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This chapter applies the five drivers of productivity framework to regional microdata for Egypt and extends it by introducing an index of industrial clusters as an explanatory factor of the productivity performance of local private sector firms. Applying structural equation models, the geographic concentration of sectoral economic activity is found to have a positive and statistically significant effect on labor productivity. The transmission mechanism is conjectured to be the positive spillovers that are created, which local firms can tap into. In contrast, a higher concentration of skilled workers in an industrial sector in a region is associated with lower levels of labor productivity – a finding that suggests there may be structural deficiencies in the allocation of skilled workers. Regional policy should focus on net investments in gross capital formation throughout the country, for which the national and regional governments should improve how public investments are managed and the institutional framework – including the rule of law, bureaucracy and red tape, conflict of interest, transparency, and governance – so that private investment (both local and foreign) may substantially increase.

This study aims to examine the influence of ownership structure and board characteristics on the performance of Indonesian Islamic rural banks (IRB) using the system generalized method of moment model.

This research uses Indonesian IRB unbalanced annual panel data from 2016 to 2022. IRB performance is measured by return on assets (ROA), return on equity (ROE) and nonperforming financing (NPF). The ownership structure is represented by controlling shareholders, ownership of the board of directors (BD) and ownership of the board of commissioners (BC). Meanwhile, board characteristics are represented by the size of the BC, the proportion of female board directors and female president directors.

The results show that the ownership structure and board characteristics play an important role in improving the IRB’s performance. Technically, the results show that the size of the BC and the ownership of the BD increase all IRB performance measures. Female president directors and controlling shareholders improve IRB’s performance as measured by ROA and ROE. Women’s boards of directors improve IRB performance as measured by NPF. Meanwhile, the ownership of the BC does not show its effect on all IRB performance measures.

This study fills a literature gap on the influence of ownership structure and board characteristics on IRB Indonesia’s performance. In addition, it adds understanding and insight for Islamic bank regulators, management and IRB depositors in Indonesia.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to provide an empirical survey on the influence of controlling shareholders and board characteristics on IRB performance, particularly in Indonesia.

This study examines the impact of intellectual capital efficiency and corporate governance mechanisms on the annual report readability of Oman's financial sector companies.

The study uses a sample of 150 firm-year observations of listed financial sector companies in the Muscat Securities Market, Oman, from 2014 to 2018. Flesch Reading ease and Flesch Kinkaid Index are used as proxies for annual report readability. As part of sensitivity analysis, the study also uses the natural logarithm of annual report pages as alternative readability measures. The investigation is conducted using random effects regression analysis and supported with system GMM estimation for robustness.

The findings of this study demonstrate a decrease in intellectual capital efficiency associated with better readability of annual reports for the financial sector firms. Alternatively, banks report a positive association of intellectual capital efficiency with the Flesch Reading ease score of the annual report. The structural capital and capital employed efficiency are also found to be negatively associated with annual report readability. Corporate governance mechanisms such as dispersed ownership and audit committee size also result in easy-to-read annual reports that support agency theory.

The research was conducted for financial firms of Oman, and thereby the findings can be generalized to the financial sector of countries with similar settings, such as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region.

The policy implications arising from this study suggest a strengthening of the intellectual capital efficiency and corporate governance mechanisms to improve the readability of the firms and thereby increase investor confidence.

This paper's uniqueness is in the model used to investigate the impact of intellectual capital efficiency and corporate governance mechanisms on the annual report readability of an emerging market.