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This paper investigates the relationship between managerial sentiment and corporate investment in emerging capital markets. Further, we begin with the assertion that the positive impact of managerial sentiment on corporate investment varies according to the corporate life cycle. Lastly, we investigate whether the relationship between managerial sentiment and corporate investment can be moderated by factors like (1) economic policy uncertainty/geo-political risk, (2) size of the firm, (3) financial constraint, (4) industrial competition, and (5) Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) rating.

This study has considered Indian listed companies (465 firms) for the period spanning from 2003–2004 to 2022–2023. This study constructs the managerial sentiment using a novel large language model-financial bidirectional encoder representation from the Transformers (FinBERT), as well as on management discussion and analysis reports. Then, we employ fixed effect regression to investigate the relationship between managerial sentiment and corporate investment. Additionally, we use propensity score matching, two-stage least squares instrumental variables, and a two-step system generalized method of moments approach for robustness tests.

The findings show a positive and significant relationship between managerial sentiment and corporate investment. Additionally, our results demonstrate that this relationship is evident only during the growth and maturity phase of the corporate life cycle. Moreover, uncertainty pertaining to the economy and geopolitical issues, firm size, financial health, industry dynamics, and ESG disclosure also play a crucial role in shaping the investment-sentiment relationship.

The study is unique because it determines the relationship between managerial sentiment and corporate investment by using the novel FinBERT model. In addition, we have introduced a corporate life cycle, which is an essential aspect of our study. Additionally, this research was conducted in an emerging market with more information asymmetry and weaker disclosure rules. Thus, other emerging markets can benchmark the outcomes.

The role played by corporate governance mechanisms on corporate deleveraging policies has not been clarified. Empirical evidence is confined to developed economies, even with conflicting and inconclusive results. This paper aims to examine the role of corporate governance mechanisms, such as ownership structure, board composition and CEO dominance, in explaining corporate deleveraging policies.

Using a sample of listed Pakistani firms between 2010 and 2022, this study resorts to binary response models to examine the effects of governance mechanisms on firms’ decision to go debt-free.

A greater ownership concentration, institutional ownership and family ownership increase the propensity for zero leverage. Board gender diversity decreases the propensity for deleveraging policies, which seems to indicate that the presence of females reinforces the monitoring function of the board. Finally, lower managerial ownership or CEO dominance decreases the propensity toward zero leverage (interest convergence hypothesis), but higher managerial ownership or CEO dominance increases the propensity toward zero leverage (managerial entrenchment hypothesis).

Risk-averse managers who prefer to control a firm using little or no debt will find it easier to implement these financing policies in firms with greater ownership concentration and where institutional holders have a substantial stake. For shareholders, this study suggests that investing in firms with females on board reduces the risk of corporate deleveraging policies being adopted for entrenched reasons.

The presence of females on board seems to decrease the propensity of managers to adopt opportunistic actions and may also contribute to enhancing human welfare and society in developing countries.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study considering the effect of board diversity on zero leverage. Another singularity is that this study exhibits a nonlinear relationship between managerial ownership and corporate deleveraging policy.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the association between company reputation and dividend policy.

In this study, sample of 98,809 firm-year observations from 22 countries covering 2005–2016 were used.

Firm reputation concerns are associated with higher propensities to pay dividends and payout ratios. Further, this positive effect is more pronounced for firms with high free cash flows, high information asymmetry and low institutional monitoring. The results are robust to an instrumental variable approach, propensity score matching and the Heckman two-stage correction approach while addressing endogeneity concerns.

These findings have significant implications for various stakeholders, such as existing and potential investors, managers, policymakers and regulators, by providing insights into the relationship between corporate reputation and firm dividend payout decisions. Corporate reputation is highlighted as crucial for accessing finance, emphasizing the role of national regulators and policymakers in facilitating firms' efforts to improve their reputation. The study highlights the dynamics of corporate reputation and dividend payout, calling for proactive engagement from regulators and policymakers. Crafting policies conducive to reputation-building can enhance firms' financial prospects, indicating the need for strategic interventions at managerial, regulatory and policy levels. Understanding the influence of economic context is crucial for firms to tailor reputation management strategies and optimize funding opportunities in different economic environments.

Overall, results suggest that reputation serves as a disciplining mechanism, where firms will pay dividends to maintain their reputations.

This paper aims to investigate the effect of corporate environmental disclosure on earnings management and to further examine whether this relationship is moderated by female board.

Our sample includes 264 European companies listed on the STOXX eUROPE 600 for the period 2010 to 2022. We excluded financial companies (banks and insurance companies) due to their specific capital structure and regulatory requirements, and companies with missing data. Feasible Generalized Least Square (FGLS) regression method is used to estimate the econometric models. For robustness analyses, the authors included the alternative measure of the dependent variable, and they applied the simultaneous equation model for the endogeneity test.

Using discretionary accruals as a proxy for earnings management, the results obtained indicated a negative effect of corporate environmental disclosure on earnings management. The results suggest also that women on boards are effective in their monitoring role. Indeed, findings show that the effect of corporate environmental disclosure on earnings management is particularly stronger with the presence of women directors on the companies’ boards.

This study has two limitations. Firstly, the sample size is relatively small, which may limit the generalizability of our findings. Secondly, our earnings management indicator, based on estimates of accruals, may not perfectly reflect all streams of earnings management. Therefore, to reduce potential bias in these estimates, it would be useful to use other indicators, such as real earnings management.

The findings have several implications for regulatory, investors and academic researchers. For regulators, it is appropriate to promote several standards related to corporate environmental disclosure and earnings management. The results advise also the worldwide policy maker to give the importance of female roles to improve engagement firms in corporate environmental disclosure, so to be more transparent in their accounting practices to ensure that they are not engaging in unethical or fraudulent behavior. For investors, the results show that the existence of female directors on the board reduces earnings management. For academic researchers, it is interesting to explore the relationship between corporate environmental disclosure, women on the board, and earnings management.

This paper extends the existing literature by examining the moderating effect of women directors on the relationship between corporate environmental disclosure and earnings management in the European context.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between corporate tax avoidance and stock price crash risk and the moderating effects of corporate governance.

This study investigates the relationship between corporate tax avoidance and stock price crash risk using the sample consisting of listed firms in Vietnam for the period of 2011–2020 using panel regressions.

The authors find that there is a positive relationship between tax avoidance and stock price crash risk. Foreign ownership weakens the impacts of tax avoidance on stock price crash risk, while managerial ownership strengthens the impacts. Female Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and female chairpersons weaken this relationship. Board gender diversity and state ownership have insignificant moderating impacts.

These findings could help the stock market build better internal monitoring mechanisms to reduce the impacts of tax avoidance on future stock price crash risk. Investors can recognize the characteristics of corporate governance, especially foreign ownership, managerial ownership, female CEOs and female chairpersons when making investment decisions. The policy makers should consider policies to attract foreign investment and support women entrepreneurship.

This paper contributes to the literature on the impacts of tax avoidance on stock price crash risk in emerging countries. This paper is the first to investigate the influence of corporate governance mechanisms including state ownership, foreign ownership, female CEOs and chairpersons and board gender diversity on this relationship.

The cost of equity (COE) and corporate governance structure are the most critical factors affecting competition among publicly held companies. Accordingly, the present paper aims to examine the relationship between corporate governance and the COE in the wake of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in Iraq.

Our statistical sample includes 34 companies listed on the Iraq Stock Exchange from 2012 to 2017. Board structure (i.e. board size, board independence, CEO tenure, board meetings frequency and CEO duality) and ownership structure (managerial ownership, institutional ownership and state ownership) are considered proxies for corporate governance structure. Besides, the authors employ the Capital Asset Pricing Model to measure the COE as our dependent variable. Multiple regression analysis and Exploratory Factor Analysis are also used to estimate the research models.

Our results suggest that corporate governance structure plays a significant role in reducing COE during the ISIS era. Furthermore, the authors find that corporate governance can be an alternative to COE reduction in Iraq’s absence of national security. Our findings also indicate that board size, board meeting frequency, managerial ownership and institutional ownership are negatively associated with COE.

Although this study has been thoroughly considered and cautiously planned, the specific period chosen to conduct the research (i.e. the ISIS era) could be a significant limitation since financial disclosure of listed companies may have been of lower quality during this period. However, to relatively alleviate this limitation and maintain the authenticity of the findings, the authors exclude low-quality financial statements, particularly non-audited financial reports, from the statistical sample. Furthermore, practitioners of emerging markets that are suffering from a weak external corporate governance combination can use the findings of this paper as a guideline to compensate the existing market deficiencies by improving internal corporate governance for observing further cash sources with lower cost. The findings also propose to international agencies that the business environment in Iraq is heavily affected by the ISIS phenomenon and needs financial aid to recover from its side effects. Furthermore, macroeconomists may use this paper to make more decisive macroeconomic indicators predictions.

This paper is among the pioneer investigations and elaborates on how the agency conflict is resolved effectively. The board and managerial characteristics and different forms of ownership might be applicable to provide cheaper funds for companies listed in emerging markets suffering from weak external corporate governance combinations.

Executive decisions regarding capital financing are an important management aspect, especially during financing constraints and growth opportunities. The current study examines the impact of managerial skills of a company on capital financing decisions. Furthermore, it analyzed this nexus in financing constraints and growth opportunity situations.

The authors use the GMM (generalized method of moments) estimation approach on a dataset of 20,651 firm-year observations of Chinese A-share companies from 2010 to 2019.

The authors’ findings are compatible with management signaling and reputation enhancement theories, since they show that managerial skill is connected with more substantial debt financing. Managers with high management skills are likely to have more debt financing as they can foresee the economic future of their companies and tactfully convey private information, lowering information inequality and enhancing their reputation. Furthermore, the authors also show that firms with restricted financial resources and growth opportunities make this relationship stronger. Capital structure and managerial skill findings are unaffected by alternative specifications, omitted factors, industry group bias and endogeneity.

This study sheds fresh light on the essential manager personality trait of managing ability and how it influences complicated corporate decision-making, particularly in the tough environment due to financing constraints and competitive growth. The authors argue that high-ability managers are compelled to use debt financing not only to lessen information asymmetry but also to guarantee that the market finds their superior ability. This work contributes significantly to the managerial ability literature and the capital structure literature supporting signaling theory.

This paper aims to examine whether reconciling profit maximization and social welfare as two possible aspirations of company is feasible.

The possible corporate goals are presented by drawing an arc from purely profit-maximizing organizations via a combination of profit and social objectives to organizations clearly serving social utility. In addition to this sorting principle, the order of the different positions presented also takes into account the number of goals and goal-setters.

The primary finding of the study is that none of the business concepts discussed here met the initial expectations as for economic and social objectives. The study points to the need to redefine the purpose of business within a broader social science framework.

For a critical perspective, this paper considers only those standpoints that emphasize a certain form of social utility beyond profitability resulting from business activity directly or indirectly.

In addition to revealing the relationship between the two aspirations, the novelty of the paper lies in the attempt to explore through normative critique and empirical evidence the validity of the expectations regarding the goals.

The purpose of the study is to investigate, synthesize and critically evaluate empirical research findings on the behavioral traits of fund managers from 1994 to 2024. The ultimate goal is to provide a unified body of literature on three broad topics: first, fund managers' demographic and professional characteristics, such as age, gender, level of education and years of industry experience; second, fund managers' social and political connections; and third, fund managers' behavioral biases that lead to irrational investment decisions.

The relevant papers from selected journals were discovered and manually validated using the Scopus database. From 317 retrieved documents, 57 relevant articles were chosen and analyzed after the forward and backward search of the existing articles.

This paper presents a categorized summary of behavioral factors that have gained a foothold in influencing the behavior of fund managers in fund management research, with several studies demonstrating their significance leading to improved prediction and model precision, as this review indicates. In addition, the study summarized the contributions of prior empirical studies within the aforementioned three major categories and illustrated their consequences.

The present study contributes to the understanding of the effects of behavioral finance theories on fund managers by providing meaningful explanations of their behavioral traits based on empirical evidence and existing trends and knowledge gaps, both of which can influence the future direction of research.

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effect of both positive and negative corporate cultures on employee performance in Saudi Arabia, in the presence of performance reviews and factors leading to positive work culture, in an environment that underwent serious modification with COVID-19. The changing work methods (online, remote, etc.) have left their mark necessitating revisiting the needs and capabilities of employees in the work environment.

This quantitative study uses primary data from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), non-profit organizations, and transnational organizations, in their transient role and influence on organizational culture change. The data set includes 311 usable responses from 50 randomly selected organizations and is analysed using structural equation modelling to test the proposed model.

A healthy corporate culture serves as the basis for increased employee performance in the workplace. The three independent variables, availability of negative culture, availability of positive culture and employee perceived performance, have a positive impact on the dependent variable employee perceived effectiveness of performance reviews; however, factors leading to the development of a positive organizational has a negative influence.

This study faced a limitation with the potential similarity of responses due to the large number of same-background respondents (engineers). However, the results are indicative of a trend. Moreover, the responses did not allow for cross comparison between responding organizational types (SMEs, non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations) as was planned.

Managers should motivate their respective employees, through ensuring the diffusion and sustainability of the right culture work environment. This should allow their teams to complete tasks with little or no supervision. Moreover, as the Saudi economy is gearing up for global competitiveness, this performance culture becomes a key for the success of the strategic plans, thus the high importance of the positive culture at work today.

Understanding the importance of positive and negative culture at the managerial level would affect the relationship with employees and improve work environment and job satisfaction.

This study pinpoints the need to revisit a dimming topic, proving that with the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, managers need to go back to square one. The introduction of the many novel work systems, online, remote work, etc. have changed the work setting and environment. This is requiring a new look at the employees’ perceptions on factors influencing corporate culture and performance.