Many institutional investors rely on a proxy advisory firm to assist them in voting the company proxy and fulfilling their fiduciary responsibility to vote in the interest of beneficial shareholders. The largest and most influential proxy advisory firm is Institutional Shareholder Services...

Most corporations dedicate significant time and attention to managing their shareholder base. Furthermore, companies overwhelmingly prefer “long-term shareholders” to “short-term shareholders.” There is little rigorous research, however, that conclusively demonstrates the impact that...

In Closer Look, we highlight significant “holes” in our knowledge of corporate governance. These are central issues where insufficient or inadequate study has left us unable to answer basic questions, and where key assumptions relied upon by experts have not been verified or validated. While...

Currently, there is much debate about the role that non-investor stakeholder interests play in the governance of public companies. Critics argue that greater attention should be paid to the interest of stakeholders and that by investing in initiatives and programs to promote their interests,...

Proxy advisory firms have significant influence over the voting decisions of institutional investors and the governance choices of publicly traded companies. However, it is not clear that the recommendations of these firms are correct and generally lead to better outcomes for companies and their...

In this Closer Look, we consider current trends in shareholder activism and their potential impact. We examine the introduction of universal proxies, the increase in “activism experience” among directors, and the changing strategies of activists. With the regulatory and market environments...

In this Closer Look, we examine individual investor perception of ESG to gauge their concern for environmental and social issues, their view of whether fund managers should use their voting power to influence ESG practices, and their willingness to sacrifice return in the advancement of ESG...

This paper applies a value-based management framework to critically review empirical research in managerial accounting. This framework enables us to place the exceptionally diverse set of managerial accounting studies from the past several decades into an integrated structure. Our synthesis...

Researchers in accounting, corporate finance, economics, and law regularly evaluate the impact of corporate governance provisions on firm performance and managerial actions. Many of these studies rely on publicly available governance summaries developed by the Investor Responsibility Research...