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This study aims to explore the relationship between board governance structure and firm risk. In particular, this study develops a “governance index” based on four aspects of the board: board composition, board leadership structure, board member characteristics and board processes, and it examines how the overall index relates to firm risk.

The study is conducted using a sample of 268 UK firms from the FTSE 350 index over the period from 2005 to 2010. An index is constructed to capture the overall governance structure of the firm. Regressions of the index on three risk measures are examined.

This study finds that the governance index that aggregates the four sets of board attributes is significantly and negatively related to firm risk. Robustness tests confirm this result.

A large number of studies have explored the relationship between the attributes of corporate boards and firm performance with mixed results. A much smaller number of studies have looked at board attributes and firm risk, but these have either focused on financial sector firms alone or have included only a single or a limited number of attributes. This study, using a broad agency framework, seeks to extend the work on firm risk and board attributes by both expanding industry sectors examined and using a comprehensive set of board attributes.

The findings have policy and practical implications for investors, regulators and chairmen of boards of governors to the extent that they inform these constituencies about the set of board attributes that are associated with firm risk. This study is the first to use a comprehensive measure of governance and relate it to firm risk.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the board attributes that significantly increase firm risk. The study aims to find whether board size, percentage of non-executive directors, women on the board, a powerful chief executive officer, equity ownership amongst executive board directors and institutional investor ownership are associated with firm risk. This is the first study that examines which board attributes increase firm risk using a UK-based sample.

This empirical study collected secondary data from Bloomberg and Morningstar databases. The data sample is an unbalanced panel of 260 companies’ secondary data on FTSE 350 index in the UK, from 2005 to 2010. The data were statistically analysed using STATA.

The study establishes the board attributes that were significantly related to firm risk. The results show that a board which can increase firm risk is one that is small in size, has high equity ownership amongst executive board directors and has high institutional investor ownership.

The governance culture and regulatory system in the UK is different from other countries. As the data are a UK-based sample, the results can lack generalisability.

The results are useful for investors who invest in large firms, to have the knowledge about the board attributes that can increase firm risk. Regulators can also use the results to strengthen regulatory guidelines.

This study fills the gap in knowledge in UK governance literature on the board attributes that can increase firm risk.

This study aims to investigate the occurrence of pre-merger earnings management for a sample of 197 stock- and cash-financed UK acquirers between 1990 and 2009. It also examines the earnings management behaviour around the change in the Corporate Governance Code in 2003 based on the Higgs recommendations.

Mean and median accrual- and real-based manipulation are examined in the period before the announcement of a merger and acquisition. These are compared across stock and cash acquirers as well as before and after the implementation of the Higgs recommendations. Logistic regressions are also run to examine accrual- and real-based manipulation across stock and cash acquirers after controlling for variables that may affect the acquisition type.

The study found some evidence of upward pre-merger accrual-based earnings management by stock-financed acquirers, which is in line with the findings of Botsari and Meeks (2008). Furthermore, no significant changes were found in the post-Higgs period, which indicates that the recommendations put forth by Higgs may not have been successful in mitigating earnings management. The evidence also shows that cash bidders engage in pre-merger real earnings manipulation through lower discretionary expenses, possibly to enhance cash availability for the bid.

The findings in this study confirm earnings management exists around mergers and acquisitions and provide some evidence that the recommendations set out in the Higgs Report do not appear to have mitigated earnings management activities. This is of interest to regulators as well as investors and academicians.

This provides the first analysis in the UK examining the use of real-based earnings management activities by UK acquirers. It also extends prior research around corporate governance changes that occurred in the UK.

There has, for some time, been a debate over whether the proceeds of evasion of foreign taxes fall within money‐laundering legislation contained in s. 93 Criminal Justice Act 1988 (as amended) (‘the Act’). Those that argue for this interpretation seem to be gaining the ascendancy. This may in part be because government ministers and officials have repeatedly stated the view that evasion of foreign tax is a criminal offence like any other. This depends on whether a court interprets ‘criminal conduct’, defined in s. 93A(7) as follows, to include foreign tax evasion:

Auto Diesels Ltd. Auto Diesels Ltd., Uxbridge, have announced the appointment to the Board of Directors of Air Commodore James Warburton, who will be mainly concerned with their Aircraft Equipment Division.

THIS number will appear at the beginning of the Leeds Conference. Although there is no evidence that the attendance will surpass the record attendance registered at the Birmingham Conference, there is every reason to believe that the attendance at Leeds will be very large. The year is one of importance in the history of the city, for it has marked the 300th anniversary of its charter. We hope that some of the festival spirit will survive into the week of the Conference. As a contributor has suggested on another page, we hope that all librarians who attend will do so with the determination to make the Conference one of the friendliest possible character. It has occasionally been pointed out that as the Association grows older it is liable to become more stilted and formal; that institutions and people become standardized and less dynamic. This, if it were true, would be a great pity.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.

Third‐culture kids (TCKs) are adolescents who have lived at least one of their formative years in another country. This study compares survey data collected from British TCKs who were currently living in Hong Kong with those of their adolescent peers living in the UK and Hong Kong. The results unequivocally suggest that TCKs’ perception of being international and their characteristics are different than that of their adolescent peers in the host and home country. More than the other adolescents, TCKs indicated that international experience, parental and institutional education, a second language, neutrality, open‐mindedness and flexibility, attitudes towards other systems and cultures, respect for others, tolerance of others’ behaviour and views, all contributed to the perception of being international. Similarly, TCKs had distinctive characteristics in terms of stronger family relationships, enjoying travelling to foreign places, acceptance of foreign languages, acceptance of cultural differences, and future orientation. Implications for international firms of these fundamental findings are discussed in detail.