CCG Newsletter

March 2024

You have to practice what you preach

The Center for Corporate Governance (CCG) at CBS has been on a remarkable journey over the last couple of decades. The center was founded back in 2005 with the clear purpose of having a real impact on the corporate governance debate and policy making, both in practice and in academia.

CCG was founded with only 3 employees and is now one of the largest centres in Europe with a unique and varied research portfolio. After 19 years, the time has come to pass on the baton to a new leadership team, who can ensure the continuity and development in accordance with the mission of contributing to improved corporate governance through research.

In 2014, Lars Ohnemus took over the daily management. Over the last couple of years, focus has really been on making our European outreach even stronger, have a strong link to the Nordic business community while maintaining and expanding a strong academic core. Today, CCG consists of a total team of close to 25 employees with more than 7 different nationalities. In a world which is increasingly driven by instability and volatility, the perspective of long-term ownership regardless of the ownership form, working with board stewardship and defending plus documenting the Nordic corporate governance model have never been more essential.

Externally, we have for years been preaching, that strong and timely succession is essential, if you want to maintain long term success. Hence, we will now have to taste our own medicine and will be gradually stepping down starting as of April 1, 2024. Jette Poulsen Jørgensen who has successfully been heading the Center for Owner-Managed Businesses will be taking over CCG as a daily leader. Furthermore, Prof. Kasper Meisner Nielsen who among others also have a strong international track record both in the area of corporate governance and finance will become the academic leader. 

Steen will continue to be responsible for the Enterprise Foundation project and Lars will continue to be the leader for Nordic Finance and the Good Society.

Steen Thomsen & Lars Ohnemus 

Jesper Berg 

Jesper Berg is a new member of the NCGN Board and becomes a senior advisor for researchers at Nordic Finance and the Good Society

Jesper Berg possesses extensive knowledge of financial regulation and its practical application. He is a former director-general at the Danish FSA (2015 to 2023), member of the executive board at Nykredit Bank (2010 to 2015), and he held various key positions at the National Bank of Denmark. 

We welcome him! 

Upcoming event - March 20

Nordic Finance and the Good Society presents

What is the true cost of regulation - time for re-regulation? 

In this event, we will focus on the link between financial regulation and the development of the Nordic financial sector. As also highlighted in our recent report from Nordic Finance and the Good Society, the regulatory framework is simply to a large degree deciding the strategic outlook of the sector and has wide impact and cost implications for all stakeholders. The Nordic countries have in most cases applied EU legislation without having a clear voice in a European debate. Furthermore, this event will also investigate if re-regulation is the way forward in a sector driven by new technologies, shifting demands and market disruption.

Program

Wednesday 20th March 2024, at 15-18
CBS, Porcelænshaven 22, room: PHRs20, 2000 Frederiksberg

15.00-15.10 Welcome & introduction
Lars Ohnemus, Director CCG, CBS

15.10-15.30 ESFS cooperation – from the perspective of the Danish FSA & the Danish FSA supervisory activity – Strategy and framework
Nina Legind, President of the Governing Board, Danish Financial Supervisory Authority

15.30-15.50 The regulatory development of CEO pay in the Nordics
Prof. Trond Randøy, CBS, and Prof. Øystein Strøm, Oslo Metropolitan University

15.50-16:00 Coffee break

16.00-16.20 The historic development of regulation and the financial market in the Nordics
Prof. Lars Oxelheim, University of Agder, Norway

16.20-16.40 50 years of European Banking Regulation and Supervision
Dr. Giovanni Bassani, University of Edinburgh and European Central Bank

16.40-17.00 Panel discussion
Prof. Jesper Lau Hansen, Copenhagen University, and Nina Legind, Trond Randøy, Øystein Strøm, Lars Oxelheim, Giovanni Bassani. Moderator, Lars Ohnemus

17.00 Reception with light refreshments

Registration 

 Register for the event by clicking on the button and follow the instructions

Previous events in 2023

30/08 2023: Value of Financial Advice - seminar 

High-profile speakers from academia and the financial sector presented their views on The Value of Financial Advice. Central questions in the event were:

• What are the reasons for the low level of equity participation?
• And what can we do to foster a culture of investing?

As financial markets become more complex, financial advice has an important role to play in answering these questions. Not only to encourage equity participation across society, but also to ensure that investments find the right targets.  These adressed issues and other issues were discussed at the
Nordic Finance and the Good Society event on August 30, 2023. 

20/09-22/09 2023: ECGI Conference 

At the end of september 2023 a three-day-workshop/conference was held. This came at a time where the debate about coprorate purpose was debated more then ever. 

The conference aimed to bring together academic resercers, scholars as well as business leaders to adress the central questions of Corporate Purpose and Modern Capitalism. Exploring  its potential, its challenges, and its profound influence on business, invester perofrmance, and the global landscape. 

The conference was held in collaboration between the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI) and the Center for Corporate governance (CCG) at CBS. The three days were a part of the Corporate Porpose pillar of ECGI's responsible Capitalism initiative. 

Peter Wallenberg, who is from one of Sweeden's most influential families in the buisness world, was a speaker at the conference. 

21/10-22/10 2023: ICGS global conference in Madrid

At the International Corporate Governance Society (ICGS) Conference 2023 in Madrid, Potdoc Caglar Kaya, CBS, participated and presented two papers. He presented the paper titled “Foundation Ownership and Creditor Governance: Evidence from Publicly Listed Companies” within the Enterprise Foundations Project. The paper investigates the effect of foundation controlling ownership on the firms’ credit risk and their relationship with banks in a global setting of public companies.

Caglar also chaired a seminar session called “Board Interlock” and presented the second paper titled “Shared Board Directors and the Cost of Bank Debt” co-authored with Thomas Poulsen and Niels Westergaard-Nielsen from the CCG. The paper is a part of Nordic Finance and the Good Society Project of CCG and examines the effect of sharing a board director with a bank on the cost of bank debt for private Danish firms.

31/10 2023: Conference, "Is there a sustainable future for the Nordic Financial Sector?"

On Tuesday 31st of October, Nordic Finance and the Good Society presented "Is there a sustainable future for the Nordic Financial Sector?" on a conference held at CBS. 

At the event the focus was on how to get a sustainable financial sector in a disrupted world by presenting new research results from Nordic Finance and the Good Society research project II and getting insides from key decision makers and leading researchers. Themes like sustainable financial sector, investment challenges in the area of longevity, the future of digital currencies and the increasing pressure from regulation were also disscued and exhibited. 

The research results from the NFGS II project has resulted in the launch of a new Research Report and Executive Summary which hopefully will provide you with a deeper insight in new strategic perspectives and trends within the financial sector. These can also be found earlier in the newsletter. 

Podcasts 

Nordic Finance and the Good Society 

Nordic Finance and the Good Society project fase II has made a collaboration with the Danish podcast program 'Rig på viden' offering content in both Danish and English. You can find the list over podcast made for NFGS fase II in 2023 down below: 

Enterprise Foundations 

Enterprise Foundation has made a collaboration with the Danish podcast program 'Rig på viden' offering content in both Danish and English. You can find the podcast made for Enterprise Foundations in 2023 down below: 

Publications

Proffessor Trond Randøy has since June 2023 published the following articles. Take a look! : 

1. Indri Dwi Apriliyanti; Marleen Dieleman; Trond Randøy (2023) / Multiple-principal Demands and CEO Compliance in Emerging Market State-owned Enterprises In: Journal of Management Studies, 2023. doi:10.1111/joms.12977.
2. Aaron Afzali; Minna Martikainen; Lars Oxelheim; Trond Randøy (2023) / On the Role of Internationalization of Firm-level Corporate Governance : The Case of Audit Committees. In: Corporate Governance: An International Review, Vol. 31, No. 5, p. 737-758.
3. Bruce Hearn; Lars Oxelheim; Trond Randøy (2023)/ The Impact of Indigenous Culture and Business Group Affiliation on Corporate Governance of African Firms In: Corporate Governance: An International Review, https://doi.org/10.1111/corg.12547
4. Bruce Hearn; Lars Oxelheim; Trond Randøy (2023) / The Influence of Business Groups on Board Composition in Offshore Financial Multinational Enterprises In: International Business Review, Vol. 32, No. 3, 6.2023

Associate professor Nikolas Kavadis has in 2023 among others published the following scholar publication and dissemination publication through newspaper. Take a look! :

1. Kavadis, N., Hermes, N., Oehmichen, J., Zattoni, A., & Fainshmidt, S. (2024). Sustainable value creation in multinational enterprises: The role of corporate governance actors. Journal of World Business, 59(1), 101503. 
2. Kavadis, N. Ansvar­ligt ejerskab er nøglen til bæredyg­tighed i erhvervs­livet. Børsen, 22. Nov. 2023.

CCG Seminars

Weekly seminars are held at CCG. The purpose of these seminars is to give the employees a platform for them to present their work, while also allowing their collegues to gain a better understanding of what is currently being working on. At the seminars we also invite external guest to come and present. 

The following seminars has been held at CCG since June 2023: 

• Bill Judge: Entrepreneurial Orientation and Underconformity to Female Board Representation Norms
• Terry McNulty: Enterprise Foundation Governance: 5 Case Studies
• Ryan krause: Compromise Leadership: Board Demographic Faultlines and the Recruitment of a chair from outside the firm
• Kostas Stathopolous: Outside employment opportunities and tournament incentives
• Joacim Tåg: ChatGTP as a research assistant
• Ellen Quigley: "Universal Ownership in practice - A practical investment framework for asset owners"
• Niels Westergård-Nielsen: Life after Loss: New Evidence on the Consequences of Losing Promotion Tournaments
• Jannicke Rasmussen: Dismissing CEO for performance: Instrumental acts or performative symbolic sacrifice?
• David Jonas Schröder: Employee Slack: Wealth and Organizational Adaptation
• David Mitchell Reeb: Beyond the Green Facade: Startups' Response to Environmental narratives in Financing 
• Jette Steen Knudsen and Steen Thomsen: Sustainable Corporate Governance Mechanisms 

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