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Socioeconomic development needs quality governance to provide and protect property rights and other economic means. In this regard, the current study examines the symmetric and asymmetric effect of composite governance index, unemployment rate (UR) and consumer price index on the crime rate (CR) in Pakistan.

The current study uses time series data (1996–2020) on CR, composite governance index, UR and consumer price index. In this study, the authors first constructed a composite governance index from six governance indicators using the principal component analysis (PCA) method. After that, the short-run and long-run symmetric and asymmetric effects were estimated through linear and non-linear autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) models, respectively.

The authors found short-run and long-run symmetric and asymmetric effects of governance, unemployment and consumer prices (CPI) on the CR in Pakistan. For asymmetric effects, the findings show that high-quality governance diminishes and poor governance accelerates committed crimes in Pakistan. Interestingly, the asymmetric unemployment effect suggests that criminal behavior diminishes when people find job opportunities and do not adopt criminal behavior even if people lose employment. In other words, if unemployment decreases CR will fall, and when unemployment increases, the CR may not increase. Lastly, rising product prices lead to criminal behavior, while falling prices do not help to diminish the CR in Pakistan.

The study provides the first empirical evidence of symmetric and asymmetric responses of CR toward composite governance index, UR and consumer price index.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-09-2022-0625

The paper examines the relationship between board effectiveness and audit fees for state-owned enterprises (SOEs). Furthermore, given the unique nature of SOEs, the paper assesses country-level influences, such as economic freedom, political democracy and protection of minority shareholders, which can impact board effectiveness and audit fees.

A combination of two-stage and ordinary least squares regression is used to examine the board characteristics-audit fee relationship for SOEs in a multinational setting during the period from 2016 to 2018.

The results indicate that board characteristics that represent a high level of effectiveness are associated with higher audit fees in SOEs. Furthermore, the findings suggest SOE's operating in countries evidencing medium levels of democracy and economic freedom and medium to high levels of protection of minority shareholders may be motivated to reduce agency conflicts by promoting accountability and transparency, thereby demanding increasing levels of corporate governance, monitoring and audit quality, thereby increasing audit fees.

The results provide further support for the OECD (2015) guidelines promoting the use of high-quality external audits in SOEs.

As a result of the scarceness of research in this area, the current study extends the literature by examining the role of corporate governance and audit fees in SOEs, while examining the influence of economic freedom, political democracy and protection of minority shareholders.

This study aims to test empirically the relationship between board equity ownership and corporate governance on earnings quality of for‐profit corporations, to help practitioners enhance corporate governance practices.

The study examines two competing theories of equity ownership (convergence of interests and management entrenchment) to explain how board members react to owning the firm's stock and whether governance impacts their behavior. In a sample of 499 publicly traded firms, a governance index was calculated and the relative power of equity ownership and governance was regressed on reported earnings quality.

The results support the management entrenchment theory. Both independent and insider board members become entrenched, negatively impacting reported earnings quality and the strength of the governance structure. However, effective governance using a composite of mechanisms moderates the effects of entrenchment.

The effect of individual governance variables on earnings quality is not identified. The reader should not generalize the results of this research to other types of organizations, such as not‐for‐profit or governmental entities. The authors studied for‐profit, publicly held firms where directors act as agents of the stockholders and corporate governance is tasked with the responsibility to monitor management and improve investor confidence in reported earnings quality. The authors acknowledge that in other types of entities, the governance culture and objectives may be different and the results of this study may not apply.

The results provide insight regarding the motivations and behavior of board members and the impact of stock ownership on their actions. Stronger governance controls are needed within the entrenchment range of stock ownership. Firms should not rely on oversight by independent board members to control insider board members. A composite of governance mechanisms can moderate negative behavior.

The results challenge commonly held beliefs that independent board members and board members who own stock will perform their fiduciary duty. This means that governance mechanisms should address all board members, not just specific types and that equity ownership must be very high before it can be relied upon as effective.

The main objective of this article is to analyze the role of governance quality in influencing the economic growth of 22 selected Sub-Saharan African Countries.

The study applied the panel dynamic Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to analyze the data obtained from the World Bank database over the period from 2002 to 2020.

The overall finding indicated that the composite governance index has a positive significant effect on the economic growth of the countries; where a unit improvement in the aggregate governance index leads to a 3.05% increase in GDP. The disaggregated result has shown that corruption control and government effectiveness have a negative significant effect on growth performance, whereas, the rule of law and regulatory quality showed a positive significant effect. Political stability and voice and accountability have an insignificant effect on economic growth.

Due to data limitations, this study could not address the whole members of Sub Sahara African Countries and could not see the causal relationship.

The study suggested a strong commitment to the implementation of policy and reform measures on all governance factors. This may add to the need to devise participatory corruption control mechanisms; to closely look at the proper implementation of policies and reforms that constitute the government effectiveness factors, and properly implement the rule of law at all levels of the government with a strong commitment to realizing it so that citizens at all levels can have full confidence in and abide by the rules of society.

Even though there are some studies conducted using conventional methods of panel data analysis such as random effect or fixed effects, this empirical study used more advanced panel dynamic generalized moment of methods to examine the role of improvement in governance quality on economic growth.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether companies subject to an Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) action have poorer corporate governance than other companies. Evidence from the USA suggests such a relationship but the issue has not been investigated for Australian firms.

The paper considers a matched sample of 240 companies, including 120 which were subject to 143 actions relating to; interpretation of accounting standards; the continuous disclosure regime; and other governance matters during the period 1998‐2004.

We find that companies subject to ASIC actions are less likely to comply with the Australian stock exchange (ASX) best practice governance recommendations and that the main area of difference relates to separation of the roles of the CEO and board chair.

We were able to investigate only 3 of 10 items in the ASX recommendations due to data availability. The sample of ASIC companies is not randomly drawn, thus our results are not generalisable the wider population of listed companies. Capital market consequences of ASIC actions, such as effect on share price, bid‐ask spread, analyst following and cost of capital, are not considered and could be investigated in future research.

The results suggest that, in relation to publicised cases, ASIC is effective in targeting more poorly governed companies, a positive signal for Australian capital markets.

Few papers investigate ASIC's publicised cases and no prior study has linked ASIC cases and corporate governance practices. The findings will be of interest to Australian capital market participants, some of whom question the benefits of corporate governance recommendations.

This paper investigates the impact of governance on economic growth, considering the spatial dependence between countries.

The study employs spatial regression models to estimate the impact of governance on economic growth in a sample of 116 countries worldwide in 2017.

The findings imply that the influence of governance on economic growth is statistically significant. Moreover, if all other economic control variables are constant, 1% increase in governance raises the economic growth on average by 1% at 10%, 5% and 1% significance levels, respectively. Furthermore, each country's rise in economic growth favorably and substantially influences the economic growth of its bordering nations. The unobserved characteristics or similar unobserved environments in adjacent countries also affect its economic growth.

This study adds to the discussion and investigation of the influence of governance on economic growth by considering the spatial dependence between countries, which is lacking in the literature.

This study is motivated by the competing views on whether internal governance mechanisms complement or substitute for external auditing, and how this association is affected by ownership concentration. The complementary view predicts that good internal governance mechanisms are related to high-quality audit. On the other hand, corporate governance mechanisms may be substituted for each other, so more investment in governance mechanisms leads to less investment in external auditing. Therefore, this study aims to examine the association between internal governance mechanisms and the demand for audit quality.

Data from Malaysian listed companies during the period 2009 to 2012 are used. Ordinary least square (OLS) regression is applied to analyse the data.

Companies with a higher concentration of ownership are less likely to demand extensive auditing. In addition, the study provides supporting evidence for the complementary association between a company’s governance and audit fees. However, the ownership concentration plays a minor role in the positive association between internal corporate governance and audit quality. Further tests are conducted and support the main findings.

Significant implications are provided for the audit profession in emerging economies, where concentrated ownership is common, to help policymakers and regulators in determining the power of controlling shareholders on audit quality and firm’s governance. The study’s findings open up avenues for further research.

This is the first work to address the role of ownership concentration in the association between corporate governance and audit quality; it suggests that the ownership structure must be considered in examining the effectiveness of corporate governance. The study also provides a comprehensive combination of internal governance mechanisms.

This study aims to assess the role of income levels (low and middle) in modulating governance (political and economic) to influence inclusive human development.

The empirical evidence is based on interactive quantile regressions and 49 countries in sub-Saharan Africa for the period 2000-2002.

The following main findings are established. Firstly, low income modulates governance (economic and political) to positively affect inclusive human development exclusively in countries with above-median levels of inclusive human development. It follows that countries with averagely higher levels of inclusive human development are more likely to benefit from the relevance of income levels in influencing governance for inclusive development. Secondly, the importance of middle income in modulating political governance to positively affect inclusive human development is apparent exclusively in the median while the relevance of middle income in moderating economic governance to positively influence inclusive human development is significantly apparent in the 10th and 75th quantiles. Thirdly, regardless of panels, income levels modulate economic governance to affect inclusive human development at a higher magnitude, compared to political governance. Policy implications are discussed in light of the post-2015 agenda of sustainable development goals and contemporary development paradigms.

This study complements the extant sparse literature on inclusive human development in Africa.

The world economy has experienced several economic downturns, and each phase emphasised that no industry is immune to inappropriate risk-management practices. Against the backdrop of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, which had far more effects than a financial crisis, the existing paper reviewed the state of current research in the realm of corporate governance and risk-management practices.

This study rigorously followed a systematic approach in identifying, selecting and critically synthesising the existing literature on corporate governance and risk management. The review was carried out on the Web of Science and Scopus database until December 31, 2022. In total, 72 research works were examined and reviewed.

This systematic literature review showed that companies with strong governance mechanisms are less exposed to corporate risks. Several attributes, such as higher institutional ownership stakes, concentrated family ownership structures, lower CEO compensation and duality, higher presence of females in the management, better board dynamics in terms of independent boards and gender diversity are all strong mechanisms for mitigating risk. Additionally, socially responsible companies are better positioned to mitigate corporate risks. Furthermore, several themes emphasising the governance risk link have been identified to understand this domain further.

By analysing and synthesising existing corporate governance and risk-management themes, this study ascertained various research gaps that can be addressed in future studies. Furthermore, drawing on this paper's essential cues, researchers can significantly differentiate their work from existing ones in the field.

A promising solution to meet the challenge of sustainability and ensure the protection of the environment consists in acting considerably on the adoption and use of new information and communication technologies. The latter can act on the protection of the environment; completely change manufacturing processes into energy-efficient, eco-friendly techniques or influence institutions and governance. The article attempts to cover shortcomings in the literature by providing a couple of theoretical frameworks and grounded empirical proofs for the dissemination of green technologies and the interaction of the latter with institutional quality.

The sample is made up of 43 African countries covering the period 2000–2020 and a panel VAR modeling approach is employed.

Our results show that an attenuation of CO2 emissions amplifies the diffusion of digital technologies (mobile telephones and Internet). Efficiency in the institutional quality of African countries is mandatory for environmental preservation. Moreover, the provision of a favorable institutional framework in favor of renewable energy helps to stimulate environmental performance in African states.

This study complements the extant literature by assessing nexuses between green technology and CO2 emissions in environmental sustainability.