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Alternative corporate governance systems (CGSs) have attracted a significant bulk of research recently. While the connection between the adoption of an alternative system (one tier board or two tier board system) and firms’ performances has not been fully analysed yet, the purpose of this paper is to analyse whether companies which have turned into an alternative board system have eventually improved their performance over time.

Using a sample of more than 15,000 Italian unlisted joint stock companies, the authors compare performance outcomes in 2009 of firms adopting alternative systems with performances of firms that maintained the system in force before the 2003 Corporate Law Reform (defined as “traditional”). Because of the choice of an alternative system (one tier or two tier board) instead of a traditional one is not random, the authors reduce selection bias implementing matching methods and comparing firms that are close in terms of propensity score measured in 2003 (the year before the new CGSs have been introduced by a corporate law reform).

The authors do not find evidence of a significant improvement of performances in 2009 concerning those firms that have adopted a one tier or two tier board systems with respect to those which maintained a traditional one.

The novelty of the study concerns the application of propensity score matching for the evaluation of the impact of the change of the CGS that is possible in presence of two conditions that are all verified in our setting: first, to have a country where corporate law allows for choosing among different systems; in this case Italy is a good laboratory, because it allows for the choice among three different systems; and second, to have the opportunity to evaluate the effect of the change in light of a relatively recent “pre-treatment” condition; this is made possible by the fact that before the 2003 Reform of corporate law all the companies had a traditional system.

According to some key actors in Iceland’s financial sector, in the wake of the financial crisis, Icelandic financial institutions consciously tried to build trust and a positive new image through, among other things, the visible presence of women on their corporate boards and management teams. By strict adherence to gender quota legislation and through improved corporate governance practices and much stricter control and monitoring, the financial sector sent signals of change to various stakeholders. Now 10 years on, the re-establishment of trust is still a work in progress.

Summarizes the reasons for and methods of regulation in worldwide capital markets; and describes in detail the development, governance and regulatory structure of the Warsaw stock exchange (Poland). Uses a variance ratio approach based on Lo and MacKinlay (1988, 1989) to examine price behaviour in the exchange from 1991 to 1995, shows that it is not a random walk market and puts forward possible explanations for its market inefficiency. Considers the implications for the Polish economy and suggests that public policymakers could tighten securities laws and exchange rules to improve the efficiency of this emerging capital market.

I study a series of restructuring activities undertaken by Guoco Group Limited in recent years and the implications on minority shareholders. The divestment of Dao Heng Bank Group to DBS Group reaped substantial benefits for Guoco, including an enormous cash reserves to fund future investments. However, the cash hoard was not implemented to the best use by Guoco’s managers. Subsequently, Guoco was involved in a number of share buybacks schemes. The share‐buybacks met strong resistance from the minority shareholders and eventually forced out the second largest shareholders. Guoco was also engaged in related party transaction involving its subsidiaries in the property development business. Overall, I find evidences suggesting that corporate restructuring activities enhance the controlling owner’s grip on the group at the expense of the minority shareholders.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the stakeholders’ acceptance on blockchain and to investigate the model fit by using “Technology Acceptance Model” with special reference to corporate governance through cryptography to resolve the decades-old problems of financial record-keeping.

The whole analysis has been performed in the two steps, i.e. confirmatory factors analysis and structural equation modeling, to prove model fit between behavioral intention and actual behavior for using blockchain technology. Total 223 respondents have been selected, and the selection of the respondent is primarily on the basis of their previous experience with trading corporate equities.

The study determines empirically all the mentioned relationships of attitude, perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness with the behavioral intention as per the conceptual model to prove the relationship. The results of the manuscript shows the model fit indexes for various constructs are prove the model fit as per the theorized model. The values of the various indexes are found to be under the permissible range which explains the relationship of various constructs based on the theorized model.

Despite, the limitations in terms of selection of sampling methods, outcome and the interpretation, the results proves the fit with the theoretical framework. The major implication is to understand the real-time use of blockchain technology for the transfer of shares from one party to other.

Stakeholders in corporate governance namely customers, creditors, suppliers, community, employees, owners, investors, trade unions and social activists could benefit in different ways. Investors could benefit from being able to purchase equity at low price and to sell them into a market with greater liquidity, but they would found it difficult to camouflage their trades.

The study opines that virtually all aspects of the corporate governance can be improved through the adoption of this technology resulting in greater transparency, improved liquidity and lowering costs.

This study will be a reference for global players in the financial industry that have started investing in this innovative technology vis-à-vis recent announcement of adoption of blockchain by global exchanges including NASDAQ, NYSE and Deutsche Borse, as a new method for trading, tracking ownership and monitoring systemic risk for strengthening corporate governance mechanism. This study will have a significant index for future reference where the technology adoption will be tested to have better corporate governance which will be useful for academics and professionals.

The 2008 Crash (the Crash) has been attributed to the dominance of financialized corporate governance, particularly an increased shareholder value rhetoric. Following the Crash, this extreme narrative is understood to have become less financialized through increasingly favouring stakeholders. The purpose of this research is to investigate this often-accepted view using field theory, wherein managers' biases in the value-creating process result from an interconnected, dynamic, multi-actor discourse.

Various domains across the UK’s corporate governance environment, from the perspective of field theory, generate the complex discourse: corporate and regulatory domains, stakeholder organizations such as the press and think tanks. Domain-specific corpora, representative of this multi-actor field, were constructed, with financialization analysed by assessing managers’ altering biases concerning the relative importance of shareholders and stakeholders (amongst other factors like time horizon) to value creation.

Highlights of the multiple findings include the following: corporate narrative about value creation became less financialized following the Crash, yet favouring shareholders, while the multi-actor discourse for the UK economy as a whole became slightly more financialized.

Analysing a multi-actor discourse is complex. And this, to the best of the author’s knowledge, is the first study of its kind, and only made possible with the original methodology of narrative staining. The approach, while having particular relevance to field theory, is applicable to many other narrative-based research scenarios.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of external and internal corporate governance mechanisms on agency costs.

The author uses data from German firms that were listed in the regulated market of the Frankfurt Stock exchange during 2006-2011. Agency costs were measured using stochastic frontier analysis, a relatively new approach to estimate agency costs. The regression analysis is applied to test the model.

The results indicate that an industry specialized audit firm, the presence of a large audit firm, abnormal audit fees, management ownership and variable management compensation are significantly negatively associated with the level of a firms’ agency costs. In contrast, this seems not to be true for the existence of an audit committee for which the results of the paper document a non-significant association.

The paper contributes to the existing literature in several ways. First, the research design is to the best of the authors’ knowledge the first that investigates the influence of different corporate governance mechanisms on the level of agency costs. Second, previous studies are mainly focused on the US audit market. This focus on the US audit market leaves uncertainties regarding the direction and magnitude of the empirical relationship in the European and German environmental context. Finally, the paper provides initial empirical evidence for a sample of German IFRS listed companies (IFRS – International Financial Reporting Standards).

The purpose of this paper is to explore the question “Why is Shariah Governance Framework (SGF) important for Islamic banks?”

A semi-structured face-to-face personal interview is used to accomplish the research objectives. This study has collected data from the concerned bodies related to Shariah Governance (SG) from the central bank and Islamic banks of Bangladesh.

This study states SG as a process of confirming Shariah compliance in the overall functions of the Islamic banks, while Shariah denotes some rules, regulations, guidelines, objectives and directions to enhance accurate functions and activities, which are solely based on Shariah principles. SGF is important for Islamic banks to implement Shariah principles, confirm Shariah compliance and monitor the functions of the banks. Besides, it is needed for a well, efficient, effective, profitable business and higher performance and, finally, to eliminate the confusion among the management, executives, conventional bankers and banks.

This study significantly contributes to the national and global regulatory bodies by providing evidence that why do Islamic banks and financial institutions require a sound SGF. It is recommended that there should be a sound and robust SGF to protect and fulfill the interest, expectations and demands of different stakeholders, which can easily draw their attention, intention and interest.

This is the first research that extends the literature of Islamic banking and SG by highlighting the importance of SGF. This study claims that to be a complete Islamic bank as well as protecting the unique identity from the general banks and corporate governance system, SG manual is required.

This paper aims to study the effect of new regulatory requirements on disclosure through a longitudinal study. The empirical setting is offered by the risk reporting in the management commentaries of Italian listed companies. In this setting there is an evolution from a voluntary disclosure environment toward a regulated one, with the gradual introduction of new reporting requirements.

This paper uses the content analysis method to investigate the narrative risk disclosure. Non‐parametric statistics are used to test the hypotheses.

It is found that even when new mandatory disclosure is introduced, managers exploit discretion and do not change their disclosure policy, continuing to withhold relevant information to external users. Before and after the introduction of new regulation, managers' behaviour appears in line with self‐interest to protect themselves from litigation and competitive costs, as well as from possible decreases in the firm's value.

The study provides a longitudinal study, covering changes from a voluntary disclosure environment to a regulated one. The paper provides evidence that the management incentives do not change in the presence of new disclosure regulation.