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Periods of financial distress represent an episode during the firm’s life that requires an effective governance structure in the interests of shareholders. Changes in corporate governance structure are examined as firms approach and emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The purpose of this paper is to posit that firms alter their governance toward a more effective framework during restructuring, leading to emergence as a better performing firm.

The data set includes large firms that filed for bankruptcy between 1998 and 2013. Financial and governance characteristics prior to filing are compared to traits following emergence. The likelihood of emerging from bankruptcy is tested based on governance characteristics prior to filing and the change in these characteristics during bankruptcy.

The results show that firms use the bankruptcy process to significantly change their governance characteristics. These changes include smaller boards, greater board independence, unitary boards, the separation of the CEO and chairman positions, and changes in the ownership structure. Despite these changes, performance following emergence does not improve, and the changes in governance structure do not alter the likelihood that the firm will emerge.

This study, unlike previous studies, takes a broad look at governance characteristics for firms before and after bankruptcy. The findings imply that “better” governance, as defined in the literature, is not necessarily the pathway to better performance as many posit. The factors that influence the likelihood of emerging from bankruptcy and post-emergence performance require further study.

We examine what changes, if any, firms are making to their capital structure around the time they cross-list because both of these affect a firm’s corporate governance. Cross-listing requires firms to follow SEC rules and regulations, which helps improve the firm governance. A firm’s capital structure, specifically the use of debt, is an effective way to mitigate the conflict between managers and shareholders by reducing the cash available to managers. We examine whether these governance mechanisms are complimentary or being used as substitutes by cross-listing firms.

We compare the capital structures of Level II and Level III cross-listing firms from both civil law and common law countries in the three years before and the three years after cross-listing.

We show firms are significantly reducing their debt to equity ratio after the cross-listing. This reduction is shown for both Level II and Level III firms; however, it is primarily seen in civil law countries.

The corporate governance improvement firms recognize by cross-listing is partially offset by the reduced use of debt after the cross-listing. These governance characteristics may be especially relevant for shareholders in Level III cross-listings because those firms are actually raising addition cash.

We compare the governance characteristics of dual-class firms to a matched sample of single-class firms. Dual-class firms allow firms to separate voting and cash flow rights, frequently allowing management to control the voting rights while only having a small proportion of the cash flow rights. With the control of the voting rights, management has the ability to choose governance characteristics to further entrench itself or help protect the rights of the minority investors. We show that dual-class firms are less likely to have independent boards and have lower levels of institutional ownership. However, dual-class firms are more likely to have separate individuals as CEO and Chairman of the Board and less likely to have staggered boards, which are considered to be good governance characteristics.

This paper aims to find common ground between the supposed incompatible meta-historical positioning of positivism and post-positivism through a turn to mnemohistory in management and organizational history.

Drawing on the idea of creative synthesis and positioning theory, the authors interject concepts from cultural memory studies in historical research on business and organizations to encourage management historians and organization theorists interested in joining the dialogue around how the past is known in the present. Using notions of “aftermath” and “events,” the idea of apositivism is written into historical organization studies to focus on understanding the complex ways of how past events translate into history. The critical historic turn event is raised as an exemplar of these ideas.

The overview of the emergence of the controversial historic turn in management and organization studies and the positioning of its adherents and antagonists revealed that there may be some commonality between the fragmented sense of the field. It was revealed that effective history vis-à-vis mnemohistory may hold the potential of a shared scholarly ethic.

The research builds on recent work that has sought to bring together the boundaries of management and organizational history. This paper explains how mnemohistory can offer a common position that is instrumental for theorizing the relationships among the past-infused constructs such as organizational heritage, legacy and identity.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and espouse employee corporate social responsibility (CSR) practices in classified hotels in the coastal region of Kenya, then to evaluate perceived job satisfaction, employee turnover/retention and organizational commitment by employees and explore any inherent paradox in the employee perceptions on both employee CSR practices and the job‐related outcomes in the African context.

The paper is based on an exploratory survey that targeted a population of 5,595 hotel employees from 20 selected classified hotels. A sample size of 699 employees was systematically selected and data collected using a structured questionnaire anchored on a five‐point Likert scale. The instrument was evaluated for internal consistency and subjected to principal component analysis to explore extant dimensions.

Though initially employee CSR practices by the hotel enterprises were defined by four dimensions, while employee job satisfaction‐related outcomes were defined by three dimensions, principal component analysis revealed six dimensions of the employee CSR practices and four dimensions of the job‐related outcomes. This paper, therefore, identifies and discusses the inherent paradoxes of employee job satisfaction, employee commitment and employee retention as revealed by the study.

Internal social responsibility practices among enterprises in Africa, has relatively been downplayed by government, respective enterprise management and scholars.

This study aims to examine constituents’ political participation in the establishment of an Accounting Standards Advisory Forum (ASAF).

Based on a literature review, three hypotheses regarding political participation in global accounting standard-setting are constructed: regional disparity, professional dominance and financialization. These hypotheses are tested through a content and narrative analysis of the comment letters on the establishment of the ASAF.

Consistent with the regional-disparity hypothesis, neither Anglo–Saxon nor European Union countries were active advocates or positive supporters of ASAF’s establishment. However, no evidence supporting the professional and financialization hypotheses was found. Narrative analysis suggests a divergence of opinion among vested-interest groups in the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB), emerging nations and other groups, rather than the traditional conflicts between Anglo–Saxon and European countries. This suggests the possibility of a future-destabilizing factor in global standard-setting.

By discussing the IASB’s organizational and strategic changes and the constituents’ responses, this study describes the IASB’s organizational dynamics: how various stakeholders react to each other. Although prior studies primarily focused on comment letters regarding the contents of an accounting standard or the standard itself, this study examines such letters considering the size and composition of, and membership in, the ASAF, an organization within the IFRS Foundation (IFRSF). Therefore, the study reflects constituents’ opinions regarding their participation in the IFRSF/IASB more directly.