Análisis comparativo y evaluación de los modelos de concesiones

‘Stewardship is the extent to which an individual willingly subjugates his or her personal interests to act in protection of others’ long-term welfare’(Hernandez, 2012 ,p.8 ).

This theory has also attracted attention, both as a substitute and as a complement to agency theory. Contrary to agency theory, which was drawn from an economic or financial literature, stewardship theory is drawn from psychology and sociology to provide a different view in which agents see greater long-term utility in other focused, pro-social behaviour rather than the self-serving, short-term opportunistic behaviour promulgated by agency theory (Hernandez, 2012, Miller and Sardais, 2011, Fehr and Falk, 2002, Davis et al., 1997, Donaldson, 1990, Eisenhardt, 1989, Perrow, 1986, Hirsch and Friedman, 1986). It was developed to examine situations in which agents as stewards are driven to act in the best interests of providers of funds.

Within this theory, relationship-centred cooperation within the firm fosters pro-firm and trustworthy behaviour in executive managers (Hernandez, 2012, Davis et al., 1997). Implicitly, managers display stewardship behaviours by placing the interests of shareholders above theirs, thus acting in the best interests of the company. Following from Davis et al. (1997) and Hernandez (2012), managers hold a covenantal relationship with shareholders which represents a moral commitment that binds both principals and agents to work towards a common goal, without being opportunistic. The resulting relationship is a covenantal one in which a reciprocal promise-based agreement contains both transactional and psychological elements (Hernandez,

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2012). Hence, managers as stewards recognise their fiduciary obligations to protect the interests of shareholders and as a result believe they are morally obliged to pursue the interests of their principals.

This is not to argue that stewardship theorists assume managers are altruistic; instead, they recognise that there are many situations in which executive managers of organisations conclude that serving the interests of the owners means their interests are also served. Indeed, stewardship behaviour is different from altruism. This is because, in serving the interest of a single benefactor; empathy-induced altruistic actions can undermine collective good. However, managerial stewardship behaviours serve the interests of many individuals with self-sacrificial behaviours which are aimed at benefiting collective interests of the shareholders (Hernandez, 2012). Therefore implicitly, managers’ stewardship behaviour represents a more expansive construct than altruism, given that their decisions are focused on broadly beneficial ends (Hernandez, 2012).

Whereas agency theorists identify managers of businesses as self-serving and opportunistic, stewardship advocates describe them as people who frequently have interests that are isomorphic with those of the owners (Davis et al., 1997, Daily et al., 2003). Stewardship theorist arguments are centred around a model individual whose behaviour is tailored in such a manner that pro-firm, collective behaviours have higher utility in an indifference curve than individualistic, self-serving behaviours (Davis et al., 1997). By inference, given a choice between a manager’s self-serving behaviour and pro-firm behaviour, managerial behaviours will not depart from the interests of shareholders (Davis et al., 1997). Thus managers of firms will substitute or trade self-serving behaviours for firm collective behaviours (Davis et al., 1997). By inference, even in situations where the interests of the agent steward and of the shareholder–principal are not aligned, the manager will place higher value on collaboration than defection. This is because managers perceive greater utility in pro-shareholder-oriented behaviours.

Based on these arguments by stewardship theorists, they contend increase in firm financial performance is likely to be associated with internal CG practices which give executive directors greater power over the decision making of the company. Examples of such practices include conferring the position of the CEO and chairman to one person, executive directors (EDs) on

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the board and fewer non-executive directors (NED) (Daily and Schwenk, 1996, Davis et al., 1997, Erhardt et al., 2003, Huse, 2000).

Following from the preceding arguments, this study uses stewardship theory constructs as an alternative view of agency theory and thus helps in results interpretation. An area where these contrasting views are relevant is in regard to agency theory recommendation for more non- executive directors to monitor and control management. Whereas stewardship theory argues for executive directors, as they are stewards with robust understanding of the organisation and are motivated to make decisions in the best interests of the shareholders. Hence there is no need for them to be monitored or motivated with performance-related compensation packages. As such, if results indicate stewardship premise holds, then increasing non-executive directors on board may increase cost through higher compensation. Hence the cost of monitoring adversely affects a firm’s financial performance. Most studies have not investigated board composition in relation to the stewardship construct of executive directors (EDs), and this is almost absent in emerging African markets. Therefore, this research fills this gap in the comparative emerging African market context.

As discussed above, stewardship theory provides an explanation of the existence of collaboration and trust between shareholders and managers, with a two-sided balanced view of the agent–principal relationship. However, the theory has been criticised for painting an extremely rosy image of managers (Arthurs and Busenitz, 2003) and failing to highlight what aligns the interests of principals and agents (Davis et al., 1997). Finally, like agency theory, stewardship theory does not recognise the influence of the external environment and neither does it address the competencies needed by BODs to direct firms towards increased financial performance. Specific to this thesis, stewardship theory provides a basis for leadership duality and more executive director arguments to develop hypothesis in Chapter 4. However, it does not provide a comprehensive articulation of other corporate governance mechanisms that can affect firm financial performance. Thus, resource dependency theory discussed below complements both agency and stewardship theory because it provides an understanding of some competencies needed by a board of directors to direct a firm towards value maximisation.

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