Search results

The purpose of this paper is to study if and how the evaluation of the boards in the top Nordic male football clubs affects the boards’ composition and work.

The study includes all the clubs in the two top divisions in each of the five Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden). The study makes use of a questionnaire where 66 (out of 145) chairmen answer 17 questions concerning the board composition and work on a five‐point Likert‐scale.

The responses were related to whether the board is annually evaluated or not. Descriptive statistics demonstrates that more than half of the clubs have an annual board evaluation. Most common is that the Chairman performs the evaluation himself/herself with help from designated board members; the evaluation being performed through informal discussions. A total of 44 clubs have a nominee committee. Almost all of the clubs transfer the result of the board evaluation to its nominee committee, most commonly verbally. Furthermore, results show that board evaluation has a significant positive effect on the following functions of football boards: review of business plan, strategy, objective and budget; discussion on short‐term development; discussion on long‐term development; and work efficiency.

The results of this study are consistent with a similar study of listed Nordic companies. The main difference between the results of the two studies is that clubs, unlike publicly listed companies, almost always perform the evaluation through internal interviews rarely using external consultants and individual anonymous questionnaires.

The purpose of this study is to explicitly focus on the roles of ownership concentration, ownership by the board, the chief executive officer (CEO) and the chairperson in the involvement and capabilities of chairpersons and other governors in their work.

In this study, the authors investigate the impact of the concentration of ownership, the ownership of the board, the CEO and the chairperson on the chairperson’s activity when the roles of the chairperson and the CEO are separated The empirical analysis of this study is based on a survey sent to Nordic listed firms.

The results show that the ownership characteristics of a company are important in determining the chairperson’s working hours, the chairperson’s communication with the CEO and the performance of governance activity. In addition, the authors found that while the ownership of the chairperson and the board of directors and ownership concentration improve governance activity, CEO ownership may undermine governance activity.

The primary implication of the study is that both ownership by internal governors and ownership concentration play an important role in determining the involvement of internal corporate governors.

The study provides unique evidence that ownership by the chairperson, concentrated ownership and ownership by the board can potentially mitigate the costs of separating the roles of the chairperson and the CEO.

The purpose of this paper is to survey chairmen's perceptions of female board representation in five Nordic countries, focussing on whether the chairman's perception of board work is related to gender diversity, and on differences between high- and low-risk firms.

The authors combine data from a questionnaire directed to the chairmen of the boards in Nordic listed companies with data on firm characteristics and board composition.

The authors find that the chairmen (97.5 percent male) are significantly less satisfied with female board members as compared to male ones. The authors also find that firms with nomination committees have more gender diverse boards, as well as indications of a more positively perceived contribution of female representation in high-risk firms.

The study is restricted to perceptions of chairmen for listed Nordic firms. The low response rate of 20.1 percent is a severe limitation.

The increasing practice of using nomination committees in the Nordic countries seems advantageous from gender balance perspective.

The authors contribute to the literature on gender diversity in boards by providing results from a board intern perspective.