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The global economy has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has placed greater responsibility on companies to fulfill their obligations to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) amid the crisis. This chapter investigates the role of a Chief Executive Officer (CEO) attributes in improving a firm's CSR in the emerging economy of Jordan and how the COVID-19 pandemic modifies this relationship. Using a Jordanian sample of 655 firm-year observations during the 2014–2021 period, the research results show that older CEOs, well-educated CEOs, CEOs' remuneration, and CEOs' ownership positively correlate with CSR reporting. However, long-tenured CEOs are associated with lower CSR initiatives. The subsample analysis findings also validate the significance of CEO attributes in improving CSR practice during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the prepandemic period. These findings are beneficial for the regulatory setters to understand better whether CEO attributes are linked to engagement in CSR-related information. This research is among the limited number of studies that have explored how CEO attributes impact CSR reporting for the stakeholder's welfare. Moreover, it uniquely concentrated on contrasting the findings before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This article examines the link between the structure of the board of directors and target price accuracy using a sample of 51 listed firms on the Tunisian Stock Exchange over the period of 2011–2017.

In this study, the authors used the generalised method of moments (GMM) model to control the endogeneity problem.

As a result, that model can serve as a signal in the forecasting process. The authors' results suggest that target price accuracy is negatively related to board independence, and dual Chief Executive officer (CEO). In addition, CEO compensation tends to exert a negative impact on target price error.

The authors' findings are valuable for common investors because the findings can be useful in enhancing their capital allocation decisions by assigning higher weights to forecasts issued by firms with strong corporate governance systems. The authors' study also has practical implications for managers and policymakers. Specifically, the evidence provided herein suggests that firms with strong corporate governance mechanisms enhance the accuracy of market expectations, alleviate information asymmetry, and limit market surprises, especially in a context characterised by weak investor protection. The authors' results highlight the advantages of strong corporate governance in improving a firm's information environment and, therefore, are useful for the cost–benefit analysis of improving internal governance mechanisms. Additionally, the authors' results may prove useful to investors who can rely on the information provided by analysts for well-governed companies.

The authors' study contributes to the literature in both corporate governance and analysts' forecasts fields. The study provides additional evidence of the benefit of board quality attributes on target price accuracy in an emerging market characterised by high information asymmetry and weak investor protection. The authors' findings exhibit the effectiveness of board attributes in producing better financial information quality in Tunisia. This is useful for investors who may improve their capital allocation decisions by assigning greater weights to target price forecasts of companies with good governance quality, suggesting that good corporate governance is a credible signal of better financial information quality. These results have important implications for capital market regulators and corporate management in encouraging the implementation of good governance practices.

The authors attempted to assess whether corporate governance of listed firms are priced in the Tunisian context characterised by weak governance control and to highlight which mechanism is highly considered by independent financial analysts to build their forecasts.

The purpose of this study is to examine whether board diversity can attenuate weaker executive directors' pay-performance link in high free cash flow and low-growth firms (HFCF_LGRW).

This study employed the Malaysian dataset from 2005 till 2016 and the fixed-effect model to investigate the developed hypotheses. The two-stage least squares method (2SLS) is employed to mitigate endogeneity issues.

This study finds that a positive association between executive directors' pay and firm performance is weaker in HFCF_LGRW firms. However, board diversity, namely ethnic and gender diversity, can mitigate weaker executive directors' pay-performance link, indicating effective monitoring.

This study is among the first to reveal that executive directors' pay-performance link is weaker in firms with HFCF_LGRW growth, consistent with Jensen's (1986) free cash flow hypothesis. However, findings suggest that this agency problem in HFCF_LGRW firms is attenuated by board diversity, namely ethnic and gender diversity. This supports the notion that diversity in corporate boards serves as an effective internal monitor.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by extending the empirical work on the relationship between corporate governance and capital structure by analyzing the mediating role of cost of capital in the non-financial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX).

The sample for this study includes non-financial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (formerly Karachi Stock Exchange) for the period of 2004–2016. Based on 1800 firm-year observations, three approaches of panel data analysis are applied for the step-wise analysis of the underlying study. Firstly, Pooled OLS is applied. Secondly, fixed and random effect panel regression followed by the Hausman test to check the unobservable individual heterogeneity of the data. Hausman test indicates that the fixed-effects model is the most appropriate model for the sample panel data.

The study's findings are that board size, board composition, CEO/Chair duality, institutional ownership and managerial ownership have statistically significant direct effect on the firm's financing decisions. However, CEO/Chair duality, institutional ownership and managerial ownership have significant indirect effect on firm's capital structure decisions. The interesting finding of the paper is on the evidence of mediating role of cost of capital in the nexus of corporate governance and capital structure. Moreover, some conventional determinants of capital structure, including the firm's size, asset structure of the firm, profitability, business risk and growth, are found as determinants of capital structure decisions of the firms.

There are a few limitations to our study which could be addressed by upcoming research. We did not include all the four mechanisms of corporate governance including board structure, audit structure, compensation structure and ownership structure. However, we used only five important attributes including board size, board composition and CEO/Chair duality form board structure, managerial ownership and institutional ownership form ownership structure of corporate governance as our explanatory variables to examine their impact on the capital structure choices of the firms. Future studies may fill this research gap by involving some other attributes of corporate governance and analyzing their effectiveness and impact on value relevant capital structure decisions. Further, due to limited time and resources, we only tested the mediating role of cost of capital, hence, future researchers can analyze the mediating and moderating roles of different variables which may influence the relationship between corporate governance and capital structure choices of the firms.

The study has many valuable guidelines and practical implications for the financial managers of the corporations. Our results will facilitate the policymakers in setting their corporate governance policies and practices and making the value relevant capital structure decisions in compliance with the implications of corporate governance mechanism. In addition, our study provides the empirical evidence in accordance with the argument that good governance practices, particularly the voluntary disclosures by the firm may reduce the information asymmetry which, ultimately, reduces the agency cost and the cost of capital for the firm. However, while deciding the financial policy of the corporations, managers can use our findings in order to assess the effectiveness of corporate governance practices employed by the firm in achieving the optimal capital structure at which the weighted average cost of capital is at its minimum level.

This paper contributes to the literature by investigating the mediating role of the cost of capital in the relationship between corporate governance and capital structure decisions of the firms. This paper provides empirical evidence that corporate governance indirectly affects capital structure decisions through the mediating role of cost of capital.

According to governance theory, choosing an effective supply chain (SC) governance mechanism can balance the interests and conflicts between enterprises and help them achieve their performance goals. However, incentive and relational governance have not been fully studied in improving enterprise cooperative performance (ECP). This study aims to examine the relationship between incentive and relational governance in general, the direct effects of combined governance strategy (CGS; the combination dimension of the above two governance mechanisms) on ECP and the mediating effects of SC ambidexterity on CGS and ECP in particular.

To test the hypotheses, this study implements hierarchical linear regression and bootstrap with a survey data set of Chinese manufacturing enterprises.

Results demonstrate that incentive and relational governance can generate complementary effects through enabling and compensating mechanisms, and their combination, that is, CGS, can promote ECP more than a single governance approach; CGS is conducive to solving the SC ambidexterity dilemma and can simultaneously enhance SC alignment and adaptability, thus further improving ECP; and SC ambidexterity plays an intermediary role between CGS and ECP.

The present study examines the complex interaction between incentive governance, relational governance, SC ambidexterity, and ECP. Implications for theory and practice are that formulating appropriate CGS can develop SC ambidexterity and improve ECP.

Performance-based contracting (PBC) has been gaining popularity over the years. However, empirical studies investigating the impact of PBC features have been limited. The main purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of PBC features leading to quality investment that fosters financial benefits.

After examining the validity and reliability of scale items through confirmatory factor analysis, this study tested hypotheses using covariance-based structural equation modeling of survey data from 381 supply, logistics and operations managers.

The findings reveal the impact of PBC features (joint knowledge generation, goal congruence and incentive alignment) on financial benefits and the mediation impact of quality investment between these features and financial benefits. The upfront investment for quality enhancement was found facilitator of PBC features to achieve financial benefits. The findings also reveal the importance of collaborative communication and information sharing for knowledge generation that leads financial benefits through quality investment. This study shows that PBC governance strengthens the theory of relational view by empowering collaborative efforts and aligning goals and incentives within downstream suppliers for knowledge generation and quality enhancement.

An analysis of PBC features by industry would be very beneficial in differentiating between and more thoroughly understanding the commonalities and differences across various sectors. Investigating how these change across industries would also help identify any bias in PBC implementation.

This study illustrates that it will be practical and beneficial for suppliers to understand the major drivers of quality investment and the relationship between quality investment and the financial benefits of selecting PBC.

Unlike most previous studies, this research contributes to the literature in that it is one of the relatively few examples of empirical research on PBC features. Overall, the findings of this study will improve our understanding of how PBC features enhance upfront investment in quality and improve financial benefits.

The construction of digital supply chains to integrate internal and external resources is becoming an important path for manufacturing enterprises to gain competitiveness. However, at present, research on the internal mechanisms of digital supply chain capabilities (DSCC) and enterprise sustainable competitive performance (ESCP) has not been sufficiently studied. Based on contextual ambidexterity theory, this study investigates whether DSCC could enable the realization of supply chain ambidexterity and further explains the mediating role of supply chain ambidexterity on DSCC and ESCP, and the boundary conditions of supply chain governance on supply chain ambidexterity and ESCP.

With a survey data set of 232 Chinese manufacturing enterprises from different industries, the study empirically tests a moderated mediating model and conducts hierarchical linear modeling and bootstrap to test the study's hypotheses.

The results demonstrate that: (1) DSCC positively enhance ESCP; (2) supply chain ambidexterity, which can be regarded as a synergic ability of supply chain alignment and adaptability, partially mediates the positive relationship between DSCC and ESCP; and (3) supply chain governance such as incentive governance positively moderates the association between supply chain ambidexterity and ESCP, but there is no evidence that relational governance moderates their relationship.

This paper proposes a new interpretive perspective to understand digital supply chains. More importantly, it reveals the importance of DSCC in contributing toward supply chain ambidexterity and ESCP, and demonstrates the differential regulating action of incentive and relational governance on the association between supply chain ambidexterity and ESCP, with implications for both academics and practitioners.

The paper investigates whether political geography, as measured by the degree of alignment of state politicians with the party of the USA President, has an impact on corporate fraud convictions.

Prior research shows that the degree of alignment between state politicians and the president's political party is positively correlated with measures of earnings management for firms headquartered in the state. Political alignment is conducive to earnings management because it affects a firm's information and enforcement environment by increasing policy risk and promoting lenient regulatory oversight. The paper posits that this environment is also conducive to corporate fraud and tests this hypothesis using pooled ordinary least squares (OLS) and panel regressions with annual state-level data for 2003–2018.

The paper documents a positive and statistically significant relationship between political alignment and corporate fraud conviction rates by state.

The conclusions are tempered by data limitations. First, the conviction data are available at the state level only. Second, the true level of fraud is inherently unobservable and the conviction data may not reflect the actual number of frauds that are committed.

Fraud examiners might benefit from considering the role of political connectedness in determining fraud risk. Although additional research is needed before making concrete recommendations, the initial indications clearly point to political connections as a potential concern.

The findings build on evidence that political connections influence earnings management. Rather than focusing on direct measures of connectedness, such as lobbying expenditures, the paper examines a plausibly exogenous measure: political geography.

This study aims to empirically test the effects of key characteristics of performance-based contracting (PBC) (i.e. reward/payment scheme, increased supplier autonomy and transfer of responsibilities) on supplier goal commitment.

This study developed a conceptual model applying goal-setting theory (GST), expectancy theory (ET) and job characteristics theory (JCT). Survey data were collected and analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM) to establish a validated measurement instrument for testing the hypotheses.

The findings revealed that PBC positively affects supplier goal commitment due to its unique characteristics, which translates into improved supplier performance. Furthermore, this study validated the mediating role of goal alignment and felt accountability operating between PBC characteristics and supplier goal commitment.

This study explored the buyer–supplier relationship from the supplier's standpoint. Using a more inclusive data set, future research may involve a dyadic analysis and focus on the effects of the following factors on the supplier goal commitment: relational aspects (e.g. trust and collaboration), the risk transfer from the buyer to the supplier, different incentive schemes and successful PBC implementation factors.

This study presents new, validated insights for contract selection, design and management. It underlines the importance of choosing the proper contract, having the appropriate contract design based on the desired outcomes and effective contract management by exhibiting the psychological/behavioral effect of fundamental PBC characteristics.

PBC represents an active research stream, but its psychological/behavioral implications are understudied. Therefore, this research puts forth a conceptual framework with multiple testable hypotheses illustrating the relationship between PBC and supplier goal commitment.

The purpose of the study is to examine how operating efficiencies from incentive alignment compensate for rent extraction in family firms. The author asks whether ownership (1) improves operating efficiencies to increase firm value, (2) positively affects related-party transactions (RPTs), or (3) destroys firm value. Finally, the author assesses whether the incentive effect dominates the entrenchment effect.

This study employs a panel of 333 listed family firms (and 185 nonfamily firms) and handles endogeneity using a dynamic panel system GMM and panel VAR.

Ownership decreases discretionary expenses and increases asset utilization to add firm value. The efficiency gains generate more value in family firms, especially majority-held ones, than in nonmajority ones. However, ownership is also related to increased RPTs (especially dubious loans/guarantees), reducing firm value. RPTs destroy value more severely in the family (or group) firms than in nonfamily (nongroup) firms. It could be why ownership's positive impact on value is lower in family firms than in nonfamily firms. Overall, the incentive effect dominates the entrenchment effect and is robust to controlling private benefits of control in the dynamic ownership-value model.

(1) A family firm's ownership may not be optimal. (2) The firm's long-term commitment as a dynasty limits the scale of expropriation yet sustains impetus for long-term value creation. The paradox partly explains why large family holdings and firm-specific investments endure over generations. (3) This way, large ownership substitutes weak investor protection in India despite tunneling as skin in the game provides necessary investor confidence. (4) Future studies can examine whether extraction varies with family generations and how family characteristics affect the incentive effects.

(1) Concentrated ownership may not be a wrong policy choice in emerging markets to draw firm-specific investments. (2) Investors, auditors, or creditors must pay closer attention to loans/guarantees. (3) More vigorous enforcement, auditor scrutiny, and board oversight are needed.

Family firms are not necessarily a bad organization type that destroys investor wealth. They can be valuably efficient due to their ownership and wealth concentration, and frugality. They matter in the economic growth of a developing market like India.

(1) Extends ownership-performance research to family firms and shows that although ownership facilitates tunneling, the incentive effect dominates; (2) family ownership is not impacted by firm value; (3) family ownership levels reduce discretionary expenses and increase asset utilization to create added value, especially in majority-held family firms; (4) RPTs and loans/guarantees increase with ownership; (5) value erosion from RPTs is higher in family (group) firms than in other firms.