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There is growing empirical evidence in context of the developed countries that greater tax aggressiveness of companies is associated with higher incentives to their executives. However, the same cannot be extended to emerging economies like India due to their distinct compensation practices. The present study, therefore, aims to bridge this gap by exploring the relationship between executive compensation and corporate tax aggressiveness in context of the Indian economy.

The sample comprises a subset of the S&P BSE 500 Index companies for FY 2014–15 through 2018–19. A fixed effects panel model has been used to discern the impact of executive compensation on corporate tax aggressiveness with and without the moderating effect of a proxy for corporate governance strength.

The econometric analysis evinces a significant negative impact of the fixed executive compensation on tax aggressiveness, specifically with the moderation of corporate governance strength which was found to have a positive effect on the said relation. In addition, no significant relationship was observed between variable compensation and tax aggressiveness. These results were robust to an alternate specification of the corporate governance strength proxy as well as the system generalised method of moments estimation employed to deal with endogeneity.

The study provides insights on a poor interest alignment between shareholders and managers in India owing to an insignificant amount of variable pay in the total executive compensation.

There is a growing consensus that entrepreneurial activity is essentially a collective family endeavour, with some configuration of family involvement in business (FIB) working better than others. This paper aims to examine the effects of FIB on strategy and financial performance (FP), drawing from the institutional theory for the Indian family businesses.

The sample comprises of 105 pharmaceutical companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange for FY2013–2017. A two-way random effects panel model was invoked to examine the relationship between FIB and strategy, as well as the intermediating effect that strategy has on the FIB-FP link.

On average, the family has a high ownership concentration, with the founders predominantly holding the chief executive officer (CEO) and chair positions. The econometric results highlight that the founder’s descendants adopt a conservative strategy. A significant positive moderating effect of strategy on FIB-FP link was observed for the descendants as the largest owners, CEO and board chair. The presence of a professional CEO and independent chair, however, leads to an intervening adverse impact on FP. The ownership-management-governance configurations highlight that some combinations of family and non-FIB leads to better performance than others.

The study provides a plausible explanation for the conflicting evidence on the direct FIB-FP relationship through the strategy intermediation. The institutional perspective emphasizing the identity and role family members play in terms of strategy provides an unconventional epistemological underpinning to the present research.

Profit shifting is a matter of great concern for governments internationally. It leads to the loss of tax revenues and puts multinational corporations (MNCs) in a disparate position. Lately, due to the aggressive stance of the Indian taxman, several Indian MNCs are planning to minimise their tax outflows. This paper aims to study profit-shifting drawing from the institutional theory for the Indian MNCs.

The sample comprises 679 MNCs listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange or the National Stock Exchange with either Indian parents with foreign subsidiaries (553) or Indian subsidiaries of a foreign parent (126) for FY 2013–14 to FY 2018–19. A fixed-effect panel regression technique was invoked to examine tax rate differential motivated profit-shifting undertaken by MNCs with the moderating effect of international presence and patents.

The results suggest that MNCs shift their profits to take advantage of differences in global tax rates when they have an international presence in at least five tax countries. Further, profit shifting is likely towards no-tax compared to low-tax countries, with the presence of patents in an MNC group having no significant impact.

Losses to the government revenue due to profit shifting by MNCs are rather severe in emerging economies. The study provides the first empirical evidence of the direction of profit shifting with the moderating effect of the extent of global presence and group patents, which would interest scholars in the field. The findings provide valuable insights to the policymakers, highlighting the urgent need to operationalise the general anti-avoidance taxation rules.

The world economy has experienced several economic downturns, and each phase emphasised that no industry is immune to inappropriate risk-management practices. Against the backdrop of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, which had far more effects than a financial crisis, the existing paper reviewed the state of current research in the realm of corporate governance and risk-management practices.

This study rigorously followed a systematic approach in identifying, selecting and critically synthesising the existing literature on corporate governance and risk management. The review was carried out on the Web of Science and Scopus database until December 31, 2022. In total, 72 research works were examined and reviewed.

This systematic literature review showed that companies with strong governance mechanisms are less exposed to corporate risks. Several attributes, such as higher institutional ownership stakes, concentrated family ownership structures, lower CEO compensation and duality, higher presence of females in the management, better board dynamics in terms of independent boards and gender diversity are all strong mechanisms for mitigating risk. Additionally, socially responsible companies are better positioned to mitigate corporate risks. Furthermore, several themes emphasising the governance risk link have been identified to understand this domain further.

By analysing and synthesising existing corporate governance and risk-management themes, this study ascertained various research gaps that can be addressed in future studies. Furthermore, drawing on this paper's essential cues, researchers can significantly differentiate their work from existing ones in the field.

As widely known and well established, strategic decision-making at family firms is an interface between business interests and family considerations. The purpose of this paper is to understand the underlying basis of decision-making in setting corporate strategy and designing chief executive officer (CEO) compensation at founder- vis-à-vis descendant-led family firms in the Indian pharmaceutical sector.

A sample of 106 BSE-listed pharmaceutical companies have been studied over the period 2012–2017 resulting in a total of 636 firm-year observations. Impact of family involvement in business (FIB) on corporate strategy and CEO compensation has been analysed by constructing multivariate panel data regression models. To deal with the problem of endogeneity, Arellano-Bond (1991) dynamic panel data estimation procedure has moreover been conducted.

Supporting stewardship theory, founder-owned and governed firms have been found to favour “growth” strategy and distribute “conservative” executive pay, thereby exerting a positive moderating impact on the strategy-compensation linkage. On the contrary, descendants/second-generation entrepreneurs have put forth a “conservative” stance for growth and innovation, and have rather been observed to favour a “liberal” compensation policy, thereby showcasing the application of behavioural agency theory.

The research is a novel attempt to unravel the interaction between corporate strategy and CEO compensation in a family firm backdrop carried out in the context of an emerging economy. The study, moreover, adopted an all-encompassing definition of FIB (ownership, management and governance).

There is mixed evidence in the extant literature on the firm value implications of corporate tax aggressiveness in the developed economies. There are, however, limited studies that discuss this relationship in the case of emerging economies. The present study aims to bridge this research gap by exploring the relationship between corporate tax aggressiveness and firm value in context of the Indian economy.

The sample comprises 547 S&P BSE 500 (Standard and Poor's Bombay Stock Exchange 500) Index companies for Financial Year (FY) 2009–10 through FY 2018–19. A fixed-effects panel model has been used to discern the impact of corporate tax aggressiveness on firm value with and without the moderating effect of a proxy for corporate governance strength.

The results highlight a significant negative relationship between corporate tax aggressiveness and firm value in India, whilst the analysis on the moderating effect of corporate governance strength on this relationship revealed a mix of significant and insignificant results. These results were robust to an alternate specification of the corporate governance strength proxy, the system GMM estimation employed to deal with endogeneity and a change in the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) regulation brought into effect by the Companies Act, 2013.

The study reveals a firm value discount associated with corporate tax aggressiveness in India which is likely due to its ability to increase opportunities for wealth expropriation by managers. This can further be attributed to the ineffective corporate governance mechanisms that make agency problems more severe in the case of emerging economies like India.

The present paper aims to question the rationale of paying a high remuneration to executives who are presiding over loss-making companies. The neoclassical wage model asserts that the remuneration of executive directors is positively related to their company’s financial performance. However, evidence suggests that executives can obtain a higher level of personal compensation regardless of how the company performs.

The relationship between executive remuneration and performance for viable but loss-making Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE)-listed companies has been studied for 2009-2011. The paper examines the determinants of the level of executive remuneration as well as discerns the strength of the remuneration–performance relationship, both at the overall and across various board hierarchical levels, using the JM sensitivity and HL elasticity models.

Results for univariate and multivariate analyses highlight that both the remuneration–performance sensitivity and elasticity are weak. Further, factors such as ownership structure, risk and industry class moderate the remuneration–performance elasticity. It seems that it is only the lower rung of executive directors whose cash remuneration gets adversely affected with the performance of the company.

The paper offers valuable insight into the complexities relating to the remuneration performance relationship by putting forth a multi-theoretical perspective. The fact that executives are drawing a whopping remuneration while their companies continue to report disappointing results suggests that a catalytic role has to be played by the government so as to ensure that executive remuneration policies and practices are consistent with the company’s long-term objectives and control environment.

If females are more ethical than males, as the literature on the subject generally suggests, engaging and encouraging females in their careers would certainly promote an ethical environment. The present paper is motivated by such a viewpoint and aims to investigate gender‐based differences in the ethical disposition and the underlying dimensions in ethical decision‐making processes, by specific examination of business students.

The main research instrument is a quantitative questionnaire through which the responses of 162 business students (45 females and 117 males) are examined. For data analysis univariate analysis by invoking one‐way analysis of variance and multivariate approach using cluster analysis are conducted to investigate gender‐based differences in the ethical disposition. To determine the underlying dimensions in ethical decision‐making processes, for female and male business students, the principal axis approach to factor analysis has been used.

The findings provide evidence that female business students are more ethically predisposed than their male counterparts. It is further observed that males exhibit less diversity in ethical decision making while females more readily invoked different ethical dimensions for different business scenarios.

The paper offers valuable insight into the role of gender in ethics in the context of Indian business. The fact that females appear to demonstrate greater sensitivity on ethical issues suggests that practitioners may want to use this knowledge for developing their organizational strategies, ethical codes, and evaluation systems. Further, the study also highlights the importance of realigning the curriculum in a manner that the teaching of ethics becomes an integral part of business school education.

If proficient boards result in better governance, as the literature on the subject generally suggests, engaging independent directors and having in place an effective audit committee would certainly facilitate productive corporate functioning and enhanced accountability. Motivated by such a viewpoint, the purpose of this paper is to unravel the reporting quality and performance of the Indian central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) and its private counterparts.

The well premeditated propositions of the study resulted in a final sample comprising 47 CPSEs and 30 peer companies. The auditors' report on financial statements was scanned to determine the quality of company's accounting and financial reporting systems. The BSE‐500 Index companies were ranked on select financial parameters to gauge relative performance of the sample companies.

An analysis of the CPSEs shows that non‐compliance with the corporate governance provisions with regards to the required number of independent directors on the board did not have any concomitant effect on their performance. Further, an examination of auditors' report revealed that the CPSEs provide a better insight into books of accounts, unlike the private sector.

The study is timely and relevant, given the expanded role of the state and renewed interest in boards. A case for collaborative engagement between the government and the corporate sector is proposed to address legal as well as regulatory lacunae for building trust and fostering good corporate governance. To ensure better compliance and enforcement of financial regulations it envisions an integrated accounting/auditing and taxation administration platform.