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This study aims to examine the mediating effects of corporate governance mechanisms like the board of directors on the association between disruptive technology adoption by audit clients and the risk of material misstatements, including inherent risk and control risk. In particular, the authors study the mediating effects of board characteristics such as board size, independence and gender diversity.

Based on a sample of 100 audit clients listed on the FTSE 100 from 2015 to 2021, this study uses structural equation modelling to test the research objectives.

The findings indicate a significant and negative association between disruptive technology adoption by audit clients and inherent risk. However, there is no significant evidence observed for control risk. The utilisation of disruptive technology by the audit client has a significant impact on the board characteristics, resulting in an increase in board size, greater independence and gender diversity. The authors also find strong evidence that board independence mediates the association between disruptive technology usage and both inherent risk and control risk. In addition, board size and gender exhibit distinct and differential mediating effects on the association and across the two types of risks.

The study reveals that the significant role of using disruptive technology by audit clients in reducing the risk of material misstatements is closely associated with the board of directors, which makes audit clients place greater emphasis on the construction of effective corporate governance.

This study offers essential primary evidence that can assist policymakers and standard setters in formulating guidance and recommendations for board size, independence and gender quotas, ensuring the enhancement of effective governance and supporting the future of audit within the next generation of digital services.

With respect to relevant stakeholders, it is imperative for audit clients to recognise that corporate governance represents a fundamental means of addressing the ramifications of applying disruptive technology, particularly as they pertain to inherent and control risks within the audit client.

This study contributes to the existing literature by investigating the joint impact of corporate governance and the utilisation of disruptive technology by audit clients on inherent risk and control risk, which has not been investigated by previous research.

We investigate the effect of the adoption of formal board structure and board processes on firm performance in Colombian family firms, in a context where firms can choose specific aspects of board structure and processes. We deploy insights from the behavioral governance perspective to develop arguments about how family businesses may choose board elements based on their degree of control over the firm (absolute control or less), and its effect on firm performance.

We use an unbalanced data panel of 404 firm-year observations. The data was obtained from the annual financial and corporate governance reports of 62 Colombian stock-issuing firms for the period 2008–2014 – due to change in regulation, data could not be added beyond 2014. Panel data technique with random effects was used.

The results show that board structure is positively associated with financial performance, however, this relationship is negative in businesses where family has absolute control. We also found that there is a negative association between board processes and performance, but positive association in family-controlled businesses.

Our research contributes to research streams on effects of family control in firm choices and on the interactive effect of governance choices and institutional context and more generally how actors interact (rather than react) with their institutional context.

This study aims to determine the influence of corporate governance characteristics on carbon emission disclosure in an emerging economy.

The study is based on S&P BSE 500 Indian firms for the period of 6 years from 2016–2017 to 2021–2022. The panel data regression models are used to gauge the association between corporate governance and carbon emission disclosure.

The empirical findings of the study support the positive and significant association between board activity intensity, environment committee and carbon emission disclosure. This evinced that the board activity intensity and presence of the environment committee have a critical role in carbon emission disclosure. On the contrary, findings reveal a significant and negative relationship between board size and carbon emission disclosure.

The present study provides treasured insights to regulators, policymakers, investors and corporate managers, as the study corroborates that various corporate governance characteristics exert significant influence on carbon emission disclosure.

The current research work provides novel insights into corporate governance and climate change literature that good corporate governance significantly boosts the carbon emission disclosure of firms. Previous studies examining the impact of corporate governance on carbon emission disclosure ignored emerging economies. Thus, the current work explores the role of governance mechanisms on carbon emission disclosure in an emerging context. Further, to the best of the author’s knowledge, the current study is the first of its kind to investigate the role of corporate governance on carbon emission disclosure in the Indian context.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of sustainable board governance, based on (1) sustainability board committees, (2) critical mass of female board members and (3) sustainability-related executive compensation, on sustainable supply chain reporting (SSCR).

Based on stakeholder and critical mass theories, a sample of 1,577 firm-year observations for firms listed at the EuroSTOXX600 for the period 2017–2021 is used. Sustainable board governance and SSCR proxies are collected from the Refinitiv database. Correlation and logit regression analyses are conducted to measure the impact of sustainable board governance on SSCR.

Sustainable board governance significantly improves SSCR. The findings are robust to various robustness checks, based on the modification of dependent and independent variables.

Due to massive regulations on sustainability reporting, finance and corporate governance, firms listed on the EuroSTOXX 600 are focused in this analysis. The European capital market represents a unique setting for archival research.

European standard setters should connect the relationship between sustainable board governance and SSCR in future regulations, for example, due to the recent corporate sustainability reporting directive (CSRD) and corporate sustainability due diligence directive (CSDDD).

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this paper provides the first analysis on the impact of sustainable board governance on SSCR.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of sharia governance on organizational performance in zakat management institutions in Indonesia over the period 2017–2021.

This study examined 33 zakat management organizations in Indonesia from 2017 through 2021 for 151 observations. Gross allocation ratio and growth of ZIS collection are used as organizational performance measures. The independent variables in this study are board of director size, educational background of the board of directors, sharia supervisory board size, sharia supervisory expertise, supervisory size and management size. Also, the study uses size, age and audit opinion as control variables to help measure the relationship between sharia governance and organizational performance.

This study shows that the board of directors and supervisory size positively and significantly affect organizational performance. Then, the educational background of board of directors has a negative and significant effect on organizational performance. In Model 1, sharia supervisory board size has a positive and significant effect on organizational performance, but in Model 2, sharia supervisory board size does not. Meanwhile, sharia supervisory expertise and management board size do not affect organizational performance.

The findings in this study illustrate the importance of transparency in the zakat management organization. Transparency helps minimize conflicts of interest and information asymmetry in the zakat management organization. In addition, sharia governance mechanism helps regulators and top management to make effective policies to improve and enhance organizational performance.

Sharia governance is essential for zakat management organizations to increase accountability, credibility and public trust and support the practice of zakat management organizations.

This study discusses sharia governance and organizational performance in socioreligious organizations, especially zakat management organizations, which are still rarely carried out. Thus, this study broadens the insights of sharia governance and highlights the importance of performance appraisal in zakat management organizations.

This study aims to empirically examine the impact of internal corporate governance mechanisms (ICGM) related to the size of the board, board composition, CEO duality and audit committee independence as a single metric on a firm’s investment decisions.

This study attempts to develop an internal corporate governance quality index comprising 10 items under four main ICGMs – size and independence of the board, CEO duality and audit committee independence – employing panel data analysis to investigate its impact on the investment decisions in 301 nonfinancial firms listed in six emerging capital markets in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member countries for the years 2015–2020. Data were extracted from sample companies' websites, stock markets, annual reports and Refinitiv database.

This study provides convincing evidence that effective ICGMs minimize inefficient investment and ultimately boost investment efficiency. The findings remain consistent even after considering the potential endogeneity bias.

This study provides empirical evidence on investment efficiency in the GCC region and emphasizes the importance of high-quality ICGMs in reducing inefficient investment. By examining the impact of ICGMs on investment inefficiencies, this study contributes to the corporate governance literature. The GCC region's unique economic and social contexts, with its growing economies, are considered to shed light on this issue.

This study aims to investigate the impact of dividend policy on a firm’s participation in corporate social responsibility (CSR)-related activities in the context of Pakistani firms. Furthermore, the role of the board governance mechanism in dividend policy-CSR is investigated.

The study’s sample consists of 115 nonfinancial Pakistan Stock Exchange-listed firms from 2010 to 2021. A multidimensional financial method is used to assess the firm’s CSR engagement, and dividend policy is assessed using the dividend payout ratio and dividend yield. The authors used the fixed effect model and the random effect model to fulfill the study’s objectives. Furthermore, the system-generalized method of moment estimation technique is used to test the robustness of the result. In addition, the authors perform reverse causality analysis and investigate the effect of financial constraints on the dividend policy–CSR relationship.

The authors find that dividend policy has a significant positive impact on CSR. The authors also find that dividend policy is significantly positively associated with components of CSR, i.e. donation, employee welfare and research and development. Furthermore, the authors find that the board governance mechanism strengthens this positive relationship between dividend policy and CSR.

The government and authorities must mandate or at least encourage enterprises to pay dividends as doing so not only keeps shareholders happy but also encourages firms to make CSR initiatives to balance stakeholders. Furthermore, the regulator should take steps to strengthen the board governance structure as it strengthens the positive dividend policy–CSR relationship.

Although little previous research has focused on the CSR-dividend policy link, the authors believe that this is the first study to look at the influence of dividend policy on CSR and the moderating impact of board governance mechanisms in an emerging country, namely, Pakistan.

The purpose of this paper is to explore board functions and their location in family firms.

Through structured induction in a four-case study of medium-sized Swedish family firms, the authors demonstrate that board functions can be located in other arenas than in the common board and suggest propositions that explain their distribution.

(1) The board is but one of several arenas where board functions are performed. (2) The functions performed by the board vary in type and emphasis. (3) The non-family directors in a family firm serve the owners, even sometimes governing them, in what the authors term “bidirectional governance”. (4) The kin strategy of the family influences their governance. (5) The utilization of a board for governance stems from the family (together with its constitution, kin strategy and governance strategy), the board composition and the business conditions of the firm.

Being a case study the findings are restricted to concepts and theoretical propositions. Using structured induction, the study is not solely inductive but still contains the subjectivity of induction.

Governance agents should have an instrumental view on the board, considering it one possible governance arena among others, thereby economizing on governance.

The institutional pressure toward active boards could paradoxically reduce the importance of the board in family firms.

The board of a family company differs in its emphasis of board functions and these functions are performed with varying emphases in different governance arenas. The authors propose the concept of kin strategy, which refers to the governance importance of the structure of the owner and observations on bi-directional governance, indicating that the board can govern the owners.

This study investigates how the timeliness of financial reporting by listed companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is influenced by the interaction effect between industry-specialist auditors and board governance.

The Emirati capital markets – the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) and the Dubai Financial Market (DFM) – were used to obtain the data, which covered the seven-year period between 2011 and 2017. In total, 385 observations were obtained. Descriptive statistics and multiple regression were the principal statistical tests employed using the panel data method.

The results of the direct effect tests reveal that board independence and industry-specialist auditors have no significant influence on financial reporting timeliness. Nevertheless, the results also show that the timeliness of financial reporting by listed companies in the UAE is influenced by the interaction effect between auditors' industry specialisation and the governance of firm boards. More specifically, the results reveal that financial reporting timeliness is positively associated with board independence for companies audited by industry-specialist auditors. This finding is consistent with the notion that industry-specialist auditors complement the role of effective board governance.

This study only focuses on secondary data from non-financial companies listed in the UAE markets. Therefore, the outcomes may not be generalisable to sectors related to finance. Future researchers are recommended to examine financial sectors and apply alternative measurements such as surveys or interviews with directorial boards and external auditors. Furthermore, this study used only one measure of industry-specialist auditors, while board governance was limited to board independence. Future studies could utilise different measurements for industry-specialist auditors and more board governance measures to obtain more robust findings.

The evidence provided indicates that when a company listed in the UAE has a high-quality board, it benefits by engaging auditors who specialise in the industry in terms of improving the timeliness of financial reporting. The findings also indicate the need for closer monitoring of management to safeguard their reputation. This might attract the attention of the Big Four audit firms and industry–specialist auditors to continuously re-evaluate their audit work, professional training and staff skills, while they might also try to differentiate their performance and monitoring capabilities from the non-Big Four audit firms and non-industry specialist auditors.

The main contribution of this study to the overall body of research is the concept that having independent directors is associated with improved reporting timeliness because financial reports are monitored with greater efficiency by industry–specialist auditors. This study provides evidence for the interaction effect between internal and external governance mechanisms on financial reporting quality, which has not been the focus of prior studies on financial reporting quality.

This study aims to examine the link between boards and audit committees and firm performance in Kuwaiti listed firms in the context of recent and extensive corporate governance regulatory reform.

Panel data regression analysis with fixed effects and clustered standard errors of firm performance for 61–97 listed industrial and services firms in Kuwait over a seven-year period. The dependent variables are the returns on assets and equity, the debt-to-equity ratio and leverage and Tobin’s Q and the independent variables comprise board of directors and audit committee characteristics, including size, the number of meetings and the numbers of independent and outside board and expert committee members. Firm size, subsidiary status and cash flow serve as control variables.

Mixed results with respect to the characteristics of the board of directors. Board size and independent and outsider board members positively relate only to Tobin’s Q and insiders only to debt to equity. For audit committee characteristics, committee size, independence and expertise positively relate to the return on equity and committee size and expertise only to Tobin’s Q. Of the five performance measures considered, board and audit committee characteristics together best determine Tobin’s Q.

Data from a single country limits generalisability and control variables necessarily limited in a developing market context. Need for qualitative insights into corporate governance reform as a complement to conventional quantitative analysis. In combining accounting and market information, Tobin’s Q appears best able to recognise the performance benefits of good corporate governance in terms of internal organisational change.

The recent corporate governance code and guidelines reforms exert a mixed impact on firm performance, with audit committees, not boards, of most influence. But recent reforms implied most change to boards of directors. One suggestion is that non-market reform may have been unneeded given existing market pressure on listed firms and firms anticipating regulatory change.

Kuwait’s corporate governance reforms codified corporate governance practices already in place among many of its firms in pursuit of organisational legitimacy, and while invoking substantial change to audit committees, involved minor change to firm performance, at least in the short term. Some firms may also have delisted in expectation of stronger corporate governance requirements. Regardless, these direct and indirect processes both improved the overall quality of listed firm corporate governance and performance in Kuwait.

Seminal analysis of corporate governance reforms in Kuwait, which have rapidly progressed from no corporate governance code and guidelines to an initially voluntary and then compulsory regime. Only known analysis to incorporate both board of directors and audit committee characteristics. Reveals studies of the corporate governance–firm performance relationship may face difficulty in model specification, and empirical significance, given the complexity of corporate governance codes and guidelines, leads in changing firm behaviour and self-selection of firms into and out of regulated markets.