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1 – 10 of over 6000Sisira Dharmasri Jayasekara, K.L. Wasantha Perera and Roshan Ajward
The purpose of this paper is to discuss how agency conflicts between people and main government organs affect the combatting ability of white-collar money laundering in an…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss how agency conflicts between people and main government organs affect the combatting ability of white-collar money laundering in an emerging economy.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper uses a qualitative design under the philosophy of interpretivism. The case study research strategy is used inductively to investigate how structural limitations affect white-collar money laundering.
Findings
This study reveals that serious agency conflicts exist between public and main government organs which are detrimental to the rights of people to enjoy a crime-free society. First agency conflict of people and legislature intensifies as a result of limited understanding of the legislature and failure to take precautionary actions to develop an anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) regime with evolving global standards. This delay has resulted in identifying Sri Lanka as a deficient AML/CFT regime twice. The second conflicts arise between people and the executive which is a serious conflict due to misuse of statutory power and failure to perform duties. The independence and integrity of administrative authorities who perform executive functions were inherent problems of implementing a sound AML/CFT regime. Lack of monitoring, nonavailability of an independent audit and inappropriate reporting channels were other encouraging factors of administrative organs to misuse statutory power. The third conflict between people and the judiciary was not intensified because the function was not so exposed to create agency conflicts. After all, an adequate number of cases had not proceeded to the judiciary due to inherent limitations as a result of intensified first two agency conflicts. The agency conflicts have intensified over the years and AML/CFT regime has been ineffective as a result of limited influence and understanding of the principal, people. Therefore, the principal has to influence the agents to make reforms in the AML/CFT regime to make the country a white-collar crime-free country.
Research limitations/implications
This study uses a case study strategy to assess the context of Sri Lanka as an emerging economy. It is recommended to take into consideration the contextual facts when the findings are applied to other jurisdictions.
Originality/value
This paper is an original work of the authors which discusses how agency conflicts arise between people and three main government organs in implementing a sound AML/CFT regime in Sri Lanka as an emerging economy.
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St. Ibrah Mustafa Kamal and Eduardus Tandelilin
The first alternative is to enrich shareholding by management. The basic theory of this research is the agency theory. This study aims to examine the institutional ownership…
Abstract
The first alternative is to enrich shareholding by management. The basic theory of this research is the agency theory. This study aims to examine the institutional ownership, dividend policy, debt policy, and risk that are interconnected directly or indirectly. The research sample was a non-financial company from 2010 to 2014. Four variables will be tested using Two-stage Least Square (2SLS) in the SPSS application. The result of this study represents the overall interdependency relationship among institutional ownership, dividend policy, debt policy, and risk. The research outcome signifies an interdependency relation for endogenous variables, even if some exogenous variables have no significant relation. In addition, the effects of substitution between institutional ownership and dividend policy, debt policy and dividend policy, and institutional ownership and risk. Meanwhile, institutional ownership and dividend policy, risk and dividend policy, and risk and debt policy have no substitution effect.
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The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of managerial ability on informative earnings management (hereafter IEM) and to examine the moderating role of the chief…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of managerial ability on informative earnings management (hereafter IEM) and to examine the moderating role of the chief executive officer and board of commissioner relationship (hereafter CEO-commissioner relationship) and board independence between managerial ability and IEM.
Design/methodology/approach
Sample consists of 864 firm-years listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange. Informative earnings management is measured by the relationship between discretionary accruals and earnings growth. Managerial ability is measured by data envelopment analysis. This research uses firm-effect logistic regression to perform the data analysis.
Findings
Based on firm-effect logistic regression, managerial ability increases IEM. It confirms the managers’ stewardship behavior where managers tend to engage in IEM and provide higher quality information for shareholders. The result also shows that the absence of a CEO-commissioner relationship and higher board independence leads higher ability managers to engage more in IEM. It confirms the role of corporate governance to reduce managers-shareholders conflict (in the context of agency theory) or to facilitate higher ability managers to act as both controlling and minority shareholders’ stewards (in the context of stewardship theory) by engaging more in IEM and providing higher-quality information.
Originality/value
This research contributes to filling the previous studies gap that provides conflicting results on managerial ability and earnings management by considering earnings management motivations, CEO-commissioner relationship and board independence. This research also contributes to providing new evidence of managerial ability, IEM, CEO-commissioner relationship and board independence, especially in Indonesia.
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Ella Guangxin Xu, Joey W. Yang, Yuan George Shan and Chris Graves
This study investigates effects of corporate governance on the financial performance of family-controlled firms and how these effects differ between common law and civil law…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigates effects of corporate governance on the financial performance of family-controlled firms and how these effects differ between common law and civil law jurisdictions.
Design/methodology/approach
This study applies a number of corporate governance measures to the largest 243 publicly listed family-controlled businesses worldwide from 2009 to 2018. The corporate governance measures include board independence, board gender diversity, corporate governance index (CGI) and the percentage of family ownership.
Findings
The empirical evidence indicates that board independence improves financial performance; this positive effect is more pronounced in common law than civil law jurisdictions. Board gender diversity has a negative impact on financial performance under common law but a positive impact in civil law jurisdictions. Moreover, the CGI and family ownership structure are positively associated with financial performance, and no difference is found between the two jurisdiction types. In addition, family ownership negatively moderates CGI in civil law countries only.
Originality/value
This study provides new insight on the relevance of considering jurisdictional differences when examining the effect of corporate governance on performance. The study also addresses important concerns in family business research relating to unobserved heterogeneity and endogeneity. Implications of these for research and practice are discussed in the paper.
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Memoona Sajid, Hashmat Shabbir and Raheel Safdar
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the ownership concentration and cost of equity of firms in Pakistan context. Moreover, this study also…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between the ownership concentration and cost of equity of firms in Pakistan context. Moreover, this study also investigates how the presence of disclosure quality and governance quality affects the relationship between ownership concentration and the cost of equity of firms.
Design/methodology/approach
Data are collected from six non-financial sectors listed on Pakistan Stock Exchange during the period of 2015–2019. This study uses pooled ordinary least square (OLS) method to validate the proposed hypothesis in STATA.
Findings
The study found a positive and significant relationship between ownership concentration and cost of equity. The results also show that better disclosure and governance quality negatively moderates the relationship between ownership concentration and cost of equity.
Practical implications
The findings of this study will help firm managers to implement a high level of disclosure and governance quality in firms to reduce agency problems which will further help a firm in reducing the firm's cost of equity. Furthermore, this study is valuable for practitioners regarding thinking about the process of designing ownership structures to protect minority shareholders' rights, especially in emerging markets.
Originality/value
The novelty of this study is having better disclosure quality and more board independence members helps firms with higher ownership concentration in reducing the cost of equity.
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Malik Abu Afifa, Isam Saleh, Aseel Al-shoura and Hien Vo Van
The direct nexus between board characteristics, earnings management (EM) practices and dividend payout is examined in this study, followed by an examination of the indirect…
Abstract
Purpose
The direct nexus between board characteristics, earnings management (EM) practices and dividend payout is examined in this study, followed by an examination of the indirect mediation impact of EM practices in the nexus between board characteristics and dividend payout. It aims to provide new empirical evidence from the Jordanian market, which is an emerging market.
Design/methodology/approach
The study population consists of all service firms that were listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) between 2012 and 2019. Due to the lack of availability of their complete data during the period, four service firms were omitted from the population; hence, a sample of 43 service firms was acquired over the time frame (2012–2019), yielding a total of 344 firm-year observations. Moreover, panel data analysis was employed in this study, and data for the study were acquired from yearly reports as well as the ASE's database.
Findings
Based on the GMM estimator findings, board size and independence have a negative and significant influence on the EM, but CEO/chairman duality has a positive and significant impact. Simultaneously, the impacts of female representation on the board of directors and the number of board meetings were both positive but insignificant. The findings also found that four board characteristics, including board size, female representation on the board of directors, CEO/chairman duality and the number of board meetings, had a significant negative or positive effect on dividend payout, while board independence did not. Additional findings show that EM practices have a direct negative insignificant effect on dividend payout, whereas EM practices partially mediate the relationship between board characteristics and dividend payout.
Research limitations/implications
The current study's limitation is that it only searched in Jordanian service firms listed on ASE from 2012 to 2019 to fulfill the study's objectives; thus, we urge that future work explores the study models for other sectors, whether in Jordan or other growing markets such as the Middle East and North Africa.
Practical implications
The findings of this study may be utilized by analysts, investors and other strategic decision-makers to enhance Jordan's financial market's efficiency and efficacy. These findings will improve policymakers' willingness to impose appropriate constraints, perhaps boosting Jordan's financial market performance and efficacy. These findings may also help investors make more enlightened judgments by utilizing board characteristics and EM factors that predict firm dividend policy.
Originality/value
Contradictions in the results of earlier investigations inspired the current study, with the findings filling a gap in the existing literature. This study differs from previous studies by constructing a novel research model and analyzing the mediating influence of EM in the nexus between board characteristics and dividend payout.
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Samir Ibrahim Abdelazim, Abdelmoneim Bahyeldin Mohamed Metwally and Saleh Aly Saleh Aly
The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of firm financial and operational characteristics on the level of forward-looking information disclosure (FLID) by…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of firm financial and operational characteristics on the level of forward-looking information disclosure (FLID) by Egyptian-listed non-financial companies. The present research also aims to investigate the moderating role of gender diversity on the board of directors.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample incorporates the non-financial companies included in the EGX 100 of the Egyptian Stock Exchange (ESE), whose reports were available during the study period from 2013 to 2018. The final sample comprises 49 companies with 294 observations. Statistical analysis is performed using multiple regression analysis.
Findings
This study found a significant positive impact of return on assets, leverage, company size and age on the level FLID, while external audit firm type and industry were found to impact the level of FLID negatively. Further, the board gender diversity (BGD) is found to have a moderating impact as it strengthens the effect of financial and operational characteristics on the level of FLID.
Practical implications
The present study has some implications for Egyptian companies, investors in the Egyptian market and regulators in emerging economies, which include paying more attention to BGD when selecting the board members by companies as well as following up the female representation in all the listed companies by regulators.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the moderating role of BGD and its impact on the level of FLID in emerging markets. This extends the disclosure literature as the present study brings new evidence from an emerging market regarding BGD moderating role as early research concentrated on the direct impact of BGD on the level of FLID.
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Amira Houaneb, amira Houaneb, Rim Ben Hassen and Dorra Talbi
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between restrictive covenants and accounting conservatism. More specially, the authors try to explain how the use of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between restrictive covenants and accounting conservatism. More specially, the authors try to explain how the use of restrictive covenants of public debt may affect accounting conservatism.
Design/methodology/approach
The sample is composed of non-financial firms and for each firm one debt contract is considered. The authors have used the Ball and Shivakumar (2005) models to test the relationships. All variables were retrieved from Mergent Fixed Investment Securities and COMPUSTAT Databases.
Findings
The findings of this study show that the more the firm relies on bond covenants, the higher is the degree of conservatism. The authors found also that these firms also exhibited a widely significantly increased level of conservatism in the years following the issuance of debt.
Research limitations/implications
The results should be interpreted with caution because the use of covenants does not take into consideration the tightness of their inclusion in the public debt contract.
Originality/value
This paper makes a timely contribution to the debate of timely loss recognition by confirming the complementarity between the inclusion of restrictive covenants in the debt agreement and the accounting conservatism before and after the emission of public debt.
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Ferdy Putra and Doddy Setiawan
This paper aims to synthesize the diverse literature on nomination and remuneration committees and provide avenues for future research.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to synthesize the diverse literature on nomination and remuneration committees and provide avenues for future research.
Design/methodology/approach
This study provides a comprehensive literature review of theoretical and empirical studies published in reputable international journals indexed by Scopus.
Findings
The literature review reveals several aspects of the nomination and remuneration committee. These aspects have been classified into the definition of the nomination and remuneration committee, dimensions of the nomination and remuneration committee, measurement and research review results, reasons for conflict empirical findings, company dynamics and research on moderators, as well as recommending future research.
Research limitations/implications
Our literature review shows that nomination and remuneration committees play a role in improving board performance and company performance, reducing agency conflicts and improving corporate governance to provide implications for companies, regulators and investors and pave the way for future research.
Originality/value
This paper identifies issues related to nomination and remuneration committees, their theoretical and practical implications and avenues for future research.
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Dorra Talbi and Ines Menchaoui
The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of board attributes and managerial ownership on cash holdings.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of board attributes and managerial ownership on cash holdings.
Design/methodology/approach
The present study examines a sample of 70 listed firms in Saudi Arabia observed during the period stretching from 2006 to 2016. To test the hypotheses, the authors used generalized method of moments and quantile regressions.
Findings
The empirical results reveal that corporate governance (CG) mechanisms are inefficient in the Saudi context. In fact, the authors found that board size, board independence, duality and managerial ownership impact positively and significantly cash holdings. Additionally, quantile regressions confirm the results that at certain thresholds, CG mechanisms are not efficient in protecting shareholders’ interests. Shariah compliance is found to moderate negatively and significantly the studied relationship.
Originality/value
This study helps to not only clarify and help decision-makers to see the importance of corporate cash management but also to identify the limits of the CG mechanisms put in place.
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