No images? Click here ![]() Dear readerHappy New Year! And welcome to our new updated version of the Center for Corporate Governance Newsletter. We hope you will enjoy the updates and insights. Happy reading! Research: Navigating the International Boardroom: The Impact of Foreign Directors on Audit Committees and Financial Reporting Quality Research: Sustainable success: The critical role of long-term ownership and stewardship in corporate governance for sustainability practices Today the need to balance profitability with social and environmental sustainability is more important than ever. A study from CCG Professor Steen Thomsen and Professor Nikolaos Kavadis delves into this critical issue, exploring how different types of ownership influence corporate sustainability practices. The study highlights the positive impact of long-term ownership on sustainability, while also underscoring the importance of owner stewardship and the need for standardized sustainability metrics to enhance transparency and comparability. The study offers actionable recommendations to attract long-term investors and promote stewardship. Podcast: "Insider trading by executives below the top" with Kasper Meisner Nielsen Professor and Director of Center for Corporate Governance Kasper Meisner Nielsen has guested the podcast Rig på viden. Kasper Meisner Nielsen shares insights from his latest research on insider trading, revealing that middle managers can achieve above-normal returns when trading their company’s own shares - most likely by leveraging insider information - but not when trading other stocks. The episode is in Danish. Search for: "Insider handel af mellemledere" Meet the researcher: Casper Berg Lavmand Larsen What is your position, and how long have you been at Center for Corporate Governance? I am Assistant Professor at CCG, and I just looked up the other day that I've just bypassed nine years at CCG including some exchange stays. I started out as a Student Assistant and completed my PhD here. Which areas of research are you working in? I primarily focus on two research areas within the overarching theme of corporate governance. The first area is in the literature known as worker participation. This includes worker-elected board members, cooperation councils (Samarbejdsudvalg in Danish), and trade unions. Or in other words; workers’ participation in firm decision-making. The second area is governance issues arising from the EU's new directive on non-financial reporting (CSRD) within the larger legislative framework of The European Green Deal. What is currently occupying you? I am mostly focused on worker participation. Specifically, I am working on a project about cooperation councils funded by the Rockwool Foundation Berlin. For this project, I recently completed a survey of 4,000 firms with the assistance of Statistics Denmark. For the first time, we have mapped the presence of cooperation councils within these firms, while also gathering insights from council members on the overall cooperative climate, management sentiment, and the key topics they engage with. Through this project, I particularly aim to explore potential complementarities between different forms of worker participation—how cooperation councils interact with board-level employee representatives and trade unions, and how these strategically complement or substitute each other within firms and the labor market more generally. Do you see any trends or issues in your research fields, that you would like to explore in the future? I want to engage with governance issues arising from the EU's new directive on non-financial reporting (CSRD), as I believe it is crucial for broader agendas such as the green transition and the promotion of ethical firm behavior. Europe is lagging behind in terms of innovation and economic growth, which presents an existential paradox and a profound challenge: is it truly possible to achieve economic prosperity while being sustainable? Through CSRD, the EU is carving out a new playfield for firms, investors, and other stakeholders, characterized by more standardized data and a higher level of transparency. However, the crucial question remains: how can firms, investors, and other stakeholders utilize this new opportunity in a way that ensures resources intended to promote sustainability are not lost in the process of reporting? |