabwean companies, listed on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange. By using these results the aim is to further examine a possible indicator for leveraging the efficiency of intellectual capital in a...

The decision a board makes to dismiss or retain their manager is the most important one it faces. This paper utilises real options analysis to develop a new learning based model of this decision. The model presents new implications for optimised CEO survival and termination thresholds through time. Empirical evidence is found to indicate a CEO is more likely to be publicly fired after poor rece...

Recent changes to the law governing the obstruction of justice have coincided with a string of highly visible prosecutions, including those of Martha Stewart,1 Frank Quattrone,2 and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Jr.3 Among such prosecutions, that of the accounting firm Arthur Andersen LLP is foremost in legal significance. From the start, the government and Arthur Andersen disputed how the jury wou...

We present a pragmatic method for management of risks that arise due to spreadsheet use in large organizations. We combine peer-review, tool-assisted evaluation and other pre-existing approaches into a single organization-wide approach that reduces spreadsheet risk without overly restricting spreadsheet use. The method was developed in the course of several spreadsheet evaluation assignments fo...