Professor Grzegorz Trojanowski

About me:

Dr Grzegorz Trojanowski is a Professor of Finance at the Department of Finance and Accounting. He is also serving as Director of Research and Impact for the department and Programme Director for MRes in Finance (PhD pathway). In the past he served as Director of Xfi Centre for Finance and Investment (2015-2019) and Co-Head of Finance and Accounting Department (2019).

He joined the University of Exeter Business School after completing his PhD in Business (Finance) at Tilburg University in 2004. His academic interests cover areas of corporate finance, corporate governance, ESG and corporate social responsibility, corporate reporting, top management teams and gender issues in business and management. His research topics include mergers and acquisitions, determinants and consequences of ESG reporting and performance, executive compensation and turnover, payout policy, governance role of shareholders and of company directors, as well as the links between corporate governance and corporate social responsibility.

• ESG (environmental, social, and governance issues)
• Corporate finance / empirical corporate finance
• Corporate governance
• Top management teams
• Corporate social responsibility (CSR)
• Sustainability
• Board of directors
• Executive compensation
• Executive turnover
• Payout policy
• Mergers and acquisitions
• Gender diversity
• Corporate reporting

Professor Trojanowski‘s research covers various issues in the broadly defined area of ESG, with particular focus on determinants and consequences of ESG performance and reporting and links between corporate governance and CSR. His research also examines the role played by boards of directors and top management teams. Finally, he also studies the topics pertaining to determinants and consequences of gender diversity in organisations and in top management teams.

More specifically, his recent work examines how characteristics (such as experience, national diversity, or narcissism) of top management team members could influence companies' strategic decisions (e.g. in the areas of green innovation or international M&A) and their performance outcomes. He has also studied the link between corporate performance and the quality of corporate governance on the board of directors and has implications for the debate on the efficiency of Code-based approach to governance. He has also published work examining the relevance of non-financial corporate reporting for various stakeholders.

Professor Trojanowski is also investigating how attributional biases may affect the pay setting process and thus explain gender pay differences (in particular those observed for executives). He has also studied the effects of gender diversity of boards on corporate performance and firm valuation as well. Finally, his recent research also focuses on the links between corporate governance arrangements and firms' environmental and social performance.

In the past, Professor Trojanowski has examined the effects of corporate governance regulatory changes on CEO turnover and remuneration schemes as well. He has also studied the impact of companies' ownership structures on performance-related CEO dismissals and on pay-performance sensitivity. He also examined the role that the design of managerial incentive schemes could have in mitigating (or exacerbating) the agency conflict of debt financing (excessive risk-taking, in particular). His research on payout policy has focused on the relationship between companies' ownership structures and the payout policies chosen. Two specific aspects of payout policies have been examined: the choice of the payout channel and the strength of link between earnings and payout. Finally, his research on transition economics has focused on the role of large investors in public companies in emerging economies (in particular, on the agency conflicts between dominating shareholders and minority shareholders).

PhD (Tilburg), MSc (Tilburg), MSc (Warsaw School of Economics)

• Professor of Finance, University of Exeter Business School, Department of Finance and Accounting (as of 2013)
• Associate Professor in Finance, Xfi Centre for Finance and Investment, University of Exeter Business School (2011-2013)
• Senior Lecturer in Finance, Xfi Centre for Finance and Investment, University of Exeter Business School (2009-2010)
• Lecturer in Finance, Xfi Centre for Finance and Investment, University of Exeter Business School (2004-2009)
• Financial Economics tutor, Department of Finance, Tilburg University, the Netherlands (2000-2004)
• Research assistant, Department of Finance, Tilburg University, the Netherlands (1999-2000)