Call for Papers

Corporate Governance: An International Review

Special Issue on

“Corporate Governance Mechanisms in light of the COVID‐19 Crisis: How Fi‐ nancial Information and Regulation, Managerial Decision‐Making, and Policy

Intervention Can Shape the Economic Recovery”

Submission Deadline: August 1, 2021

Guest Editors

Amedeo Pugliese, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain & University of Padua, Italy

Massimiliano Bonacchi, Free University of Bozen‐Bolzano, Italy Christine Botosan, Financial Accounting Standard Board, USA Dhananjay Nanda, University of Miami, USA

BACKGROUND

The Covid‐19 global pandemic has been extraordinarily disruptive with dramatic health‐related effects in terms of the death toll, number of affected patients and world‐ wide negative economic consequences including significant job losses, corporate bankruptcies, and a global recession of about 3% of the GDP (IMF, 2020). Although prolonged halts to companies’ production facilities surely threaten their ability to sur‐ vive, the severity of the loss companies face due to the disruption to their activities is not yet fully understood. There is little doubt that in the aftermath of the crisis, however, many companies and organizations will be the ‘patients’ to be treated. Whether the relief mechanisms implemented by governments worldwide and companies’ re‐ sponses will be effective is currently unknown. The magnitude of the public health and economic consequences at stake and the related uncertainty shall call many research‐ ers to action.

Visible signs of the downturn will feature in the financial statements of entities world‐ wide – private and public, large and small, for‐profit and not‐for‐profit or governmental. The revenue shortfalls will severely depress net income and book value of equity and create pressure for short‐term liquidity. In addition, current accounting standards may lead to subjective non‐cash charges due to impairments of goodwill, inventory, and other assets and remeasurement of items measured at fair value, thus further decreas‐ ing net income and equity. Decreases in equity below a certain threshold will trigger debt‐covenants violations, and in some countries, shall impose a bankruptcy filing. Investors’ ability to assess future cash flows and entity value and auditors’ ability to monitor reported amounts are challenged in this environment. The ongoing uncertainty is spurring different behaviors and responses by various economic actors. Therefore, we see the following questions as being particularly relevant and timely from an em‐ pirical standpoint:

1. What are the managerial (and workers‐related) implications in terms of com‐ pensation, incentives, and (mis‐)alignment with other corporate and social stakeholders?

2. How do organizations respond in terms of capital structure, investments and accounting policies (e.g., in the financial industry some banks are increasing provisioning of future losses whereas others are recording all‐time high profit)?

3. How do policy makers like securities regulators (e.g., SEC), accounting standard setting bodies (e.g., IASB, FASB), national governments and supra‐ national entities (e.g., European Banking Authority) enact, suspend and re‐ view policies and rules to safeguard the economic systems without generat‐ ing too much moral hazard and ineffective public spending?

4. How is the balance of power among governments, regulators, standard set‐ ters, and the various stakeholders (preparers, auditors, and users) impacted and what are the effects of shifts in that balance on financial reporting and the decision‐usefulness of the information?

5. What is the role of ESG strategies in responding to the COVID‐19? How do corporations balance purpose and profits during the crisis? Which responsi‐ ble best practices in these unprecedented times are value creating? How have stock markets reacted to the way companies deal with trade‐off?

6. Has the disclosure of risk factors changed in the post‐COVID‐19? How do these changes manifest? And how do various stakeholders use them? Are firms more responsive to tail‐risk post‐crisis and is this reflected in disclo‐ sures?

Since Corporate Governance: An International Review (CGIR) is a leading journal de‐ voted to the study of corporate governance mechanisms, defined broadly to include topics related to the exercise of power and control over corporate entities, the role and effectiveness of accountability mechanisms (e.g., financial information, auditing, ana‐ lysts, managerial compensation, boards of directors), the devise of laws, regulations and interventions to safeguard multiple stakeholders, our intention is to help foster research and theory development through empirical analysis, relevant to managing the aftermath of the health crisis and natural events more broadly. This will ensure that we learn lessons from the crisis so that the responses of policy makers (e.g., standard setters, governments and central banks), organizations and managers, as well as other actors within the business arenas (e.g., auditors, equity investors, analysts, debt‐ holders) will be more prompt in interpreting and reacting effectively when future crises occur.

CGIR will take on this challenge by providing a Special Issue as a venue for articles related to the responses of managers, organizations and policy‐makers during and after the crisis. Consistent with the purpose and scope of the journal, this Special Issue will be open to multiple and diverse scholarly approaches to strengthen our knowledge on the economic consequences of crises and the most effective responses in terms of: (a) geographical areas, industry and institutional contexts; (b) levels of analysis,

from micro (e.g., managerial) to mid‐range (e.g., organizational) and meta‐level (e.g., countries or regions), and (c) empirical approaches and settings (public and private, large and small, for‐profit and not‐for‐profit). For example, we welcome research on how internal and external stakeholders react to the crisis: Do managerial compensa‐ tion schemes change? Do investors revisit dividend policies and expected returns? How do auditors and analysts deal with uncertainty triggered by the lack of fully func‐ tional markets in assessing company performance and solvency? Do accounting standard setting bodies revisit (or not) the application or suspension of certain stand‐ ards (e.g., impairment test or fair value accounting)? Did government suspend the application of accounting rules or delayed the contracting implications of ‘likely’ failed corporations?

In spite of a long history in terms of economic crises, its exogenous nature makes it different from the two most recent cases of financial turmoil (e.g., GFC and sovereign debt) and mimics the economic consequences of other natural disasters like earth‐ quakes, floods or health crises, wars, refugee crises, political revolutions, terrorism, economic depressions and other unexpected events. Learning from the recent expe‐ rience could be transferable to other settings. This Special Issue encourages empirical research and theorizing dealing with COVID‐19 pandemic crisis that had harsh and unexpected human and economic consequences, thus calling for economic responses from individuals, organizations, and governments.

In sum, CGIR is issuing a call for papers that deal with how the responses of manag‐ ers, organizations and policy makers have been shaped by, and/or affected, the role of financial information and information intermediaries in the aftermath of catastrophic events. Such challenge is in line with the editorial scope and mission of CGIR: its reputation for quality scholarship and openness to new ideas, methodological ap‐ proaches and theoretical pluralism make it an ideal outlet for cutting edge research on these timely and important topics.

TYPES OF SUBMISSIONS SOLICITED

Given the nature of the topic area, this Special Issue is seeking contributions that deal with the responses of various actors to catastrophic events, particularly the COVID‐19 pandemic. We are open to a wide range of studies in terms of the level of analysis: we welcome manuscripts that focus on individual, organizations, policy‐makers or other institutions. The only requirement is that the activities studied have an explicit link with the governance role of accounting and financial information in crisis situations.

In terms of the type of study, we welcome empirical studies at any level of analysis. We particularly encourage cross‐countries (or cross‐regions) and comparative studies that can exploit the differential severity of the health crisis (e.g., longer or shorter halts to production and people mobility), as well as differential strength and timeliness of government responses. CGIR will prefer studies with a strong theoretical foundation. However, given the novelty of the topic and the urgency to learn from the current crisis, we will reward studies with clear (practical) implications of the research. For this rea‐ son, we particularly welcome pre‐registered reports – following the guidelines of the Open Science Foundations (https://osf.io/) – that may entail an ex‐post execution of the empirical research.

TIMELINE AND SUBMISSION PROCESS

The deadline for submissions of full papers is August 1, 2021. Late submissions will not be accepted. All submissions must be uploaded to the Manuscript Central/Scholar One website (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cgir) and indicate that the manuscript is intended for this Special Issue. The CGIR Author Guidelines must be followed. Sub‐ missions that do not adhere to the contributor guidelines will be returned to the au‐ thors. Papers will be subject to the CGIR standard double‐blind reviewing process.

There will be a Paper Development Workshop at the 4th Accounting Summer Camp to be held at the University of Padua on July 7‐9, 2021. Authors are encouraged to submit either (1) an extended abstract (10 pages, references excluded) or (b) a full paper for consideration at this workshop. Submissions to the workshop can be made by e‐mail (to: amedeo.pugliese@unipd.it) between February 1 and May 1, 2021. The most promising proposals will be selected for presentation at the workshop. Participa‐ tion in the workshop is recommended but not required for submission to the Special Issue. Please note that acceptance to the workshop does not necessarily guarantee acceptance to the CGIR Special Issue.

The following criteria will be important in the evaluation of submitted proposals:

1. Theoretical relevance to corporate governance: A special interest will be placed towards articles tackling issues related to the role of accounting and financial information; the submitted manuscript deals with a topic that is likely to provide profound conceptual insights concerning the responses of managers, organi‐ zations and policy makers to crises or catastrophic events.

2. Contribution to practice: The study is likely to offer significant insights in how to deal with health or natural crises that are exogenous to the economic system.

3. Methodological rigor: The design and execution of the study are such as to give the reader a high level of confidence that the results are valid and generalizable. We very much welcome papers relying on open science foundations (e.g., pre‐ registration reports, open data, etc.). In the latter case, the authors should offer an explicit timeline of study completion (if the study is not yet completed) which they judge as feasible and realistic.

For questions about the content of this Special Issue, please contact Amedeo Pugliese

(amedeo.pugliese@unipd.it).

征集论文

公司治理：国际回顾

特刊

“根据COVID-19危机制定的公司治理机制：财务信息和法规，管理决策和政策的方式

干预可以塑造经济复苏”

提交截止日期：2021年8月1日

客座编辑

西班牙的庞培法布拉大学，意大利的帕多瓦大学的Amedeo Pugliese

Massimiliano Bonacchi，意大利Bozen-Bolzano自由大学，Christine Botosan，美国财务会计标准委员会，Dhananjay Nanda，美国迈阿密大学

背景

Covid‐19全球大流行极具破坏性，在死亡人数，受影响患者数量以及全球范围内的负面经济后果（包括重大工作损失，公司破产和全球约3％的经济衰退）方面，对健康产生了巨大影响GDP（IMF，2020）。尽管公司的生产设施长期停工无疑会威胁到他们的生存能力，但人们仍未完全了解公司因其活动中断而面临的损失的严重性。毫无疑问，在危机之后，许多公司和组织将成为要接受治疗的“病人”。目前尚不清楚世界各国政府实施的救济机制和公司的反应是否有效。

全球实体（私人和公共，大型和小型，营利性和非营利性或政府实体）的财务报表中将出现明显的衰退迹象。收入不足将严重压低净收入和权益账面价值，并给短期流动性造成压力。此外，由于商誉，存货和其他资产的减值以及以公允价值计量的项目的重新计量，现行会计准则可能会导致主观的非现金费用，从而进一步减少净收入和权益。股本减少到某个阈值以下将触发违反债务契约的行为，并且在某些国家/地区将提出破产申请。在这种环境下，投资者评估未来现金流量和实体价值的能力以及审计师监视报告金额的能力受到了挑战。持续的不确定性促使各种经济行为者采取不同的行为和对策。因此，从经验的角度来看，我们认为以下问题特别相关且及时：

1.就薪酬，激励措施以及与其他公司和社会利益相关者的不匹配而言，管理（和与工人相关）的含义是什么？

2.组织如何在资本结构，投资和会计政策方面做出回应（例如，在金融行业中，一些银行增加了对未来损失的准备金，而另一些银行则创下了历史新高利润）？

3.诸如证券监管机构（例如SEC），会计准则制定机构（例如IASB，FASB），国家政府和超国家实体（例如欧洲银行业管理局）的政策制定者如何制定，暂停和审查政策以及在不产生太大道德风险和无效公共支出的情况下保护经济体系的规则？

4.政府，监管机构，标准制定者和各个利益相关者（准备者，审计师和用户）之间的权力平衡如何受到影响，以及这种平衡变化对财务报告和决策决策的影响如何？信息？

5. ESG策略在响应COVID-19中的作用是什么？企业如何在危机期间平衡目的和利润？在前所未有的时代，哪些负责任的最佳实践正在创造价值？股票市场对公司如何权衡交易的方式有何反应？

6.在COVID-19之后，风险因素的披露是否发生了变化？这些变化如何体现？以及各种利益相关者如何使用它们？公司是否对危机后的尾部风险反应更快，这是否反映在披露中？

自公司治理以来：国际回顾（CGIR）是一本致力于公司治理机制研究的领先期刊，定义广泛，涵盖了与行使对公司实体的权力和控制，问责机制的作用和有效性（例如财务信息，审计，分析，经理，管理层薪酬，董事会），旨在保护多个利益相关者的法律，法规和干预措施的制定，我们的目的是通过实证分析来帮助促进研究和理论发展，这与管理健康危机和自然事件的后果有关。宽广地。这将确保我们从危机中汲取教训，以便决策者（例如，标准制定者，政府和中央银行），组织和经理以及业务领域的其他参与者（例如，审计师，

CGIR将通过提供一个特刊作为应对危机期间和危机后经理，组织和决策者的回应的文章的场所来应对这一挑战。根据期刊的目的和范围，本期特刊将向多种多样的学术方法开放，以加强我们对危机的经济后果和最有效应对措施的认识，涉及以下方面：（a）地理区域，行业和机构上下文 （b）分析水平，

从微观（例如管理）到中端（例如组织）和元级别（例如国家或地区），以及（c）实证方法和环境（公共和私人，大型和小型，营利性和非盈利性）营利性）。例如，我们欢迎有关内部和外部利益相关者如何应对危机的研究：管理补偿方案是否发生变化？投资者是否会重新考虑股息政策和预期收益？在评估公司绩效和偿付能力时，审计师和分析师如何应对因缺乏功能齐全的市场而引发的不确定性？会计准则制定机构是否重审（或不重审）某些标准（例如，减值测试或公允价值会计）？政府是否暂停了会计准则的适用或推迟了“可能”倒闭的公司的承包意义？

尽管在经济危机方面历史悠久，但其外在的性质使其不同于最近的两次金融动荡事件（例如，全球金融危机和主权债务），并模仿了其他自然灾害的经济后果，例如地震，洪水或健康危机，战争，难民危机，政治革命，恐怖主义，经济萧条和其他意外事件。从最近的经验中学习可以转移到其他设置中。本特刊鼓励对COVID-19大流行危机进行实证研究和理论化处理，该危机对人类和经济造成了严重而出乎意料的后果，因此需要个人，组织和政府做出经济回应。

总而言之，CGIR发出了征集文件，以应对灾难性事件后金融信息和信息中介机构的作用如何影响和/或影响管理者，组织和决策者的反应。这一挑战与CGIR的编辑范围和使命是一致的：CGIR以其优质的学术声誉以及对新思想，方法论方法和理论多元化的开放性，使其成为就这些及时而重要的主题进行前沿研究的理想出口。

征文类型

考虑到主题领域的性质，本期专刊寻求做出贡献，以应对各种参与者对灾难性事件（特别是COVID-19大流行）的反应。我们愿意就分析水平进行广泛的研究：我们欢迎关注个人，组织，决策者或其他机构的手稿。唯一的要求是，所研究的活动与危机情况下会计和财务信息的管理作用有着明确的联系。

就研究类型而言，我们欢迎任何分析水平的实证研究。我们特别鼓励可以利用健康危机的不同严重程度（例如，生产停顿和人们流动的停滞时间更长或更短）以及政府反应的力度和及时性不同的跨国（或跨地区）和比较研究。CGIR将优先选择具有坚实理论基础的研究。但是，鉴于该主题的新颖性和从当前危机中学习的紧迫性，我们将对具有明确（实际）研究意义的研究给予奖励。因此，我们特别欢迎遵循开放科学基金会（https://osf.io/）指南的预注册报告，这些报告可能需要事后进行实证研究。

时间表和提交过程

论文提交截止日期为2021年8月1日。逾期提交的论文将不被接受。所有投稿都必须上载到Manuscript Central / Scholar One网站（https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cgir），并指出该稿件是为本期特刊准备的。该CGIR作者必须遵循以下规则。不遵守贡献者准则的任务将退回给授权者。论文将接受CGIR标准双盲审查程序。

将于2021年7月7日至9日在帕多瓦大学举行的第4届会计夏令营中举行论文开发研讨会。鼓励作者提交（1）扩展摘要（10页，不包括参考文献）或b）全文供本次研讨会审议。可以在2021年2月1日至5月1日之间通过电子邮件（发送至amedeo.pugliese@unipd.it）来提交研讨会的提要。最有希望的提案将被选出并提交给研讨会。建议参加研讨会，但不要求参加研讨会。请注意，接受研讨会不一定意味着可以接受CGIR特刊。

以下标准对于评估提交的提案非常重要：

1.与公司治理的理论关联：将特别关注与会计和财务信息的作用有关的文章。提交的手稿涉及一个主题，该主题可能会提供有关管理者，组织和决策者对危机或灾难性事件的响应的深刻概念性见解。

2.对实践的贡献：该研究可能会为如何应对经济体系外生的健康或自然危机提供重要见解。

3.严格的方法：研究的设计和执行应使读者对结果的有效性和普遍性充满信心。我们非常欢迎依赖开放科学基金会的论文（例如，预注册报告，开放数据等）。在后一种情况下，作者应提供明确的研究完成时间表（如果研究尚未完成），他们认为这是可行和现实的。

如果对本期特刊的内容有疑问，请联系Amedeo Pugliese

（amedeo.pugliese@unipd.it）。