
News From IRRC Institute
First Comprehensive Study On State Of Integrated Reporting In United States - April 29, 2013
Sustainability Reporting Is Widespread, But Connection to Bottom Line Sometimes Missing
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Growing Traction For Environmental & Social Shareholder Proposals At Us Companies - February 12, 2013
Number of Controlled Companies on the Rise
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New Study Says Multiclass Voting Companies Underperform, Riskier - October 2, 2012
Number of Controlled Companies on the Rise
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New Executive Compensation Research: Peer Group Benchmarking Inherently Flawed And Inflationary - September 22, 2012
Focus on Internal Metrics Rather Than External Factors Essential for Effective Pay Structure
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95% Of Corporate Directors Not Majority Elected Continue To Serve, But Changing Voting Standards Starting To Unseat "Unelected" Directors - August 16, 2012
Corporate Governance and Company Specific Issues Are Equal Drivers of Withhold Votes Says IRRC Institute, GMI Ratings New Study; Only Six Factors Determine 75% of Withhold Votes
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New Study Examines University Endowments’ Environmental, Social And Corporate Governance Investments - July 18, 2012
Findings Show Endowments Doing Less Than Expected Given History as ESG Pioneers
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Study Offers New Perspective On How Large Us Mutual Funds Really Use Proxy Advisory Firms - June 4, 2012
No Standard Approach to Voting Decision‐Making; Proxy Firms Are Important Input, But Mutual Funds Consider Other Factors and Rarely Just Follow Recommendations
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Voting Decisions at US Mutual Funds: How Investors Really Use Proxy Advisers - May 30, 2012
The Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC) Institute and Tapestry Networks (Tapestry) will host a webinar on Monday, June 4, 2012, from 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM ET to review the findings of a new report, "Voting Decisions at US Mutual Funds: How Investors Really Use Proxy Advisers."
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Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute Opens Research Award Competition With Two $10,000
Awards - April 26, 2012
Second Annual Contest for Best Research on Post-Modern Portfolio Theory: Uniting the Real Economy with Portfolio & Investment Theory
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Hydraulic Fracturing: Management Challenges -- Not Technology -- Biggest Hurdles for Companies - March 8, 2012
New Investor Guide Assesses Risks & Rewards of Shale Gas Development.
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New Report and Webinar -- Discovering Shale Gas: An Investor Guide to Hydraulic Fracturing - March 2, 2012
IRRC will host a webinar on Thursday, March 8, 2012, from 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM to review the findings for a new report: Discovering Shale Gas: An Investor Guide to Hydraulic Fracturing.
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Study: Companies and Investors Agree on Corporate Sustainability Issues, but Mismatches on Metrics and Uneven Disclosures Hinder Both Sides - February 29, 2012
Focus remains on corporate risk mitigation rather than value creation.
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IRRC Institute Announces Two $10,000 Awards for Best Research on Post-Modern Portfolio Theory - February 21, 2012
IRRC Institute announces the first recipients of a new annual research competition that examines the interaction of the real economy with investment theory.
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New Academic Research Provides First Analysis of Corporate Takeover Impact on Competitor Company Stocks, Bondholders - January 26, 2012
Takeover premiums of target and acquiring companies are a common and widely followed mergers and acquisitions metric. But these target and acquirer companies do not exist in a vacuum -- they have competitors. And often, there are implications on the stocks and bonds of those competing companies during a takeover. A new study finds that the impact of corporate takeover announcements on competitor company stock and bondholders tends to be small, and either positive or neutral.
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Corporations Launch First-Of-A-Kind Testing Of New Labor & Human Rights Supply Chain Performance Indicators - January 19, 2012
Nine companies this month launched a process to test newly developed Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to assess reputational risks and operational shortcomings associated with labor and human rights factors in corporate supply chains.
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New Study Finds Oversight and Disclosure of Corporate Political Spending Increasing, But Such Measures Do Not Necessarily Limit Spending - November 10, 2011
Analysis counts more companies with "No Spending" policies, but reveals inconsistencies between what companies say and what they do.
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IRRC Institute & CERES Release Aqua Gage, New Investor Tool to Manage Risks of Worldwide Water Supply Pressures - October 18, 2011
Against a backdrop of increasing business exposure to global water supply threats, new tool fills need to flag companies with biggest exposures, helps companies elevate water risk in strategic planning.
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IRRC Institute Announces Research Award Competition - May 16, 2011
The IRRC Institute today announced a competition for research that
examines the interaction of the real economy with investment theory. Two papers — one academic and
one practitioner — will receive the new "IRRC Institute Research Award" along with a $10,000 award.
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First Study Benchmarking U.S. Corporate and Investor Engagement Reveals Consensus, Dissonance, Power Shift - February 22, 2011
With a proxy-voting season fast approaching, the first
comprehensive analysis of the engagement between investors and public U.S. corporate issuers finds a
notably high and increasing trend of engagement. Yet, there is a disconnect between investors and
issuers in basic areas such as the time frame of engagement, the definition of a successful engagement
and, by implication, what engagement itself means.
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Webinar on New Study: "The State of Engagement Between U.S. Corporations and Shareholders" -
February 18, 2011
The Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC) Institute and Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. will host a webinar to review the findings of a new study, "The State of Engagement Between U.S. Corporations and Shareholders."
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Report to SEC Raises Questions About Fundamental Underpinnings of Corporate Governance -
October 19, 2010
A report commissioned by the Investor Responsibility Research
Center Institute (IRRC) and conducted by the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford
University raises concerns that the financial markets' ability to divorce economic interests from ownership
rights - via derivatives and other means - has outpaced the existing corporate governance and
bankruptcy legal framework.
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Study Finds 86% of S&P 500 Companies Have Not Disclosed Indirect Political Expenditures Policies - October 14, 2010
A new study finds that while nearly 80 percent of S&P 500 companies have disclosed direct political
campaign spending policies, 86 percent have no disclosed policies regarding indirect political expenditures.
Additionally, only 20 percent of corporations disclose how much is actually spent and which organizations or causes receive the funds.
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Webinar: New Study on Corporate Political Expenditures - October 12, 2010
The Investor Responsibility Research Center (IRRC) Institute and Sustainable
Investments Institute (Si2) will host a webinar to review the findings of a new study, "How Companies Influence
Elections: Political Campaign Spending Patterns and Oversight at America's Largest Companies."
Executive Compensation Analysis Reveals High CEO Pay for Underperforming
Companies Results from Skewed Compensation Peer Groups and Board
Indifference - June 24, 2010
A new study identifies a subset of S&P 500 companies with
high pay that is not aligned with high performance. The data reveal that
high executive pay companies self-select larger than appropriate peers - in
terms of market capitalization and revenue - for compensation benchmarking
purposes.
IRRC Institute & Harvard Law School Corporate Governance Program
to Present Findings of Executive Compensation Research Series - June 7, 2010
Lucian Bebchuk, professor of law, economics and finance, and
director of the program on corporate governance at Harvard Law School, will present the findings
contained in the Executive Compensation Research Series sponsored by the IRRC Institute on June 15.
Study: 65 Percent of Investment Strategies Have Shorter Investment
Horizons Than Intended -
February 9, 2010
Some active equity fund managers have higher portfolio
turnover rates than they themselves claim, a new study finds. Nearly two-thirds of institutional
investor-focused investment strategies exceeded their expected turnover from June 2006
through June 2009.
Supply-Chain Labor And Human Rights Policies Are Becoming The Norm For Large Cap Companies -
November 11, 2009
Some 28% of global companies—including nearly half of those with market capitalizations of more than $10 billion—have labor and human rights (LHR) policies covering their global supply chains.
New Study Finds Wide Variance in SWF Compliance with Santiago Principles for Disclosure -
October 12, 2009
On the first anniversary of adoption of the "Santiago Principles," a new report finds that some Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) have made progress in becoming more transparent, but there is a wide dispersion in the level of opacity among the funds.
New Study Finds Significant Voting Pattern Variations Among Large Exchange Traded Funds -
June 30, 2009
This analysis reveals a wide variation in both the voting policies of the seven dominant ETF sponsors, as well as how they actually voted on a sample of twenty-one specific votes on a variety of governance and social policy.
New Study Determines Private Equity Buyout Firms Generally Fail To Deliver Superior Corporate Governance Policies For Companies Taken Public - June 10, 2009
Private equity buyout firms on average do not implement superior corporate governance policies for the companies they take over, restructure, and then take public.
New Study Calculates Carbon Exposure of the S&P 500 - June 2, 2009
A new comprehensive analysis indicates that the financial risk to companies in the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index would vary greatly under a cap-and-trade program requiring the purchase of carbon emission credits.
First-Of-A-Kind Study Finds Shareholder Value Increases Under Hybrid Boards - May 25, 2009
The Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute and PROXY Governance Inc. today released the first-ever comprehensive analysis of the impact of insurgent shareowners winning some - but not all - board seats at a company.
Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute Announces
Initial Research Agenda, Sponsors Global Distribution of Research - May 12, 2009
The Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute today announced the organization will release its first four research reports in May and June of 2009. The reports will focus on four timely and under researched areas.
Lukomnik to Lead Investor Responsibility Research Institute - July 9, 2008
The Investor Responsibility Research Center Institute today announced that it has hired Jon Lukomnik to lead the work of the Institute. Mr. Lukomnik will spearhead the Institute's efforts to become the preeminent source of objective and relevant research examining the intersection of investments with environmental, social and governance issues.





