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The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate independent school Boards as teams using a social cognitive perspective. Specifically, the study investigated Board processes and the nature of relationships between Board member self-efficacy, Board collective efficacy and performance of independent school Boards in New South Wales, Australia.

A multiple case study design that used qualitative research methods was employed. An expert steering group provided advice on the categorization of governance structures. A stratified purposeful sample of eight independent school Boards within the Sydney metropolitan area, New South Wales Australia participated. Data were collected from individual, semi-structured, face-to-face interviews with the Head of school, Board Chair and two Board members from each school. The interviews were digitally recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analyzed using qualitative data analysis procedures suggested in the literature.

The findings provide evidence that for independent school Board members in this study, self-efficacy and collective efficacy beliefs were related to perceptions of Board performance. Board member self-efficacy and Board collective efficacy appeared to be linked. Self-efficacy beliefs were primarily based on mastery experiences. Collective efficacy (at the individual level) primarily was based on members’ perceptions of Board past performance.

This paper provides insight into individual Board member beliefs likely to shape processes associated with independent school Board performance in New South Wales, Australia. The study is one of only a few that have adopted an empirical and descriptive approach, rather than only providing normative direction and imperatives.

This study aims to investigate how culture can either reinforce or attenuate the board efficacy (a key element of corporate governance).

The study uses the data from the World Economic Forum (2006-2014) of 69 countries. The data were restricted to 69 countries because Hofstede et al. (2010) provided cultural value data from 111 countries. However, the data from 42 countries were incomplete for Hofstede et al.’s four dimensions.

The study is the first to show that more religious diversity has a significant negative impact on stronger board efficacy in evaluating corporate governance practices. The results also indicate that more uncertainty avoidance in a country has a significant negative impact and corporate ethics and auditing standards have a positive impact on board efficacy.

The study extends Hofstede et al.’s (2010) cultural value by incorporating religious diversity and corporate ethics as cultural variables in explaining board efficacy in corporate governance literature. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund should focus on cultural factors while developing a single set of Corporate Governance Code worldwide.

The purpose of this paper is to determine how board leadership affects the board strategic involvement in private firms in Kenya and how CEO power moderates this relationship.

The authors used a Kenyan data set to investigate what makes boards in private firms get involved in strategy. Survey data derived from a sample of 186 CEOs of private firms were used, and the hypotheses were tested using moderated regression analysis.

The results indicate that board members’ knowledge, board chairman’s leadership efficacy, board members’ personal motivation and board members’ background all have a positive and significant effect on board strategy involvement. The authors also found that CEO power moderates the relationship between board leadership and strategy involvement. The study concludes that when the CEO wields immense power, the board tends to become passive and to submit to the direction of the CEO.

The study adds value to the understanding of the effect of the board leadership on strategic involvement in private firms and how CEO power influences this relationship, particularly in a developing country like Kenya.

This paper aims to examine how country-level corporate governance structures influence the level of protection of minority shareholders’ rights in the context of Africa.

Data are collected from the world competitiveness report for the period 2010-2015. To examine the validity of the study’s hypotheses empirically, the authors use ordinary least squares with correlated panel-corrected standards error (PCSE).

This paper offers additional empirical evidence on the level of protection of minority shareholders’ rights in Africa. It highlights that country-level corporate governance structures such as efficacy of corporate boards, strength of investor confidence, regulations of securities exchanges and the operation of the Big 4 accounting firms have significant positive impacts on the level of protection of minority shareholders’ rights.

This paper fails to include all African countries because of non-availability of a report for some African countries. Thus, the findings on the level of protection of minority shareholders’ rights in a country are applicable to the countries used in this study.

This paper emphasizes on the relevance of country-level corporate governance structures to ensuring a reasonable level of protection of minority shareholders’ rights.

This paper partially fills the gap regarding the absence of an empirical cross-country study on how country-level corporate governance structures influence the level of protection of minority shareholders’ rights.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the ethics and accountability environment influences the voluntary assurance demand for integrated reports through the lens of institutional theory.

This study used an international sample of 192 companies that have registered in the International Integrated Reporting Council’s (IIRC) early examples database and that published integrated reports during the years 2011–2016. Binary logistic regression as well as Instrumental Variables (IV) regression with Probit and GMM estimators were employed to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results confirm that assurance of integrated reports serves as a response to the absence or incompetence of formal and informal institutions that facilitate private contracting. Specifically, the authors found that firms tend to assure their integrated reports in business environments that are characterized by weaker ethical behaviors, less effective boards, poorer auditing and reporting standards, and insufficient protection of the rights of minority shareholders by the legal system.

This study responds to the research calls upon integrated reporting assurance by investigating the underlying drivers of and motives for voluntary assurance on integrated reports.

The findings provide practical implications for firms, regulators and assurance firms. Firms can utilize the results of the study in determining their corporate policies and strategies regarding whether to undertake assurance on integrated reports. Regulators can also consider the results in shaping and improving the institutional ethical and accountability environment of their countries. Further, assurance firms can use these results to help position themselves and guide their market entry decisions.

This study adds to the understanding of institutional factors that impact the assurance of integrated reports which has been rarely examined by prior research. In particular, this is one of the few attempts to examine the link between institutional ethics and accountability environment and the voluntary assurance demand in an international context.

The imposition of the Sarbanes Oxley (SOX) Act and the NYSE/NASDAQ regulations boosted the proportion of independent directors serving on corporate boards. For certain firms, increasing the number of independent directors may impose costs that exceed the benefits. The purpose of this paper is to examine the implications of increased independence following SOX, relative to the pre-SOX board independence benchmark, on managerial authority and entrenchment within the firm.

Data are collected from COMPUSTAT, ExecuComp, and RiskMetrics. Data are divided into two periods, pre-SOX (1996-2001) and post-SOX (2002-2006). The focus is on the sub-group of firms who were not complying with the board independence requirement prior to SOX and became compliant afterwards. Various regressions are employed to assess the implications of increased independence following SOX on managerial authority and entrenchment.

The appreciation in board independence post-SOX significantly inflates both managerial compensation and the likelihood of CEO duality. Also, there is a positive association between board independence and managerial entrenchment during both the pre- and post-SOX periods. Imposed board composition requirements diminished board monitoring efficiency and boosted the CEO dominance and control over the firm.

This research adds to the extant literature investigating the implications of SOX on internal monitoring and governance. The results are based on an off-equilibrium phenomenon in which companies were obliged to alter their endogenously determined board structure. Thus, regulations to improve governance could backfire as the CEO might abuse them to extract private benefits.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the influence of firm-, industry- and country-level determinants on real annual sales growth in the context of a cross-classified multilevel perspective.

The authors studied 11,381 firms from 17 industries in six Latin American countries based on the data collected up to 2015. Since the data are nested in two levels (level 1: firms; level 2: cross-classification of industries and countries), the authors use a cross-classified multilevel model. The significant variability in all levels of analysis confirms the option for the multilevel model.

Differences in industries account for the largest proportion of variance (77.2 percent). This finding indicates that industry-level characteristics should be explored in the sales growth literature (it seems to the authors that they were neglected). This finding also calls attention to the roles of policy-makers in facilitating firm growth. The final model indicates that the considered variables explain approximately 55 percent of the differences in real annual sales growth in the same industry and country after having accounted for the impacts of the differences in firms. After accounting for the impacts of the differences in firms’ and countries’ characteristics, 43 percent of the variation in average real annual sales growth is due to differences in industries. The obtained results indicate that while firms from countries with higher GDP growth and more effective corporate boards present higher real annual sales growth, firms that operate in commodity producer industries have worse performance in this indicator. With respect to firm’s characteristics, larger firms (contradicting Gibrat’s law) and exporters grew less. Some results could be explained by the decrease in commodities’ prices and global purchases between 2012 and 2015.

The paper fills some gaps in the firm growth literature by testing Gibrat’s law in non-developed countries (not yet done, to the best of the authors’ knowledge) and exploring variables other than size in the explanation of firm growth (rarely used, to the best of the authors’ knowledge). Moreover, the adopted model correctly estimated the origin of the variability in firm growth in its natural cross-classified distinct levels.

This study aims to address an acknowledged gap in the literature for the analysis of experienced practitioner views on the effects and implications of mandatory audit firm rotation (MAFR).

Using an exploratory and sequential design, data was collected from South African regulatory policy documents, organisational comment letters and semi-structured interviews of practitioners. These findings informed a field survey, administered to auditors, investors, chief financial officers (CFOs) and audit committee members of Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) listed companies.

Practitioners expressed considerable pushback against the potential efficacy of MAFR to improve audit quality due to various “switching costs”, notably the loss of client-specific knowledge and expertise upon rotation. In addition, the cost and disruption to both the client and audit firm are considered significant and unnecessary, compared to audit partner rotation. The audit industry may suffer reduced profitability and increased strain on partners, leading to a decline in the appeal of the profession as a career of choice. This is likely to have negative implications for audit industry diversity objectives. Furthermore, the industry may become more supplier-concentrated amongst the Big 4 firms.

The findings have policy implications for regulators deciding whether to adopt the regulation, as well as guiding the design of policies and procedures to mitigate the negative effects of adoption.

The participants are experienced with diverse roles concerning the use, preparation and audit of financial statements of large exchange-listed multinational companies, as well as engagement in the auditor appointment process. The extant literature presents mixed results on the link between MAFR and audit quality, with most studies relying on archival and experimental designs. These have a limited ability to identify and critique the potential’s witching costs and unintended consequences of the regulation. Experienced participants responsible for decision-making within the audit, audit oversight and auditor appointment process, are best suited to provide perspective on these effects, contrasted against the audit regulator’s position.

The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of internal governance mechanisms on the financial and social performance of Niger’s decentralized financial systems (DFS).

This paper investigated the impact of the board size and the CEO/chairman duality on financial performance and sustainability, respectively, measured by the return on assets (ROA) and operational self-sufficiency on one side and social performance measured by the size of loans granted and the percentage of female borrowers on the other side.

The results show that board size positively and significantly affects the ROA. The author also concludes that the duality of decision and control functions promotes the financial viability of the DFS. Regarding the impact of internal governance on social performance, the author finds that board size positively and significantly affects loan size.

This study focuses on Niger’s 13 largest DFSs. However, an analysis that also includes smaller firms may show different results.

A board size of between 5 and 15 members is recommended. This would help to incorporate key skills and the active involvement of all members.

This research highlights the importance of including internal governance mechanisms, underscores an interesting problem and answers questions raised in the existing literature by invalidating or confirming the results that have been obtained thus far. As the players in the microfinance sector recognize that sound governance is an important factor for a successful outcome in any microfinance institution objective, the paper helps shed some light on the situation of DFS in Niger.

Board diversity has been a hotly debated topic in the field of corporate governance. The paper examines the role of board chairperson and its moderating effect on the relationship between job-related diversity and boards’ strategic tasks performance. The purpose of this paper is to add on our body of knowledge about the impact of job-related diversity on boards’ strategic tasks performance.

The paper applies the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique to examine survey responses from chief executive officers (CEOs). Both the measurement model and structural model have obtained good results, supporting the appropriateness of using the SEM approach.

The findings suggest that there is a positive association between job-related diversity and boards’ strategic tasks performance, which is moderated by a chairperson’s leadership efficacy and the option of a former-CEO as board chair.

To achieve the intended effect of job-related diversity in boards, policymakers need to be mindful about the importance of the board chairperson. Board chairperson’s characteristics such as leadership efficacy and a former-CEO experience would amplify the positive effect of diversity.

This research paper contributes to the literature on board diversity, board leadership and strategic management of firms. Findings validated researchers’ concern about the negligence of examining moderating factors in board diversity research. Moreover, results echo the concern that board leadership research should shift the attention from structural aspects to the behavioral issues. Finally, this study is the first to show the positive influence of a board chairperson in disseminating benefits of a diverse board.