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Based on stakeholder, agency and institutional theory, this study aims to examine the role of institutional ownership in the relationship between environmental, social and governance practices and CEO compensation.

Utilizing a fixed-effect panel regression analysis, this research utilized a panel data approach, analyzing data spanning from 2014 to 2021, focusing on US companies listed on the S&P500 stock market index. The dataset encompassed 219 companies, leading to a total of 1,533 observations.

The analysis identified that environmental scores significantly impact CEO equity-linked compensation, unlike social and governance scores. Additionally, it was found that institutional ownership acts as a moderating factor in the relationship between the environmental score and CEO equity-linked compensation, as well as the association between the social score and CEO equity-linked compensation. Interestingly, the direction of these moderating effects varied between the two relationships, suggesting a nuanced role of institutional ownership.

This research makes a unique contribution to the field of corporate governance by exploring the relatively understudied area of institutional ownership's influence on the ESG practices–CEO compensation nexus.

Given the serious question raised by the subprime of the 2008 global financial crisis over the rising practices of excessive rewarding of executives in the USA and European firms, the executive pay-performance nexus has emerged as a popular topic of debate in the contemporary corporate finance research. Conducted mostly on the Anglo-Saxon contexts, research outcomes have been inconclusive and dichotomous. Considering this backdrop, this study aims to investigate the endogenous relationship between executive compensation and risk taking in the context of the USA.

Using a large sample of non-financial firms from 2010 to 2020 based on panel data and two-stage least square regression. In this study, the riskier corporate decision is measured as book leverage and ratio of R&D expense to total assets. Chief executive officers’ (CEO) experience and age are used as instrumental variables, and these are expected to influence compensation incentives and, hence, affect firm riskiness indirectly. Firm size, return on assets and CEO turnover are reported to affect compensation and corporate decisions, therefore, included as control variables. Given that higher executive compensation is related to riskier corporate decision in firms, this study incorporates total wealth (i.e. accumulated equity related compensation) as an additional proxy of compensation, and this selection is justifiable by the perfect contracting notion of the agency theory.

The results of this study show a significant positive and increasing nexus among compensation and riskier corporate decisions. Besides, the compensation level proxied through the percentage of each form of compensation in total compensation is very important as greater equity and greater salary diminishes risk taking.

The outcomes of this study have useful implications for firm stakeholders and policymakers.

The level of pay measured by the percentage of each type of compensation in total compensation is of utmost importance as it can increase or decrease risk taking in corporate decisions.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between CEOs' inside debt holdings (pension benefits and deferred compensation) and the operating leverage of the firms they manage, with the aim to examine whether CEO incentives play a role in corporate risk-taking.

The authors investigate the relation between CEO inside debt holdings (CIDH) (pension benefits and deferred compensation) and the operating leverage (DOL) of the firms they manage. Using a sample of 11,145 US firm-year observations over the period 2006–2017, the authors find a strong negative association between CIDH and DOL. Additional analyses reveal that the relationship between CIDH and DOL is more pronounced in firms with heightened agency issues, powerful CEOs and for CEOs with stronger professional networks. The results are robust to various sensitivity and endogeneity tests.

The authors find strong evidence confirming the expected negative association between CEO inside debt and DOL suggesting that firms with higher inside debt tend to maintain lower levels of operating leverage. These findings continue to hold with the alternative measure for the inside debt and operating leverage, and across a range of tests designed to rule out the possibility that the primary findings are in any way driven by potential endogeneity. In addition, the findings demonstrate that the presence of manager-shareholder agency conflicts can strengthen the inside debt–DOL relationship suggesting the strong role of inside debt in reducing firm risk.

Findings in this paper have implications for design of compensation structures so that corporate boards can establish incentives as a tool for risk management. A limitation of this study is that it is focused on one market, i.e. US listed companies, so the findings may not be applicable on a global scale.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that links firm-level management of operating leverage through design of CEO inside debt incentives (two obvious choices for risk-reduction at the CEOs’ disposal include reducing financial risk through reduction of firm leverage and reducing operating risk through reduction of operating leverage). While use of firm leverage as an instrument of choice has been explored in the past, use of operating leverage to achieve risk reduction when CEO possess high inside holding, has received very little attention.

The intensity of carbon emissions has led to the serious problem of global warming, and the consequences in terms of climatic disasters are gaining increasing attention worldwide. As the energy sector is responsible for most global emissions, developing clean energy is crucial to combat climate change. This study aims to examine the relationship between corporate governance and renewable energy (RE) consumption and explore the interaction between RE production and RE use.

The study adopts an econometric framework of a panel model, followed by the robustness check using alternative methods, including logit regressions. The bivariate probit model is used to analyze the interaction between the decision to use and the decision to produce RE. The analysis is based on a sample of 3,896 firms covering 45 countries worldwide.

The results reveal that appropriate governance mechanisms positively impact RE consumption. These include the existence of a sustainability committee; environmental, social and governance-based compensation policy; financial performance-based compensation; sustainability external audit; transparency; board gender diversity; and board independence. Firms with appropriate governance mechanisms are more likely to produce and use RE than others. Finally, while RE use positively impacts firm value and environmental performance, the authors find no significant effect on current profitability.

This study goes beyond previous research by exploring the impact of multiple governance mechanisms. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is also the first study examining the relationship between RE use and firm value. Overall, the findings suggest that RE transition requires, first of all, establishing appropriate governance mechanisms within companies.

The authors seek to analyze the impact of weak corporate governance by top executives of a firm on the firm's earnings reports. This research is meant to further emphasize the impact of co-opted executives on a firm, primarily through their impact on earnings management.

Using financial data from 11,473 firm-year observations, the authors utilize ordinary least squares (OLS), 2-stage IV regressions, propensity score matching (PSM) and entropy balancing to analyze the impact of a co-opted top management team on discretionary accruals and restatements.

The authors find empirical evidence that firms with weak corporate governance from top executives are more likely to manipulate reported earnings and have lower financial reporting quality. The authors also find that the effect of co-opted executives on earnings management is weaker when a chief executive officer's (CEO’s) incentives are not aligned with those of top executives, suggesting that executives prevent earnings management due to reputational concerns. Co-opted chief financial officers (CFOs) increase the magnitude of earnings management in a firm but are not solely responsible for the authors' results.

The authors' results suggest that the top executive team provides an important first defense in the prevention of earnings management and corporate wrongdoing. Co-option of the top executive team may be an important consideration when doing research into corporate governance.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) power and the level of tax avoidance of Tunisian listed companies. It also examines the moderating role of institutional ownership in this association.

The sample comprises 306 firm-year observations of companies listed on the Tunis Stock Exchange during the 2013–2020 period.

The results indicate that CEO power reduces tax avoidance levels. Moreover, the relationship between CEO power and tax avoidance is more pronounced in the presence of institutional ownership, suggesting that CEOs act less opportunistically when monitored by institutional investors, which results in a reduction in tax avoidance.

This study suggests that CEO power and institutional shareholders’ influence are important factors in determining firms’ avoidance behavior. This study has significant implications for shareholders and regulatory bodies. Indeed, shareholders apprehend the impact of appointing a powerful CEO on tax avoidance practices. This study may also provide regulators with new insights into the influence of CEO power dimensions and institutional ownership on tax aggressiveness.

This study fills the gap in the accounting literature by investigating how CEO power may impact tax avoidance behavior and provides empirical evidence on the moderating impact of institutional ownership on this relationship in an emerging economy context characterized by a weakly protected investor setting.

This study aims to explore how CEO narcissism drives investment in corporate social responsibility (CSR) and its mediating mechanism.

This study includes panel regression based on archival data.

CEO narcissism leads to signaling of organizational virtuous orientation that results in increase in CSR investment.

Relevance of CEO traits on CSR remains unexplored in emerging markets context, especially the underlying mechanism. This study uncovers these mechanisms.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the synergy of corporate governance (CG) with intellectual capital (IC) and to assess the moderating effect of profitability indicator on the aforementioned synergy using agency theory, resource-based view theory and theory of financial ratios as conceptual frameworks.

The sample includes 72 companies with a six-year data set drawn from the KSE 100 Index companies of Pakistan. In addition, the study adopts Pulic’s model to compute the efficiency of IC. The research uses fixed-effect panel regression for analysis and two-stage least squares regression (2SLS) to address endogeneity issues in the estimation process.

The results showcased that chief executive officer duality possesses negligible impact on IC efficiency (ICE), while independent directors, audit committees and board size tend to attain a strong association with IC. Moreover, it postulates that the moderation of return on equity strengthens the path between all governance components and ICE significantly.

The research uses a 2SLS regression analysis to explore how CG practices take hold on the effectiveness of IC in Pakistan while taking into account the moderating impact of profitability. The findings add to the body of knowledge on the value that strong governance practices have on businesses and society.

The primary objective of this paper is to investigate the relation between the joint provision of sustainability assurance and the readability of sustainability assurance statements. Additionally, it explores whether the presence of a female assurance partner influences the relation between the joint provision of sustainability assurance and the readability of sustainability assurance statements.

We analyzed a dataset comprising 882 firm-year observations from companies operating in sustainability sensitive industries for the period that spans the years 2016–2018.

The research indicates that joint sustainability assurance provision is associated with a more readable sustainability assurance statement, consistent with the “four-eyes” principle. Furthermore, the presence of a female assurance provider influences the joint assurance provision’s impact on sustainability assurance statement readability. Collectively, these results remain robust as they hold unchanged after controlling for endogeneity concerns.

This study provides novel insights into the recent sustainability assurance literature, being the first to examine joint assurance provision, assurance partner gender and sustainability assurance statement readability.

This study has the potential to catalyze regulatory and policy initiatives by providing compelling evidence in favor of mandating joint audits within the area of sustainability assurance practices. Additionally, this research contributes to the ongoing discussion about gender diversity in accounting and nonaccounting assurance firms, providing evidence of the positive impact of female assurance partners on sustainability assurance statement readability.

The regression results provide preliminary evidence on how the presence of a female audit partner influences the relationship between the sustainability assurance joint provision and sustainability assurance statement readability, an issue that has not been examined before.

Despite the significance of a gender-diverse workforce, there is a lack of comprehensive review of gender diversity and women's career advancement literature. Moreover, past literature focuses on women-on-board and other subsets based on outcomes like firm financial and non-financial performance, corporate social performance and board interlocks. The purpose of this study is to examine the research on gender diversity and women's career advancement through an analysis of 143 articles published during past decade. Theoretical frameworks, contexts and constructs-based contribution to scholarship were reviewed. The authors attempt to highlight key theories, constructs and contexts and provide direction for future research.

A comprehensive systematic literature review of 143 articles spanning January 2008–March 2023 about gender diversity and women’s career advancement was conducted.

Majority of the past studies have focused on women on board and top management team, and most of them have been conducted in the context of the USA and China. There is no specific industry which has been covered extensively. Resource dependency, resource-based views and agency theories are the primary theoretical frameworks used in the past studies. Furthermore, these findings suggest the scope to further focus on women’s retention and career growth initiatives, especially at levels other than top levels, for a stronger leadership pipeline.

This study has been conducted with a focused analysis of the context, constructs and theoretical frameworks, enabling future researchers to decide how and where to focus, to now strengthen retention of women.