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Author: Steen Thomsen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 31
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Book Description
A number of world class companies - such as the Tata Group, Robert Bosch, and Bertelsmann -- are majority owned by charitable nonprofit foundations. This structure places control of the company in the hands of a self-perpetuating foundation board that is immune to outside discipline through a proxy fight or hostile acquisition, and whose members receive no incentive compensation. Conventional economic theories of corporate governance predict that such companies would be riven with agency costs and therefore highly inefficient. Yet previous studies find that companies owned by industrial foundations seem to perform as well as more conventional investor-owned companies. In this paper we reassess the relative performance of foundation-owned companies by comparing a substantial sample of them from the Nordic countries with various different samples of investor-owned Nordic companies, including matched pairs of companies in the same industry and of comparable size. We find that, overall, foundation-owned companies have similar accounting profitability, take less risk, and grow more slowly than listed investor-owned companies. We offer alternative theories regarding the costs and benefits of foundation ownership that appear consistent with our results.
Author: Steen Thomsen
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 31
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Book Description
A number of world class companies - such as the Tata Group, Robert Bosch, and Bertelsmann -- are majority owned by charitable nonprofit foundations. This structure places control of the company in the hands of a self-perpetuating foundation board that is immune to outside discipline through a proxy fight or hostile acquisition, and whose members receive no incentive compensation. Conventional economic theories of corporate governance predict that such companies would be riven with agency costs and therefore highly inefficient. Yet previous studies find that companies owned by industrial foundations seem to perform as well as more conventional investor-owned companies. In this paper we reassess the relative performance of foundation-owned companies by comparing a substantial sample of them from the Nordic countries with various different samples of investor-owned Nordic companies, including matched pairs of companies in the same industry and of comparable size. We find that, overall, foundation-owned companies have similar accounting profitability, take less risk, and grow more slowly than listed investor-owned companies. We offer alternative theories regarding the costs and benefits of foundation ownership that appear consistent with our results.
Author: Henry Hansmann
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Industrial foundations are autonomous nonprofit entities that own and control one or more conventional business firms. These foundations are common in Northern Europe, where they own a number of internationally prominent companies. Previous studies have indicated, surprisingly, that companies controlled by industrial foundations are, on average, as profitable as companies with conventional patterns of investor ownership. In this article, we explore the reasons for this performance, not by comparing foundation-owned firms with conventional investor-owned firms, but rather by focusing on differences among the industrial foundations themselves. We work with a rich data set comprising 113 foundation-owned Danish companies over the period 2003-2008.We focus in particular on a composite structural factor that we term “managerial distance.” We propose this as a measure of the extent to which a foundation establishes an identity that is distinct from that of the company it owns. More particularly, we hypothesize that, within limits, greater managerial distance increases the intensity, clarity, and objectivity with which the foundation's board of directors - which holds ultimate control of a foundation-owned company -- focuses on the company's profitability. In effect, a substantial degree of distance puts members of the foundation board in the position of “virtual owners,” in the sense that information and decisions are framed for the board in roughly the way they would be framed for profit-seeking outside owners of the company. Consistent with this hypothesis, our empirical analysis shows a positive, significant, and robust association between managerial distance and the economic performance of foundation owned companies. The findings appear to illuminate not just foundation governance, but corporate governance and fiduciary behavior more generally.
Author: Steen Thomsen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9788790705602
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 32
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Book Description
Author: Steen Thomsen
Publisher: Djoef Publishing
ISBN: 9788757436891
Category : Charitable uses, trusts, and foundations
Languages : en
Pages : 209
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Book Description
Industrial foundations are foundations that own companies. Typically, they combine charitable and business goals. Some global companies such as IKEA, Robert Bosch or the Tata Group are foundation-owned, but nowhere are they as numerous as in Denmark. Three of the four largest Danish companies - the pharma company Novo Nordisk, the shipping company A.P. Moller-Maersk, and the Carlsberg brewery - are all foundation-owned. Surprisingly, very little has been written about what industrial foundations are, and how they operate. The Danish Industrial Foundations provides a comprehensive overview. The book covers aspects such as theory, law, taxation, economic importance, company performance, governance and philanthropy. The book is the result of a large collaborative research project, led by the author, on industrial foundations. [Subject: Business, Economics, Industrial Foundations]
Author: Henry Hansmann
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 50
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Book Description
Despite the extensive attention paid to corporate governance in the literature of both law and economics in recent years, empirical work to date has largely failed to establish a link between formal governance structures and economic performance. In this paper, we explore the relationship between corporate governance structures and economic performance in a setting that is, in important respects, more favorable than the publicly-traded U.S. business corporations that are the typical focus of previous research. We work with a rich data set comprising 121 Danish industrial foundations, which are industrial companies controlled by autonomous nonprofit foundations. These industrial foundations have several important advantages as subjects of study. First, by conventional measures, the industrial companies perform, on average, as efficiently as their investor-owned counterparts - a remarkable fact, given their ownership structure. Second, because the management of the companies is ultimately in the hands of a self-perpetuating board of directors that is free of control by outside owners, the impact of the firm's internal governance structure on managerial decision-making, and hence on company performance, should be both more intense and more easily isolated than in conventional investor-owned firms. Third, the industrial foundations display broader variance in internal governance structures than do U.S. business corporations.We focus in particular on a composite structural factor we term “managerial distance.” We interpret this as a measure of the clarity and objectivity with which a firm's top managers are induced to focus on the operating company's profitability. More particularly, managerial distance seems best interpreted as a factor, or aggregate of component factors, that put the firm's top managers in the position of “virtual owners,” in the sense that the information and decisions facing the managers are framed for them in roughly the way they would be framed for true owners of the firm. Our empirical analysis shows a positive, significant, and robust association between managerial distance and company economic performance. The findings appear to illuminate not just foundation governance, but corporate governance more generally.
Author: Steen Thomsen
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781680839425
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :
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Book Description
Enterprise Foundations: Law, Taxation, Governance, and Performance reviews the emerging literature on enterprise foundations. After an introduction, the authors begin by defining an enterprise foundation and its essential characteristics (Section 2). The monograph then discusses relevant theoretical perspectives on foundation ownership including agency theory, contract failure, and game theory (Section 3). Sections 4 and 5 examine enterprise foundation law and tax law respectively. Section 6 reviews the financial and social performance of foundation-owned companies. Section 7 addresses enterprise foundation governance. Section 8 concludes with a summary of findings and some ideas for future research.
Author: Lonneke Roza
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030257592
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305
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Book Description
Companies increasingly play a meaningful role in civil society and the philanthropic sector through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Philanthropy (CP). The most well studied form of allocating these resources is through outright contributions to operating external foundations and other nonprofit organizations. However, far less is known about the use of corporate foundations, separate and independent nonprofit entities aimed at channeling corporate giving to a social mission related to a company. Corporate foundations are often linked to the founding company through their name, funding, trustees, administration and potential employee involvement. As these foundations are growing in number, size and importance and becoming increasingly visible in the philanthropic sector, the urgency to understand their role and functioning becomes more important. The primary aim of this volume is to deliver a holistic analysis of the current state-of-the-art on corporate foundations. For that reason, the book includes different perspectives on and use a hybrid concept of corporate foundations. The book includes three main parts. First, looking further into the organizational processes of corporate foundations, the book analyzes governance and operations as major aspects of organizational performance. Second, it sheds light on the role of corporate foundations in various institutional settings. Lastly, the book includes various stakeholder perspectives on corporate foundations, including corporate employees, beneficiaries, and their non-profit partners. By reading the book, readers will build a comprehensive understanding of the role and functioning of corporate foundations, understand new avenues for research and, in case they are practitioners in the field, find practical advice rooted in academic research.
Author: Michael J. Rubach
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136535195
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 202
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Book Description
This book examines the shareholder activism of institutional investors, and the effect of this activism on portfolio performance. By focusing on 118 institutional investors headquartered in the United States, the book is unique in addressing the shareholder activism of a large sample. Institutional shareholder activism is defined to include both traditional mechanisms of influence (i.e. filing shareholder proposals) and relationship investing. Institutional owners included private and public pension funds, mutual funds, bank trusts, insurance companies, endowments, and foundations. These institutional owners differ substantially, and these differences lead institutions to use their ownership power to pursue different philosophies and actions. Some institutions follow a passive governance policy, While others adopt an activist role. This book seeks to answer four questions: (1) Are institutional owners actively involved in the strategic affairs of companies in their portfolios? (2)Which forms of activism do institutional owners employ (either confrontational mechanisms, such as filing shareholder proposals, or relationship building mechanisms)? (3)Which forms of activism employed are most effective? and (4) Does the institutional type affect its pursuit of shareholder activism? In answering these questions the author suggests new important results that in many cases are contrary to what prior reports of the activities by a small number of institutional owners may intimate.
Author: Kenneth Prewitt
Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation
ISBN: 1610444612
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 309
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Book Description
Though privately controlled, foundations perform essential roles that serve society at large. They spearhead some of the world's largest and most innovative initiatives in science, health, education, and the arts, fulfilling important needs that could not be addressed adequately in the marketplace or the public sector. Still, many people have little understanding of what foundations do and how they continue to earn public endorsement. The Legitimacy of Philanthropic Foundations provides a thorough examination of why foundations exist and the varied purposes they serve in contemporary democratic societies. The Legitimacy of Philanthropic Foundations looks at foundations in the United States and Europe to examine their relationship to the state, the market, and civil society. Peter Frumkin argues that unlike elected officials, who must often shy away from topics that could spark political opposition, and corporate officers, who must meet bottom-line priorities, foundations can independently tackle sensitive issues of public importance. Kenneth Prewitt argues that foundations embody elements of classical liberalism, such as individual autonomy and limited government interference in private matters and achieve legitimacy by putting private wealth to work for the public good. Others argue that foundations achieve legitimacy by redistributing wealth from the pockets of rich philanthropists to the poor. But Julian Wolpert finds that foundations do not redistribute money directly to the poor as much as many people believe. Instead, many foundations focus their efforts on education, health, and scientific research, making investments that benefit society in the long-term, and focusing on farsighted issues that a myopic electorate would not have patience to permit its government to address. Originating from private fortunes but working for the public good, independently managed but subject to legal prescriptions, philanthropic foundations occupy a unique space somewhere between the public and private sectors. The Legitimacy of Philanthropic Foundations places foundations in a broad social and historical context, improving our understanding of one of society's most influential—and least understood—organizational forms.
Author: Ciaran Driver
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198805276
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 337
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Book Description
Corporate governance is a complex idea that is often inappropriately simplified as a cookbook of recommended measures to improve financial performance. Meta studies of published research show that the supposed benign effects of these measures - independent directors or highly incentivised executives - are at best context-specific. There is thus a challenge to explain the meaning, purpose, and importance of corporate governance. This volume addresses these issues. The issues discussed centre on relationships within the firm e.g. between labour, managers, and investors, and relationships outside the firm that affect consumers or the environment. The essays in this collection are the considered selection by the editors and the contributors themselves of what are seen as some of the most weighty and urgent issues that connect the corporation and society at large in developed economies with established property rights. The essays are to be read in dialogue with each other, giving a richer understanding than could be obtained by shepherding all contributions into a single mould. Nevertheless taken together they demonstrate a shared sense of deep concern that the corporate governance agenda has been and still is on the wrong track. The contributors, individually and collectively, identify in this compendium both a research programme and a platform for change.
