Corporate governance and company performance: Exploring the challenging issues

Abstract

The challenging issues in corporate governance and company performance were explored in the international conference that took place in Lisbon on October 26th, 2017, entitled “Corporate governance and company performance: Exploring the challenging issues” (the joint organization was composed by ISEG Lisbon, publishing house “Virtus Interpress”, ADVANCE/CSG Research Center and Virtus Global Center for Corporate Governance). The main purpose of the conference was to provide the platform at international level for academics to analyse recent trends and upcoming challenges in corporate governance and company performance, major challenges and new horizons in further research. Keynote speakers addressed valuable suggestions and examples of how researchers focused on the board of directors can learn from research approaches of behavioural scientists regarding individual and group behaviour. Scholars participated in the conference concluded that insights from various disciplines should be combined for performing more precise and accurate research on corporate boards. Moreover, scholars identified main challenges currently facing the boards, namely the exponential rise in the number of risks and the difficulties of developing relevant strategies. A relevant discussion was raised concerning as to whether discretionary accruals fit methodological needs of researchers focused on corporate governance and on the financial information disclosed. In the line with recent practices in corporate governance in Europe, scholars suggested that female directors were associated with fewer income-increasing discretionary accruals.