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Newsletter 2017

With this newsletter we aim to keep you updated on our current research projects, publications, staff news, and upcoming events and provide you with a brief overview of the highlights of 2016.

 
 
 
 

A New Focus Area: Foundation and Internationalization of the Nordic Industrial Firms

Lars C. Ohnemus, Director, Center for Corporate Governance

The Danish industrial foundation model has served all its stakeholders, including shareholders and employees well over many decades. Conceptually, it gave local, high growth companies the right foundation and ownership model to become global unicorns over time.  But why is the actual internationalization of Danish Industrial firms and their Nordic peers today slower than one would expect?

 
 
 
 
 

Upcoming Events

Fondsseminer 2017: "God Fondsledelse"

On March 7, 2017, Center for Corporate Governance is hosting a seminar about foundation governance in cooperation with University of Copenhagen, the Board Leadership Society, and Komiteen for god Fondsledelse. Among the many prominent speakers at the seminar are; Sten Scheibye, Chair of Novo Nordisk Foundation, Flemming Bligaard, Chairman of the Rambøll Foundation, Pprofessor Steen Thomsen (CBS), and Professor Rasmus Feldthusen (Copenhagen University). Read more and register.

Financial Advice Seminar

As part of the research project Nordic Finance & The Good Society, we welcome Oscar Stolper to speak at the Financial Advice Seminar on March 22, 2017. He will be accompanied by Bersant Hobdari and Niels-Ulrik Mousten. They will discuss if financial advice creates value and what the consequences are if there is no guidance, and how to safeguard the interest between commercial interests and the individual consumer. Read more and register.

CCG Seminars

Patricia Gabaldon from Instituto de Impresa Madrid will present her work on women’s involvement in corporate boards. The seminar will take place on April 26, 2017.

A top scholar in corporate governance and corporate finance, Ruediger Fahlenbrach, from Swiss Finance Institute, Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne will visit us on May 31, 2017 to present some of his recent work.

The Third Conference of the International Corporate Governance Society

The conference will be held on September 2–3, 2017. The theme is Corporate Power and Corporate Governance: Balancing Vale Creation with Stakeholder Accountability. You can find out more information about the conference on their webpage. Proposals should be submitted no later than April 1, 2017.

 

Research project - Nordic Finance and the Good Society: An Update on the Project

The primary focus of this ambitious research project is to examine the strategic and regulatory issues that affect the financial sector, and how to create the right framework conditions in a market with growing international competition. The project is a joint research project with participation from industry stakeholders and it brings together researchers from CBS, Yale, IMD, SDU, AU, and KU. The project, which is unique in a Nordic context, is expected to run until 2019.

To ensure that the research is relevant in the financial world, CBS has established a partnership with leading stakeholders from the financial sector. Among the economic contributors are the Financial Services Union Denmark (Finansforbundet), Danske Bank, Sparinvest, Carnegie, The Association of Local Banks, Savings Banks and Cooperative Banks in Denmark (Lokale Pengeinstitutter), The Danish Bankers Association (Finansrådet), Nordic Counsil (Nordisk Ministerråd) the Nordic Financial Union (NFU), and Copenhagen Business Academy.

Publications

Throughout 2016, the project has published several papers. A very recent publication is the working paper "Why some small firms suffered more during the crisis" written by Thomas Poulsen and Niels Westergaard-Nielsen.

 
 
 

Newly Published Books

 
 
 
 
 

Steen Thomsen published his book “The Danish Industrial Foundations” in January 2017. The book provides an introduction to the topic of industrial foundations. The book is the result of a large collaborative research project on Industrial Foundations, led by the author, but aims for the general reader without specialist knowledge.

 
 
 

In cooperation with other researchers, Niels Westergaard-Nielsen has written the book "The Danish Economy in a Global Context", published in January 2017. The book provides a general introduction to economic developments, institutions, and policies in Denmark. A number of topical policy issues, such as retirement, education, and globalisation, are discussed in a non-technical fashion. The text takes a global comparative perspective to highlight the differences and similarities between Denmark and other OECD countries.

 
 
 
 
 
 

Outstanding Publications

The International Management Division ‘CGIO Best Paper in International Corporate Governance’ was awarded to Associate Professor at CCG, Bersant Hobdari, for the paper titled “Changing Human and Social Capital at the Top: Pro-Market Reforms an Board of Directors in Emerging Markets” by the Academy of Management at the annual meeting in August 2016.

The paper “Access to Finance and Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment” written by George Wernicke and Vanya R. Rusinova was selected for the Best Paper Proceedings at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management Annual in Anaheim (US). For the proceedings, only the best 10% of all submission to the conferences are included.

The paper “Access to Finance and Corporate Social Responsibility: Evidence from a Quasi-Natural Experiment” by George Wernicke and Vanya R. Rusinova was nominated for the Best Conference Paper Award at the annual meeting of the Strategic Management Society in Berlin (Germany).

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Staff News

Marc Steffen Rapp  has joined CCG in a position as Associate Professor in International Banking and Finance to be part of the research team of the project "Nordic Finance and the Good Society".  Marc is also Professor of Business Administration and head of the Management Accounting Research Group at Philipps-Universität Marburg (Germany).  Marc has already finalized an extensive research report onFinancial Sector Structure and Economic Growth: A Fresh Look With a Focus on Denmark.

Caren Yinxia Nielsen joined CCG in a new post doc position in 2016. Caren conducts quantitative research in the areas of banking, financial regulation, financial risk management, asset pricing, and asset allocation. Caren is part of the project "Nordic Finance and the Good Society" where she looks into return on equities targets set by financial institutions, especially banks.

In 2016, CCG could welcome two new Ph.D. fellows to the team; Niels Hulgård and Vanya Rusinova. Niels focuses on foundation-owned companies as a type of ownership that is inherently long-term in nature. Vanya is focusing on the strategic use of corporate social responsibility by multinational enterprises.

Personal Announcements

We are happy to announce that from March 1st 2017, Larissa Rabbiosi, will be CCG's new Professor MSO in International Business. Her inaugural lecture will take place later this spring.

George Wernicke is currently a visiting scholar at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Evanston/IL to work together with Edward Zajac (James F. Bere Professor of Management & Organizations) and Ivana Naumovska (INSEAD) on the research project “Unsettling Settling-Up? Corporate Misconduct and Heterogeneity in the Reputational Penalties to Directors”.

Steen Thomsen has recently been invited to become a research member of the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI). This is a great honour and achievement for Steen, Nobel Laurates Bengt Holmström and Oliver Hart are both members of ECGI. Visit the ECGI website.

Oscar Stolper (University of Marburg, Germany) will be visiting professor at CCG March 16-23, 2017. Oscar’s research interests are empirical capital market research, behavioral finance and household finance. He will talk about "Individuals’ use of financial advice: the role of portfolio performance, trust, and financial literacy at the Financial Advice Seminar on March 22, 2017

 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Former Events

Business seminar: Challenges in the Corporate Landscape and Effective Board Diversity” - February 1, 2016.
Center for Corporate Governance, in cooperation with the Board Leadership Society and AMROP (Executive Search Firm) hosted this business seminar. Prominent speakers (from Denmark and abroad) presented their views on how to create a board of directors that will be best qualified to support the companies in facing the challenges in the business environment. The presentations was followed by a round table discussion that focused specifically on Nordic companies, with the aim of initiating the path towards the design of an enhanced Nordic board model.

18th Conference of the International Association for the Economics of Participation (IAFEP) - July 6-9, 2016.
The IAFEP Conference, which take place every two years, provided an international forum for presentations and discussions of current research on the economics of participation. Scholars from different fields of study (industrial and labor economics, development economics, organizational studies, sociology, political science, law, philosophy, etc.) presented their recent research on economics of democratic and participatory organizations, such as labor-managed firms, cooperatives and firms with broad-based employee share-ownership, profit sharing and worker participation schemes, as well as democratic nonprofit, community and social enterprises.

Nordic Finance and the Good Society Events
During the year of 2016, several seminars were hosted by CCG in relation to the Nordic Finance and the Good Society project.
In September, CCG hosted the seminar: “The Future of the Financial Sector – How to promote an equity culture in Denmark?” .
Later in the same month, Professor John Kay visited CCG. John Kay is a highly distinguished academic, a successful businessman, an adviser to companies and governments around the world, and an acclaimed columnist. In this talk, John Kay described how financialisation came about, identified how finance improved the efficiency of business and the lives of households, and proposed a programme of reform.