Programa del congreso

This literature review synthesizes research on the determinants and effects of Vertical Pay Disparity (VPD), defined as the compensation gap between distinct hierarchical levels. Research on VPD is grounded in two contrasting theories; Tournament Theory (Lazear and Rosen, 1981), which argues that severe pay differentiation between hierarchical levels within an organization incentivize competition, improving firm performance, and Equity Theory (Adams, 1965), which highlight the inequality concerns of strong VPD. Three objectives structure the analysis: finding the core interest topics, identify the most used measures of VPD and the most researched countries. The review includes 48 articles, obtained from the Web of Science database and citation tracking. Research was analyzed attending to the measurement of pay disparity used, upper to lower-level employee pay disparity or VPD within the Top Management Team, and the main topic of each study, effects of VPD on performance or non-economic variables and determinants of VPD. Results show conflicting evidence, independent of the topic or measure employed. Research is geographically biased towards the US and China, with very few examples regarding other economies or cross-country comparisons (Greckhamer, 2016). Further research could explore other countries or emerging work scenarios, like remote work or AI-driven industries.

• Objetivos. El objetivo del trabajo se centra en analizar el impacto de los consejeros que pertenecen a consejos de administración de varias empresas, consejeros múltiples (CMs), en la estructura de capital de las empresas cotizadas españolas

• Marco teórico. El estudio se enmarca en la literatura relativa a la incidencia de la calidad del gobierno corporativo en la performance financiera de las empresas. En este sentido, la literatura ofrece argumentos a favor y en contra de la presencia de consejeros múltiples, surgiendo dos hipótesis contrarias: hipótesis de reputación e hipótesis de dedicación.

• Metodología. La muestra está formada por empresas no financieras cotizadas españolas, con información en la base de datos SABI en el período 2008-2019. Se aplica el método de regresión de panel con efectos fijos.

• Resultados/implicaciones. Los resultados indican que una mayor presencia de CMs se asocia con un menor endeudamiento. Este resultado ofrece apoyo a la hipótesis de reputación. En un contexto de propiedad concentrada, se espera que una mejor calidad del gobierno corporativo contribuya a evitar el uso de la deuda, en la medida en que esta podría ser utilizada por los accionistas controladores para obtener beneficios privados en detrimento de los accionistas minoritarios.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the relationship between financial controversies and earnings management through discretionary accruals in large European high-tech companies. Using various models to determine the discretionary accruals, we examine how accounting manipulation are influenced by firms’ ESG practices, their involvement in financial controversies, and the moderating effect of audit committee independence. The study focuses on a sample of the largest European technology firms listed on the STOXX Europe 600 from 2013 to 2023. The results support that companies facing a higher number of financial controversies tend to engage in greater accounting discretion to mitigate the negative impact on their reputation. However, audit committee independence can help reduce this adverse effect.

The aim of this study is to analyze when and how BioNTech reports SEC Filings as well as different types of voluntary disclosures during the development and early commercialization of the mRNA Covid-19 vaccine. We consider the period between October 9, 2019 and May 7, 2021, which is associated with the reporting of mostly good news by BioNTech.We find that BioNTech reported 94% of SEC Filings outside NASDAQ regular trading hours. When analysing the behaviour of Moderna, a similar strategic pattern of extended hours reporting during the same period is found.

Furthermore, we analyse three broad types of voluntary event disclosures by BioNTech during this period that we classify into finance-specific, product-specific, and client-specific disclosures. We study how SEC Filings as well as voluntary disclosures are correlated with BioNTech prices. Finally, we find a visibility-enhancing effect after the strategic alliance between Pfizer and BioNTech.