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This study investigates whether there are relationships between the characteristics of the boards of trustees of universities in the Arab region, higher education quality assurance and the output of scientific research.

The descriptive analytical approach was used in this study. The study was conducted on the universities of the Arab region that are included in the classification of the British Institution for the Arab Region: QS Arab Region University.

The findings show that there is an effect of the characteristics of the trustees combined in the universities of the Arab region on ensuring the quality of higher education, other than the output of scientific research. The findings also indicate when measuring the characteristics individually that the trustee system is not effective in the Arab region and it is only formal for nominal purposes.

Most universities in the Arab region do not disclose the data of boards of trustees, their roles, committees, rules of procedure and the nature of their work. A large number of universities also do not operate under the trustee system because the regulations and instructions do not allow this in the country.

This study seeks to improve practitioners knowledge, including boards of trustees, in ensuring the quality of higher education and the output of scientific research.

The research projected the governance model through the characteristics of the boards of directors of for-profit companies on the boards of trustees of universities in the Arab region. The study examines the nature of the characteristics of the boards of trustees that are compatible with its responsibilities, the most important of which is the supervision of the strategy to ensure the quality of higher education research.

Negative disclosure tone in 10-K annual reports has economic consequences, yet relatively little is known about how it is generated. Boards of directors play an important governance role with respect to mandatory disclosures and personally sign off on Form 10-K, leading us to expect directors to influence financial reporting narratives. This study investigates whether the negative tone of firms' narrative annual report disclosures is associated with the human and social capital of its board of directors.

Multivariate regression analyses of negative disclosure tone (Loughran and McDonald, 2011) on board members' average age, gender, education, financial expertise and turnover is performed. A host of supplemental tests to corroborate our primary analysis, including using Sarbanes-Oxley's financial expert mandate as an exogenous shock to board composition, impact threshold for a confounding variable, placebo analysis, portfolio tests of more and less negative disclosing firms and portfolio tests of “loud” versus “quiet” boards are conducted.

Evidence that directors' gender, education, financial expertise and board turnover are associated with more negative disclosure tone, while directors' age is associated with less negative disclosure tone is found. The study also looked within the board to differentiate whether these findings are driven by characteristics of inside directors or outside directors serving on the audit committee, or both, as these are the specific groups of directors we would expect to play a role in disclosure. It was found that negative disclosure tone is associated with a lower bid-ask spread, so this study interpreted more negative tone as containing more descriptive information.

This study helps decode the “black box” of annual report disclosure tone, which Loughran and McDonald (2011) show has important economic implications. The results help inform stakeholders such as policymakers, executives and capital market participants as to how board member traits are associated with disclosure. The findings are particularly important as this study bears witness to the increasing prominence of gender/diversity mandates (e.g. Israel, Norway, California) and financial expertise mandates (e.g. Sarbanes-Oxley).

This study aims to provide insights into gender diversity in Pakistani boardrooms, particularly for the dominant family business type, which is strongly guided by (non-financial) family-related objectives when making business decisions, such as the appointment of board members. Pakistani companies operate within the framework of weak legal institutions and a traditionally highly patriarchal environment. This study examines how corporate decisions regarding the appointment of female board members play out in this socio-political and cultural environment.

Board composition and board characteristics were examined using hand-collected data from 213 listed family firms and non-family firms on the Pakistan Stock Exchange from 2003 to 2017. Univariate analyses, probit regressions and robustness tests were performed.

Pakistani family firms have a significantly higher proportion of women on their boards than do non-family firms. They are also significantly more likely to appoint women to top positions, such as CEO or chairs.

Evidently, women are allowed to enter boards through family affiliations. Gender quotas appear an ineffective instrument for breaking through the “glass ceiling” in this socio-cultural environment. Thus, gender parity must entail the comprehensive promotion of women and the enforcement of legal reforms for structural and cultural change.

The analysis focuses on a Muslim-majority emerging Asian market that has been scarcely researched, thus offering new perspectives and insights into board composition and corporate governance that go beyond the well-studied Western countries.

A firm will respond to performance feedback, i.e. a comparison of its current performance with the goals to which it aspires, by means of changes in its search activity. There is an emerging body of literature that studies how such behavioral responses are shaped by important decision-makers inside firms. The study focuses on the corporate board – one of the most influential decision-making groups in terms of strategy. More specifically, the study aims to study the moderation effect of the size, turnover and age diversity of the board.

The sample is based on the largest listed German automobile and manufacturing firms followed between the years 2001 and 2015. The sample is analyzed using fixed-effects panel data models.

The findings indicate that the age diversity of the corporate board and, partially, also the turnover of its members moderate firms' responsiveness to performance feedback. On the other hand, the size of the board does not seem to play a role. The study, therefore, supports the notion of taking into account the characteristics of the corporate board when analyzing strategic decision-making and points to areas for further research.

The study contributes to the literature by empirically testing the moderating effect of three characteristics of corporate boards that have not been largely tested in the literature to date.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether board characteristics moderate the relationship between capital adequacy regulation and bank risk-taking of universal banks in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

The paper uses 700 bank-year observations of universal banks in SSA between 2009 and 2019. The paper further uses the two-step generalized method of moments as the baseline estimator.

The paper finds that capital adequacy regulation is positively related to overall bank and liquidity risks. Nonetheless, capital adequacy regulation increases credit risk in the sampled banks. The paper further reports that board characteristics individually and significantly moderate the relationship between capital adequacy regulation and risk-taking.

The findings have implications for regulators of universal banks that board characteristics matter for capital adequacy regulation to impact risk-taking behavior.

The paper extends the existing literature on the effect of board characteristics on the capital adequacy regulations and risk-taking behavior nexus of universal banks.

This paper aims to examine the influence of board characteristics on the integrated reporting quality (IRQ) of Indian-listed companies.

The study uses a sample of 197 firms from the BSE 500 for the years 2017–2018 to 2019–2020. The proposed hypotheses are tested using two-stage least squares regression.

The study documents a positive influence of board size, board independence and gender diversity on IRQ. The study also finds that board activity and role duality are insignificant with IRQ. Among the firm-specific characteristics, variables such as firm size, profitability and capital intensity positively influence IRQ.

The current study presents the first investigation in the context of India on the various board characteristics influencing IRQ. The study reiterates the role that gender-diverse boards have in improving information transparency. Policymakers can therefore drive adoption by recommending changes in board characteristics and increasing the quota for women on boards.

The purpose of this paper is to examine if certain board characteristics have an impact on the financial performance of manufacturing firms in India.

The study draws on data from 275 firms listed in NSE during from 2011 to 2015, using a multiple regression model. The present study examines the effect of board characteristics such as board size, CEO duality, independence and board activity devoted to the effectiveness of firms performance regarding market and accounting based financial performance measures.

The finding supports an inverse association between the extent of board characteristics and the firms’ performance indicators. The study also finds a statistically significant negative relationship between board size and Tobins Q, ROA and ROE. The evidence also shows that the board independence and meeting frequency moderate the relationship between return on equity and return on assets by enhancing these measures among corporate governance mechanisms.

The present study does not include all possible board characteristics, i.e., large shareholders dominance on the board and promoter’s and institutional shareholding, to support firm’s performance. Further research might include the ownership structure of the board to improve firm’s performance.

The study focuses on the corporate governance issues such as size, duality, independence and activity of the boards and their influence on firm performance. The subject analyzes the possible impact of board characteristics and firm-related features that have received much attention from academic research, which has largely focused on studying the publications of corporate governance in India and Asian context.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether corporate governance characteristics impact the voluntary disclosure of carbon emissions.

This empirical research was carried out in two stages. Initially, the carbon disclosures data were sourced from the annual and stand-alone sustainability reports of Turkish non-financial companies listed on Borsa Istanbul during 2011-2015. Later, the corporate governance characteristics that influence carbon disclosures were examined using panel data regression models.

The empirical findings of this study suggested that entities with a higher number of independent directors on their boards were more likely to respond to the Carbon Disclosure Project. In addition, board nationality diversity and the existence of a sustainability committee had a significant positive impact on the propensity to disclose carbon emissions and the extent of those disclosures.

This research provides empirical evidence of the determinants of carbon emission disclosures, which could be useful for organizations and regulatory bodies. Such an understanding is crucial to specify necessary policies that will provide emission reduction practices and policies for entities. This paper fills some of the gap in the literature by concentrating on the association between corporate governance characteristics and disclosures of a more specific environmental issue, being carbon emissions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent of voluntary disclosures in UK higher education institutions’ (HEIs) annual reports and examine whether internal governance structures influence disclosure in the period following major reform and funding constraints.

The authors adopt a modified version of Coy and Dixon’s (2004) public accountability index, referred to in this paper as a public accountability and transparency index (PATI), to measure the extent of voluntary disclosures in 130 UK HEIs’ annual reports. Informed by a multi-theoretical framework drawn from public accountability, legitimacy, resource dependence and stakeholder perspectives, the authors propose that the characteristics of governing and executive structures in UK universities influence the extent of their voluntary disclosures.

The authors find a large degree of variability in the level of voluntary disclosures by universities and an overall relatively low level of PATI (44 per cent), particularly with regards to the disclosure of teaching/research outcomes. The authors also find that audit committee quality, governing board diversity, governor independence and the presence of a governance committee are associated with the level of disclosure. Finally, the authors find that the interaction between executive team characteristics and governance variables enhances the level of voluntary disclosures, thereby providing support for the continued relevance of a “shared” leadership in the HEIs’ sector towards enhancing accountability and transparency in HEIs.

In spite of significant funding cuts, regulatory reforms and competitive challenges, the level of voluntary disclosure by UK HEIs remains low. Whilst the role of selected governance mechanisms and “shared leadership” in improving disclosure, is asserted, the varying level and selective basis of the disclosures across the surveyed HEIs suggest that the public accountability motive is weaker relative to the other motives underpinned by stakeholder, legitimacy and resource dependence perspectives.

This is the first study which explores the association between HEI governance structures, managerial characteristics and the level of disclosure in UK HEIs.

This paper aims to examine empirically the impact of gender diversity on corporate performance by both comparing different positions occupied by female directors on the boards and their personal-specific characteristics.

The paper examines a sample of Italian listed companies during 2006–2015. To deal with endogeneity issues, the authors use a generalized method of moments as an empirical methodology.

The empirical findings show that the positive effect of both independent and executive women directors on firm performance is moderated by the specific characteristics of female directors. Specifically, the analyses show that foreign and busy females negatively impact on performance. Conversely, graduate female directors strengthen the positive link between executive women and firm performance.

The paper sheds light on the consequences of appointing different types of female directors (i.e. independent, executive, graduate, foreign and busy) on firm performance. Our empirical research that investigates the association between gender diversity and performance in the Italian context based on a longitudinal study, which involves a period of ten years, allowing consideration both of the years before and after the introduction of the gender quota law (Golfo–Mosca law).