Search results

Independent directors are important corporate decision participants and makers. Based on the Chinese cultural background, this paper interprets the listing order of independent directors as independent directors’ status, exploring their influence on the corporate research and development (R&D) behavior.

This paper studies A-share listed firms in China from 2008 to 2018 as the sample. The main method is ordinary least square (OLS) regression. We also use other methods to deal with endogenous problems, such as the firm fixed effect method, change model method, two-stage instrumental variable method, and Heckman two-stage method.

(1) Higher independent directors’ status attribute to more effective exertion of supervision and consultation function, and positively enhance the corporate R&D investment. The increase of the independent director’ status by one standard deviation will increase the R&D investment by 4.6%. (2) The above effect is more influential in firms with stronger traditional culture atmosphere, higher information opacity and higher performance volatility. (3) High-status independent directors promote R&D investment by improving the scientificity of R&D evaluation and reducing information asymmetry. (4) The enhancing effect of independent director’ status on R&D investment is positively associated with the firm’s patent output and market value.

This paper contributes to understanding the relationship between the independent directors’ status and their duty execution from an embedded cultural background perspective. The findings of the study enlighten the improvement of corporate governance efficiency and the healthy development of the capital market.

This study aims to examine the impact of board characteristics on firm performance while also exploring the influential mechanisms that help Chinese listed companies establish effective boards of directors and strengthen their corporate governance mechanisms.

This paper uses machine learning methods to investigate the predictive ability of the board of directors' characteristics on firm performance based on the data from Chinese A-share listed companies on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges in China during 2008–2021. This study further analyzes board characteristics with relatively strong predictive ability and their predictive models on firm performance.

The results show that nonlinear machine learning methods are more effective than traditional linear models in analyzing the impact of board characteristics on Chinese firm performance. Among the series characteristics of the board of directors, the contribution ratio in prediction from directors compensation, director shareholding ratio, the average age of directors and directors' educational level are significant, and these characteristics have a roughly nonlinear correlation to the prediction of firm performance; the improvement of the predictive ability of board characteristics on firm performance in state-owned enterprises in China performs better than that in private enterprises.

The findings of this study provide valuable suggestions for enriching the theory of board governance, strengthening board construction and optimizing the effectiveness of board governance. Furthermore, these impacts can serve as a valuable reference for board construction and selection, aiding in the rational selection of boards to establish an efficient and high-performing board of directors.

The study findings unequivocally demonstrate the superiority of nonlinear machine learning approaches over traditional linear models in examining the relationship between board characteristics and firm performance in China. Within the suite of board characteristics, director compensation, shareholding ratio, average age and educational level are particularly noteworthy, consistently demonstrating strong, nonlinear associations with firm performance. Within the suite of board characteristics, director compensation, shareholding ratio, average age and educational level are particularly noteworthy, consistently demonstrating strong, nonlinear associations with firm performance. The study reveals that the predictive performance of board attributes is generally more robust for state-owned enterprises in China in comparison to their counterparts in the private sector.

This study aims to examine how audit committee (AC) attributes influence quality and quantity disclosure of energy consumed by the listed nonfinancial firms for the period of five years (2016–2020). The study aims at providing empirical evidence on how board of director’s independence influences the relationship between AC attributes and firms’ energy in achieving sustainable development goals (SDGs) on world climate policy.

The study obtained data from a sample of 83 listed nonfinancial firms, content analysis technique was used to compute energy disclosure indexes using global reporting initiative standards, while regression analysis was conducted to test the relationship among research variables.

The study revealed that AC independence, diversity and meetings were significantly related with energy disclosure. Also, the study found that other variables were insignificantly related with energy disclosure.

The study is constrained for not considering all listed firms in the country. Furthermore, the study considered selected attributes, other important audit-committee size attributes such as audit-committee size, audit-committee size tenure could be study in by the future study.

The study’s findings would have practical implications for corporations and other business organizations seeking to actively involve the energy-related SDGs 7 and 13 in their business models and successfully communicate these efforts to stakeholders.

To the best of author’s knowledge, this is the first study that provides empirical evidence on the effect of AC attributes on the energy disclosure using effect of board independence as moderator in Nigeria.

This study aims to examine the ability of independent directors to discipline related-party transactions (RPTs) among listed companies in Malaysia. Firms typically appoint independent directors individually, not as a group. However, board members are commonly viewed collectively as a group, and evidence of the abilities of individual directors is scarce.

The attributes of individual independent directors include accounting literacy, length of service, audit committee membership and active participation in board and audit committee meetings. The unit of analysis is the individual independent director. The final sample consists of 1,552 observations in 2017, and RPTs are categorized as either efficient or conflicting.

The study finds that the tenure of individual independent directors and active participation in board meetings affect the firm’s engagement in RPTs. However, the financial literacy, audit committee membership and attendance of independent directors at audit committee meetings do not affect the firm’s engagement in RPTs, either efficient or conflicting. Overall, this result offers limited support for the upper-echelon theory concerning the attributes of individual independent directors and RPTs.

This study uses cross-sectional observations for 2017, which predates the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, this study ignores the impact of restrictions in community mobility during the pandemic on the independent director’s ability to monitor the corporation. This circumstance may have implications for practice and merit further research.

The findings provide information for board nominating committees, regulators and policymakers that the capability of individual independent directors to fulfill their responsibilities is limited. The firm’s nominating committee must be very selective in nominating and appointing independent directors with appropriate competencies. Investors should choose companies that have reappointed the same independent directors for an extended period, as they may benefit from the experience in protecting investors’ interests.

This paper contributes novel evidence to upper-echelon theory literature on the association between independent directors and RPT types from the perspective of individual independent directors.

This study comprehensively reviews the global literature on busy boards and audit committees.

Six eight articles on busy boards and audit committees from prominent accounting journals are reviewed and analyzed under the “reputation” and “busyness” premise.

Most studies advocating the “reputation” hypothesis have the consensus that busy directors have their benefits (knowledge spillovers), particularly regarding sharing their in-depth knowledge, experiences and expertise. This phenomenon is pronounced for younger and IPO firms, which have high advising and financing needs. From the “busyness” perspective, busy directors are too overboard in carrying out their duty effectively and responsibly.

This study identifies future research avenues on busy boards/audit committees and suggests that policymakers and regulators should limit the number of board appointments.

This is the first study to extensively amalgamate research on busy directors and audit committees. It reveals the various proxies used to measure the busyness of board and audit committee members and the consequences of busyness.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between corporate governance characteristics and the financial performance of both Islamic and conventional banks in the context of an emerging market, i.e. Malaysia.

This study includes 300 bank-year observations from Islamic and conventional banks over the period 2010–2021. The dynamic panel model (generalized method of moments [GMM]) was considered the primary estimation model that solves simultaneity, endogeneity and omitted variable problems as most governance variables are endogenous by nature. Hence, static models are considered biased after conducting the DWH test of endogeneity, and considering dynamic panel GMM is valid proven by Sargan and Hensen and first-order (ARI) and second-order (ARII) tests.

Based on the regression results, the authors discovered that board size, female participation in the board and director remuneration have a significant positive impact on bank performance, whereas board meetings have a significant negative impact. Furthermore, the board governance structure of commercial banks is found to be more passive than that of Islamic banks.

The study’s findings added a new dimension to governance research, which could be a valuable source of knowledge for policymakers, investors and regulators looking to improve existing governance mechanisms for better performance of conventional and Islamic banks.

The goal of this study is to add to the existing literature by focusing on the impact of female board participation and other board governance mechanisms in both conventional and Islamic banks on bank performance.

The study has practical implications for decision-makers in that increasing board competence and expertise through training on environmental issues will promote green policy-making.

This study included 655 firm-year observations from companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange between 2017 and 2021. Panel data regression analysis is used to investigate the hypotheses. Additionally, a robustness test is conducted to validate the consistency of the primary test results.

The results demonstrate that green theme training from the board of directors, board of commissioners and independent commissioners has a positive and significant impact on the implementation of green innovation at each level of the board. This result is aligned with the robustness test performed.

This study is restricted by the fact that the only data sources used to examine the board’s green training are publication reports and other reports that disclose the board’s training activities. Therefore, future research can be done by considering other methods, such as surveys to trace green training followed by the board. Additional research may also examine green theme training in the corporate governance structure from a different theoretical angle, such as agency theory and human capital theory.

In practice, the study has implications for decision-makers in that increasing board competence and expertise through training on environmental issues will be able to promote green policy-making.

This study concentrates on Indonesia with two-board governance characteristics: the board of directors and the board of commissioners. Several scholars have examined the board of directors in light of resource dependence theory. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no research has explained the supervisory board within the context of two-board governance. In addition, the authors have not found research that analyzes board training activities related to the environment.

The authors motivate this research on the gender diversity of the board because of the recent increases in the number of women in top executive teams (Francis et al., 2015), which has probably been the result of the adoption of legislation for gender quotas as well as the establishment of corporate governance recommendations for gender diverse boards in several countries. The purpose of this study is to consider the quality of board directors when examining the effect of female directors on earnings management.

The analyses follow the system generalized method of moment to address endogeneity concerns (e.g. a board with higher quality is more likely to have female directors on board and vice versa). Besides the lags of the endogenous variables, the authors use the female industry ratio as an additional instrument (Liu et al., 2014), as female directors might be inspired by other female directors according to industrial sectors (measured by the two-digit industry codes), where competitors are likely to follow gender diversity practices of other firms within the same industrial sector.

The authors’ findings show a negative and significant association between board gender diversity and earnings management (EM), suggesting that independent female directors are the drivers of such effect. High-quality boards decrease the incidence of EM but hinder the potential involvement from female directors towards reducing EM. The incumbent effect of high-quality boards on female director’s contribution on EM reverses with less powerful CEOs.

The authors contribute to the extant literature by recognizing that the effectiveness of a female director on decreasing EM is a function of the environment in which decision-making takes place (i.e. board quality/powerful CEOs).

This paper aims to investigate the impact of sharia governance on organizational performance in zakat management institutions in Indonesia over the period 2017–2021.

This study examined 33 zakat management organizations in Indonesia from 2017 through 2021 for 151 observations. Gross allocation ratio and growth of ZIS collection are used as organizational performance measures. The independent variables in this study are board of director size, educational background of the board of directors, sharia supervisory board size, sharia supervisory expertise, supervisory size and management size. Also, the study uses size, age and audit opinion as control variables to help measure the relationship between sharia governance and organizational performance.

This study shows that the board of directors and supervisory size positively and significantly affect organizational performance. Then, the educational background of board of directors has a negative and significant effect on organizational performance. In Model 1, sharia supervisory board size has a positive and significant effect on organizational performance, but in Model 2, sharia supervisory board size does not. Meanwhile, sharia supervisory expertise and management board size do not affect organizational performance.

The findings in this study illustrate the importance of transparency in the zakat management organization. Transparency helps minimize conflicts of interest and information asymmetry in the zakat management organization. In addition, sharia governance mechanism helps regulators and top management to make effective policies to improve and enhance organizational performance.

Sharia governance is essential for zakat management organizations to increase accountability, credibility and public trust and support the practice of zakat management organizations.

This study discusses sharia governance and organizational performance in socioreligious organizations, especially zakat management organizations, which are still rarely carried out. Thus, this study broadens the insights of sharia governance and highlights the importance of performance appraisal in zakat management organizations.

This paper aims to review empirical research on the relationship between institutional ownership (IO) and board governance (85 studies).

Based on agency and upper echelons theory, the heterogeneous monitoring function of specific types and the nature of institutional investors on board composition, compensation and chief executive officer (CEO) characteristics will be focused.

The author found that most studies have referred to archival studies, analyzed the impact of board governance on IO, focused on CEO characteristics, neglected IO heterogeneity and advanced regression models to address endogeneity concerns. In line with the theoretical framework, the relationship between total IO and board governance is heterogeneous. However, specific types such as foreign, dedicated and pressure-resistant institutions represent active monitoring tools and push for increased board governance.

The author provided useful recommendations for future research from a content and methodological perspective, e.g. the need for analyzing the impact of IO on sustainable board governance and other characteristics of top management team members, e.g. the chief financial officer.

As many regulatory bodies implemented regulations to promote shareholder rights and board governance, this literature review highlights the connections of both corporate governance mechanisms. Managers should conduct a careful and timely investor analysis and change the composition and compensation of the board of directors in line with institutional investors’ preferences.

This analysis makes useful contributions to prior research by focusing on IO and board governance, whereas the author structured the heterogeneous variables and results within the structured literature review. The authors guides researchers, regulatory bodies and business practice in this corporate governance topic.