This paper studies the relationship between some characteristics of the corporate board and the firm's capital structure in Chinese listed firms. The findings provide some preliminary empirical evidence and seem to suggest that managers tend to pursue lower financial leverage when they face stronger corporate governance from the board. However, the empirical results of the relationships are statistically significant only in the case of the board composition and the CEO tenure. The results are statistically insignificant in the case of the board size and fixed CEO compensation. This may in general suggest that, up to the time period of our investigation, the corporate board structures and processes in Chinese listed firms might not as yet be fully working in the manner, or as well, as might have been so far assumed on the basis of Western theoretical finance literature. Copyright Blackwell Publishers Ltd 2002.

In this article the results are presented of an empirical study focusing on the effectiveness of R&D performance measurement practices in the Netherlands. First, a theoretical examination of the subject R&D performance measurement' is given within the context of performance control. A distinction is made between feedback and feed forward control and between the R&D function and the R&D organisation. Subsequently, a description is given of the current practices of R&D performance measurement in terms of measurement purposes, metrics, measurement techniques, norms setting, etc. Furthermore, the influence of contingencies on measurement system design is explored.

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Using large amounts of data from small and medium‐sized industrial firms, this study examines two aspects of bankruptcy prediction: the influence of the year prior to failure selected for model building and the effects in a period of economic decline. The results show that especially models generated from the final annual report published prior to bankruptcy were less successful in the timely prediction of failure. Furthermore, it was found that economic decline coincided with the deterioration of a model's performance. With respect to the methods used, we found that neural networks had a somewhat better overall performance than multiple discriminant analysis. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

This article presents a framework for structuring and supporting the complex and dynamic process of alliance building. Fit is the key concept in this framework, which is based on an extensive literature study and in-depth case studies. The concept of "fit" is not new in itself. The added value of this article is, firstly, that it identifies different aspects of fit and their interrelationships, as well as providing an insight into the drivers for fit. Here, we focus on strategic and organisational fit in particular. Secondly, we make practical recommendations for alliance managers on how to actually manage fit. k c