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The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between ethnic diversity on corporate boards and audit fees in the context of South Africa. Additionally, this paper investigates how the interaction between board ethnicity and board independence affects audit fees.

This study uses a quantitative research method with a panel data analysis to test proposed hypotheses. This study’s sample consist of listed firms on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) from 2003 to 2018.

This study finds that firms with more Black directors on corporate board have higher audit fees. It also shows that the positive relation between board independence and audit fees is more pronounced for firms with greater ethnic diversity on corporate boards. Further, this study finds that the presence of Black directors on corporate board can increase board effectiveness. Lastly, firms with more Black directors on corporate board tend to be audited by Big N auditors. The findings of this study illustrate the implication of an equity narrative to board diversity for organisational outcome.

The results reported in this paper have both practical and policy implications regarding the presence of ethnic diversity on corporate boards. The findings also suggest that there is a need to establish an appropriate balance of ethnic diversity on corporate boards as part of regulatory reform. Regulators should be aware of the positive impacts of the requirement for board diversity on corporate boards.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine whether the presence of Black directors on corporate boards affects audit fees. It also investigates the interaction effects between the presence of Black directors on the board and board independence.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of related party transactions (RPTs) and types of RPTs (complex, simple and loan) on earnings quality in four East Asian countries: Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

RPTs and types of RPTs are measured using two approaches, magnitude and abnormal (magnitude change). Earnings quality is measured using proxies for accrual earnings management and identified as discretionary accruals (DAC) and performance matched discretional accruals (PMDAC).

The results suggest that firms in these countries experience poor earnings quality when they are engaged in RPT. The effect of RPT-simple on earnings quality is more severe than RPT-complex. However, the presence of higher investor protection and stricter enforcement of regulations in countries like Singapore and Hong Kong reduce the negative impact of RPTs on earnings quality.

The results support the argument that the presence of controlling shareholders in East Asia is likely to lead to engagement with RPTs, which will increase the likelihood of firms’ earnings manipulation via DAC. This study has two limitations. It only focuses on Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand, and the results may not be generalizable to other countries. Second, this study only measures the magnitude and abnormal RPTs based on the disclosures available in annual reports.

This paper contributes to the literature by examining the effect of RPTs and types of RPTs on earnings quality in four selected East Asian countries. 

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between a firm's internal corporate governance characteristics and audit fees, and whether the external auditor perceives higher inherent risk when CEO duality is present. Additionally, it aims to examine whether having more independent directors on audit committee moderates the auditor's perceived inherent risk when CEO duality is present.

The data used in testing the hypotheses consist of all the Malaysian public listed companies on the main board in terms of market capitalization non‐finance listed companies for year 2001. Multiple regression analysis is used to estimate the relationships proposed in the hypotheses.

The results show that the presence of CEO duality on the board, a proxy for board independence, is associated with higher audit fees and that this positive relationship is significantly weakened when the firm has a higher proportion of independent directors on the audit committee. These results suggest that auditors in their assessment of the inherent risk of a firm recognize that independent audit committees provide an important check to moderate CEO dominance in firms where CEO duality is present.

In this study, the effect of CEO duality and the independence of the board and audit committee are considered. The paper provides an important insight that having more independent directors on the audit committee moderates the auditor's perceived inherent risk when CEO duality is present following the new code of corporate governance introduced in Malaysia in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis.

This paper aims to examine whether board governance mechanisms and ownership structure play a role in foreign investors’ decisions when buying shares in Saudi listed companies

Foreign investment in the Saudi capital market started in 2015 and reached a peak in 2019, with corporate governance regulations having been updated in 2017. The authors tested the proposed relationships using hand collected data for all Saudi non-financial firms in 2019.

This study found that it does not play a role in attracting foreign investment in the Saudi capital market. Foreign investors also seem to avoid firms with concentrated ownership that either have high government or director ownership; however, accounting and market variables show significant impact on foreign investors' decisions. The outcomes of this study provide empirical evidence that current foreign investors in the Saudi stock market do not place enough merit on board governance and their investment decisions tend to depend on share performance. Thus, the results show that the current governance changes and capital market regulations in Saudi Arabia may not have been sufficient to stimulate the inflow of institutional foreign investment to the country to date, but rather they have attracted individual retail foreign investors.

This empirical study is one of only a small number of studies to investigate the impact of internal corporate governance on foreign ownership in developing countries and the first in the Saudi context. In fact, most previous governance research in Saudi Arabia focused on how board governance and ownership structure influences firm performance. A review of the prior studies found that only Badawi et al. (2019) examined the determinants of foreign ownership among Saudi listed firms. Thus, the present investigation extends that study by examining the role of board governance in attracting foreign investors.