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In light of the conflict between scholarly findings supporting corporate social responsibility’s positive impact on corporate financial performance (CFP) versus findings showing negative impact on CFP, the academic literature has reoriented toward determining the contingency conditions that affect the underlying relationships. This paper aims to investigate two potential contingency factors, the chief executive officer’s (CEO) corporate social responsibility (CSR) expertise and board members’ CSR expertise.

This paper uses an unbalanced panel of archival data of 168 firms from the S&P 500 index for the period 2006–2013. The analytic model is estimated using the feasible generalized least squares regression method with heteroscedasticity and panel-specific AR1 autocorrelation.

The findings reinforce the perspective that CSR positively affects the firm’s financial performance. The authors find that firms realize optimal results from their CSR investments when both the board and the CEO have greater CSR expertise. In other words, both, CEO CSR expertise and board CSR expertise positively impact the CSR–CFP relationship.

The findings of this study advance the literature in three important areas, namely, the social responsibility–financial responsibility relationship, the governance literature and upper echelons theory. First, the theoretical arguments and the empirical evidence highlight that CSR–CFP relationship is at least partly contingent upon the CEO’s and board members’ CSR expertise. Second, this study introduces two important variables: the CEO and board’s CSR experience as proxies for their CSR expertise. Future researchers may consider decomposing the various components of CSR to study the differential impact of each component on financial performance.

First, this study finds that while the CEO CSR expertise may be of value for the firm, such value can only be realized under a capable and effective board that has adequate knowledge in the field of CSR. Second, this study shows that the best-case scenario for firms occurs when both its board members and CEO have had greater prior CSR involvement that contributed to their knowledge inventory and skills. Greater knowledge and skills enhance the quality of the decisions that comprise the firm’s CSR strategy.

While it seems intuitive that prior CSR knowledge and expertise should lead to more and better CSR initiatives, there are few if any studies that empirically examine the effects of this premise on a firm’s financial performance. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study appears to be the first that directly tests the relationship between executives’ CSR experience and firm performance.

The study empirically investigates whether the board of directors' expertise in the focal firm's industry has implications for innovation input. Additionally, it explores how this relationship is shaped by the CEO's educational level and background in the technology area.

The article tests the hypothesized relationships through the Arellano–Bond generalized method of moment estimators, proxying innovation input by R&D to total sales. Moreover, it analyses a sample of privately-held Italian medium and large high-tech companies observed over four years by relying on a unique hand-collected dataset.

The research documents an inverted U-shaped relationship between board industry expertise and innovation input and shows that such curvilinear effect is moderated by the CEO's educational level and technology background. Specifically, while the curvilinear slope is less steep for highly educated CEO, it becomes steeper in the presence of technology trained CEO.

The paper recommends how to shape the board human capital as a meaningful driver of board effectiveness and innovation. Additionally, it calls the managerial attention towards the interaction and the interplay between board industry expertise and CEO education as able to influence the above-mentioned outcome.

While previous studies have focused on the linear and positive effect of board industry expertise on innovation, this research advances current knowledge in innovation management literature by testing the presence of a curvilinear relationship. Moreover, by exploring the moderating effect of CEO education, the paper provides a comprehensive picture on the interplay among board industry expertise, CEO educational training and innovation input.

This study aims to analyse the role of the financial and accounting expertise of the chief executive officer (CEO) on financial reporting quality (FRQ) in an emerging economy.

This study is based on data collected from a large sample of all non-financial companies listed on Vietnamese stock exchanges during the period 2016–2020 with 2,435 observations. FEM-ROBUST standard errors regression model is used to examine the relationship between the financial, accounting expertise of CEOs and FRQ through earnings management by discretionary accruals.

The results show that CEOs with financial and accounting expertise have more influence and intervention on earnings management and thus adversely affect FRQ. This behaviour is explained by the fact that CEOs not only have a firm grasp of financial and accounting policies but also know the tricks to interfere with earnings management. Moreover, in the context of emerging economies, CEOs’ awareness and management level are still limited and legal sanctions are not yet strict, so when they have power in their hands, CEOs immediately find ways to build a reputation to enhance the power and earnings for the CEOs themselves.

The limitation of this study is first of all that the research data are not complete and rich because the companies are prohibited from disclosing information and the cooperation relationship is not close. Next is the new research in only one emerging market – Vietnam – so the generalizability is not high.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the impact of CEOs’ accounting and finance expertise on FRQ in an emerging economy, contributing to the existing literature regarding the scientific debates about CEOs, CEO characteristics, earnings management and FRQ.

This paper aims to hypothesise that demographic characteristics of managers play a significant role in performing their duties amongst which is financial reporting. This study aims to examine whether CEO characteristics, namely, tenure and financial expertise, are associated with audit report timeliness.

Data from companies listed on the Oman capital market between 2007 and 2011 and three proxies for audit report timeliness are used.

CEO tenure and CEOs with financial expertise are reported to be associated with timely audit reports. Supplementary tests also confirmed this result. In addition, it is suggested and documented that there is an interaction effect between CEO tenure and financial expertise concerning the timeliness of audit reports. The use of a two-stage least square analysis also supported the main results.

Hypotheses were tested using data from Oman with a relatively small sample size. Therefore, only a few characteristics of the CEO were considered and a more sophisticated approach of testing managers’ effect on company policies was unable to be used. In addition, the generalisability of the study findings should be made carefully.

This paper differs from prior studies, in that it extends the audit report timeliness literature by examining whether the CEO tenure and CEOs with financial expertise are associated with audit report timeliness. Findings demonstrate that CEO characteristics are important factors for a timely audit report.

Research investigating the association between religiosity and earnings management has concentrated on accruals-based earnings management, relying heavily on society’s religiosity, but it has neglected the interaction between religiosity and formal monitoring mechanisms. This study aims to examine how the religiosity and accounting expertise traits of top leaders are associated with real earnings management (REM) and how they interact to eliminate these practices.

Using a sample of 943 year-observations from more religious settings, this paper collects data for four measures of REM, and for religiosity and accounting expertise of audit committee (AC) chair and chief executive officer (CEO). Multivariate regression is used to test the study hypotheses.

The findings are consistent with the predictions that religious top leaders are not associated with lower REM, while top leaders with accounting expertise, in some cases, are associated with lower REM. This paper also finds that a leader with religious belief and accounting expertise dramatically lowers REM. These findings are robust under a battery of sensitive analyzes. In an additional analysis, this paper observes the interaction effect between these two traits is strengthened if the board chair is religious, and persists even for larger firms or those with a highly concentrated ownership structure.

The paper provides evidence that may serve a variety of decision-makers. It is the first to show that the interaction between religiosity and expertise is crucial in curbing REM. It also provides the first evidence for the role of the AC chair in relation to REM.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the characteristics of a CEO, that is, tenure and financial expertise, could affect the timeliness of an audit report.

Research data gathered from listed companies on the Tehran Stock Exchange during the four-year period 2013-2016.

The results obtained from model fittings indicated that there is only a negative and significant relationship between CEO financial expertise and natural logarithm of audit report lag and no significant relationship observed between the former and two other indices of timely audit report. Moreover, no significant relationship was found between the CEO tenure and other three indices of timely audit report.

This paper is the first study, which developed the literature of timely audit report using CEO tenure effect and financial expertise tests for timely audit reports in Iran.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the implications of board human capital heterogeneity for company innovation by focusing on the educational and the functional background of directors. Moreover, it examines the moderating effect of the CEO expertise-overlap within the innovation domain on the relationship between board human capital heterogeneity and firm innovation.

The hypotheses are tested through a set of ordinary least squares regressions on a unique dataset of 149 Italian high-tech companies observed between 2012 and 2015.

Findings show that the educational and the functional background heterogeneity of directors increase both the innovation input and output. However, results highlight that these relationships are negatively moderated by the CEO expertise-overlap within the innovation domain.

The paper emphasizes the importance of appointing directors with different and specific educational and functional backgrounds to foster the company innovation.

The paper fills a gap in the literature as it has devoted limited attention to the performance implications of board human capital heterogeneity in the high-tech industry where knowledge and skills are the primary sources of value. Moreover, the paper integrates the research on the CEO-board interface by shedding light on how the CEO expertise within the innovation domain affects the contribution of heterogeneous boards to company innovation.

This study aims to analyze whether chief executive officer (CEO) duality and financial expertise are associated with earnings management to exceed thresholds. It also investigates to what extent and in what direction this association evolves when family ownership is introduced as a moderator variable.

Based on balanced panel data related to companies listed on the Tunis Stock Exchange, this study uses the logistic random-effect model to test research hypotheses during the period spanning from 2016 to 2021.

The results show that CEOs with financial expertise are less inclined to engage in earnings management to avoid reporting losses and earnings decline. The authors also provide evidence that CEO duality allows top management to be more powerful and, therefore, manage earnings to report positive profits and sustain recent performance. Furthermore, the authors find that family ownership moderates the association between CEO financial expertise, CEO duality and earnings management to exceed thresholds.

The findings suggest to regulators involved in corporate governance and earnings management issues a reflection on CEO duality power, board effectiveness and family control. The study results are also of interest to auditors and board members as they provide a more in-depth understanding of the impact of CEOs' attributes and family control on financial reporting decisions.

This study extends past literature by providing new insights into the effect of CEO attributes and family control on earnings management practices in weak investor protection countries such as Tunisia.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of CEO discretion on the real earnings management and to explore whether the discretion of the CEO to ensure accurate and reliable financial reports is influenced by the political connection of board members.

Using the generalized method of movement to control the potential endogeneity on the sample of listed companies in Nigeria, the study conducted several checks using Driscoll–Kraay panel data regression with standard error to robust the main findings.

The paper provides evidence that CEO Discretion reduces the tendency of real earnings management and improve the reporting quality. However, the CEO’s discretion to provide reliable financial reports and to reduce the likely earnings manipulation is overturn by the presence of politically connected directors.

Existing studies on CEO attributes and earnings management in Nigeria fail to explain why CEOs were involved in corporate financial scandals. This paper suggests that the presence of politically connected directors is what override and upturn the CEO discretion to dwell into real earnings manipulations. Prior studies measured political connection using a dummy variable (Chaney et al., 2011; Osazuwa et al., 2016; Tee, 2018), this paper measured political connection using the proportion of politically connected directors. This is on the idea that the presence of more politically connected directors may give them the power to override the CEOs decision.

This paper aims to examine the impact of CEO (chief executive officer) compensation and CEO attributes on the level of tax aggressiveness of French companies.

The sample comprises 180 firm-year observations of 40 companies listed on the CAC 40 during the period ranging from 2008 to 2018. For the purpose of overcoming the problems of heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation, the authors apply the generalized least square panel regression.

This study’s results corroborate the importance of CEO compensation and CEO attributes as determinants of tax aggressiveness. In addition, the authors come up with the fact that CEO compensation has a negative effect on tax aggressiveness, and that older CEOs and CEOs with accounting expertise are negatively linked with tax aggressiveness. The authors also find out that there is a positive relationship between the CEO tenure and tax aggressiveness. Moreover, the authors report that foreign CEOs are more likely to engage in tax aggressiveness practices than local CEOs.

The unavailability of all annual reports and the use of only one proxy to measure tax aggressiveness present limitations. This study shows significant implications for shareholders, regulators and researchers. As a matter of fact, shareholders will observe the effect of appointing a foreign CEO on the tax aggressiveness level. This study may also provide regulators with new ideas regarding the role of the CEO and its impact on aggressive decision-making. And it brings forth new insight for researchers through adding a foreign CEO as a new determinant of tax aggressiveness.

According to the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to provide empirical evidence regarding the effect of both CEO compensation and CEO attributes on tax aggressiveness. It also looks into the impact of a foreign CEO on tax aggressiveness.