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This paper aims to investigate the impact of the revised Code of Corporate Governance 2017 (CCG-2017) clauses pertaining to board independence, mandatory inclusion of female directors, audit committee (AC) chair independence and directors’ expertise on earnings manipulation.

Using an unbalanced panel of 323 listed companies from 2015 to 2019, this study uses panel data regression models with a robust methodology called difference-in-differences to tackle the potential endogeneity.

This study’s findings show that, as compared to the pre-CCG-2017 period, board- and AC-related variables increased significantly in the post-CCG-2017 period. Furthermore, financial experts on the board and board independence have a negative effect on discretionary accruals (DAs), whereas female directors and DAs are positively related, as is real activity manipulation. The AC-related variables, such as AC independence, expertise in AC, and AC chair independence, are significantly different from the preperiod to the postperiod, whereas their relationship is not according to the hypotheses of the study. Moreover, these results are robust to additional analysis of the alternative proxies for female directorship and the endogeneity problem.

The findings of this study have implications for regulators and practitioners who are concerned with the functions of the board of directors (BOD). The findings of this research study show that earnings management (EM) may be reduced by independent and expert directors. However, board gender diversity is not reducing the EM. Therefore, the decision to appoint female directors to the board should be based on their business and professional attributes rather than simply filling quotas or blindly adhering to regulations. Moreover, the findings of this research may assist the regulator in encouraging listed firms to enhance board governance via independence, diversity and competency, which are useful for effective monitoring.

This study fills a gap in the literature by providing the first evidence of country-specific regulation (CCG-2017), concerning the BOD and AC-related clauses on EM in Pakistan, which is missing in the relevant literature general and in Pakistan in particular.

This study aims to examine whether the presence of advisory directors affects firm discretionary accruals (DACC), a widely used proxy for financial reporting quality. The authors argue that the advisory director weakens the board monitoring role and impairs the firm financial reporting quality by increasing DACC.

The sample consists of listed firms on the Australian Stock Exchange from 2001 to 2015 using 7,649 firm-year observations. The authors perform descriptive statistics, regression and propensity score matching analyses to examine the research hypothesis.

The research evidence that firms with a higher presence of advisory directors have more DACC, indicating poor financial reporting quality. Furthermore, the authors categorize the DACC and find that the firm has higher income-increasing DACC in the presence of higher advisory directors. The findings are robust concerning endogeneity issues.

The research evidence that firms with a higher presence of advisory directors have more DACC, indicating poor financial reporting quality. Furthermore, the authors categorize the DACC and find that the firm has higher income-increasing DACC in the presence of higher advisory directors. The findings are robust concerning endogeneity issues.

The research contributes valuable insights for regulators and policymakers seeking to comprehend the implications of firms using more advisory directors. Additionally, the authors recognize the potential significance of the findings for the institution of directors, as they can provide a nuanced understanding of the specific roles played by advisory directors in organizational dynamics.

While the extensive body of literature on corporate governance and financial reporting quality has been well-established, a noticeable void exists in academic research delving into the relationship between advisory directors and DACC management. This study seeks to fill this gap, making a distinctive and original contribution to the existing literature on corporate governance.

This study aims to examine the impact of interlocking directorships on firm performance in Turkey, with a specific focus on the moderating role of board diversity.

Using a panel dataset comprising the top 100 firms listed on Borsa Istanbul from 2014 to 2018, this study employs regression analysis to investigate the relationship between interlocking directorships, board diversity, and firm performance. It firm-level financial data and directorship information to assess the effects of interlocking directorships on firm performance while also considering the moderating influence of board diversity.

The findings of this study reveal several important insights. First, the results confirm the “busyness hypothesis” as an increase in the number of interlocks per director negatively impacts firm performance, indicating reduced monitoring effectiveness. However, the study also demonstrates that board diversity plays a significant moderating role. Specifically, board diversity positively influences the relationship between interlocking directorships and firm performance, suggesting that a diverse board can mitigate the negative effects of interlocks and enhance overall firm performance.

This study contributes to the existing literature in several ways. First, this study extends our understanding of the relationship between interlocking directorships and firm performance, considering contingency factors in the Turkish market. Second, our findings imply that board diversity mitigates the negative impact of busy interlocking directorates and improves firm performance, which provides invaluable directions to firms in setting their boards. Moreover, this research enhances corporate governance practices in Turkey and beyond in other emerging markets with similar corporate governance mechanisms by identifying the importance of board diversity and its moderating influence.

This study aims to investigate the impact of board skill diversity (BSD) on corporate environmental responsibility (CER). In addition, this study explores the moderating effects of formal regulatory pressure and informal media pressure.

This study uses Chinese high polluting companies as the sample and uses regression analysis. Robustness checks, including instrumental variable regression, Heckman two-stage model and propensity score matching method, are performed to test the robustness of the results.

The findings suggest that BSD significantly improves CER performance. Both formal regulatory pressure and informal media pressure strengthen the positive impact of BSD on CER. Further channel analyses reveal that BSD improves CER performance by promoting corporate proenvironmental behaviors rather than by restricting environmental violations; skill diversity of executive directors has a more significant effect on CER than that of independent directors. Finally, the moderating effect of regulatory pressure is only significant after the implementation of the Environmental Protection Law, and the moderating effect of media pressure mainly concentrates on negative media coverage.

The involvement of directors with more diverse skills is essential to improve corporate proenvironmental behaviors. Companies should select qualified directors with different skills to further improve their performance on environmental protection and sustainable development.

Regulators and standard-setters should develop efficient guidelines on corporate board governance to enhance the positive role of companies in environmental and sustainable development.

This study broadens the research on the determinants of CER by examining the influence of BSD on CER and the moderating roles of various stakeholder pressures, thereby providing a deeper understanding of corporate environmental performance and sustainable development.

Drawing on new insights from the perspectives and experiences of board members, the purpose of this study is to determine the board attributes that influence board roles in improving the integration of corporate social responsibility (CSR) into corporate governance structures. In total, 10 in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with directors of listed Jordanian companies to explore their perceptions of the effect of board of directors' composition on CSR and CSR disclosure (CSRD). The key findings show that boards with a diverse range of directors is essential independent/nonexecutive members, directors with business and/or accounting backgrounds, and foreign members to determine if they aim to better manage their CSR. To take CSR to the next level in the Arab region, we need to strengthen corporate governance mechanisms, and put more pressures on companies to make changes in board composition. For example, we suggest that companies that appoint business-educated and foreign members to their boards tend to engage in more impactful social and environmental-related activities and reflect their sustainable development more effectively. The study responds to calls for further research adopting qualitative methods, such as case studies and interviews in order to obtain a complete and in-depth understanding of the influence of board composition on CSR/CSRD. The findings provide useful insights for practice, policymakers, and future research.

The intensity of carbon emissions has led to the serious problem of global warming, and the consequences in terms of climatic disasters are gaining increasing attention worldwide. As the energy sector is responsible for most global emissions, developing clean energy is crucial to combat climate change. This study aims to examine the relationship between corporate governance and renewable energy (RE) consumption and explore the interaction between RE production and RE use.

The study adopts an econometric framework of a panel model, followed by the robustness check using alternative methods, including logit regressions. The bivariate probit model is used to analyze the interaction between the decision to use and the decision to produce RE. The analysis is based on a sample of 3,896 firms covering 45 countries worldwide.

The results reveal that appropriate governance mechanisms positively impact RE consumption. These include the existence of a sustainability committee; environmental, social and governance-based compensation policy; financial performance-based compensation; sustainability external audit; transparency; board gender diversity; and board independence. Firms with appropriate governance mechanisms are more likely to produce and use RE than others. Finally, while RE use positively impacts firm value and environmental performance, the authors find no significant effect on current profitability.

This study goes beyond previous research by exploring the impact of multiple governance mechanisms. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is also the first study examining the relationship between RE use and firm value. Overall, the findings suggest that RE transition requires, first of all, establishing appropriate governance mechanisms within companies.

This study aims to explore the evolutionary trajectory of American corporations and their governance over the past few centuries, using a multidisciplinary investigative approach. The research focuses on the American business landscape because it has played a pivotal role in shaping the field of corporate governance theory and practice.

The author thoroughly investigates archival records, legal documents, academic publications, reputable databases and pertinent literature to unearth valuable insights into the key events that have influenced the evolutionary path of American corporations and their governance throughout history.

Delving into the evolutionary journey of American corporations and their governance reveals a multifaceted narrative, enhancing our comprehension of the impact of the external socio-economic environment, and the effectiveness and limitations of established corporate governance paradigms in addressing such transformations. This introspection establishes the groundwork for ongoing discussions concerning how corporate governance should adapt to meet the evolving needs and expectations of stakeholders and society as a whole, with a specific focus on the pivotal role that boardrooms could play in this regard.

The insights gained from this analysis offer practitioners a foundational resource to understand corporate governance in a complex business landscape. Armed with this understanding, practitioners can better align governance strategies with both historical context and contemporary requirements.

The research has significant social implications in the sense that history highlights the importance of the society in influencing corporate governance practices. It specifically emphasizes the need for the board of directors to consider both shareholder value and social responsibility, while also fostering public trust and confidence.

Many corporate governance concepts are often used with limited understanding of their initial intent, resulting in their unquestioned adoption. In this paper, the author offers a contextual exploration of historical events that have contributed to the development of these diverse corporate perspectives. To the best of the author’s knowledge, there are exceedingly few, if any, papers that present comparably insightful and multidisciplinary insights into the evolutionary path of corporations and their governance, especially within a dynamic and influential market like that of the USA.

This study aims to provide insights into gender diversity in Pakistani boardrooms, particularly for the dominant family business type, which is strongly guided by (non-financial) family-related objectives when making business decisions, such as the appointment of board members. Pakistani companies operate within the framework of weak legal institutions and a traditionally highly patriarchal environment. This study examines how corporate decisions regarding the appointment of female board members play out in this socio-political and cultural environment.

Board composition and board characteristics were examined using hand-collected data from 213 listed family firms and non-family firms on the Pakistan Stock Exchange from 2003 to 2017. Univariate analyses, probit regressions and robustness tests were performed.

Pakistani family firms have a significantly higher proportion of women on their boards than do non-family firms. They are also significantly more likely to appoint women to top positions, such as CEO or chairs.

Evidently, women are allowed to enter boards through family affiliations. Gender quotas appear an ineffective instrument for breaking through the “glass ceiling” in this socio-cultural environment. Thus, gender parity must entail the comprehensive promotion of women and the enforcement of legal reforms for structural and cultural change.

The analysis focuses on a Muslim-majority emerging Asian market that has been scarcely researched, thus offering new perspectives and insights into board composition and corporate governance that go beyond the well-studied Western countries.

The link between interlocking directors and mergers and acquisitions (M&A) efficiency has been analyzed in an information asymmetry environment. Despite an abundance of evidence highlighting that interlocking directors do contribute to M&A efficiency in an acquirer-target binary relationship, the target is embedded in a complex network of supplier-customer relationships, which implies that the acquirer needs to consider the value of suppliers, distributors and retailers in the target’s supply chain in improving M&A efficiency. Through the lenses of acquirer-target multivariate relationships, this paper aims to examine how directors with supply chain experience (DSCs) act as heterogeneous network pipes to affect M&A efficiency.

Using a sample of 311 A-share listed firms on the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock exchanges in China during 2011–2020, this paper investigates the relationship between DSCs and M&A efficiency by using ordinary least squares (OLS) regression.

Through empirical research, we verify a negative relationship between DSCs and M&A duration and an inverted U-shaped relationship between both DSCs and M&A performance, revealing the complexity of the relationship between experience and efficiency. Furthermore, drawing on upper echelon theory, the information value of DSCs will be greatly reduced when executives have overconfident psychological characteristics, which are mainly shown to negatively moderate the relationship between DSCs and M&A performance. We also conduct multiple robustness tests and supplemental analyses to illustrate the robustness and boundaries of our findings. Finally, DSCs are likely more important in environments among growth and mature firms as well as high-growth industries.

We break through the assumption that interlocking directors contribute to M&A efficiency in an acquirer-target binary relationship and examine the impact of DSCs on M&A efficiency based on micro-empirical evidence from the value of target-related upstream or downstream industries, which extends the connotation of interlocking directors and enriches the study related to factors influencing M&A efficiency.

This study aims to examine the relationship between audit committee (AC) effectiveness and firm performance (FP) with the moderation of knowledge intensity while observing the varying effect of each AC characteristic’s influence on its effectiveness.

This study examines 133 companies covering five years from 2016 to 2020 using the partial least squares-structural equation model and weighing AC effectiveness-related characteristics through multiple regression between AC characteristics and the AC effectiveness construct.

The results indicate that the knowledge intensity of the firms negatively influences the relationship between their AC effectiveness and FP, implying that the ACs are not sophisticated enough to monitor the knowledge component of the firm’s assets. Among AC characteristics, six attributes have a significant positive impact, two have a negative impact and three have no significant influence on AC effectiveness while influencing FP.

Apart from guiding the regulators, managers and other stakeholders to choose an appropriate mix of AC characteristics for enhancing FP, the study contributes to the existing literature by providing evidence that ACs are ineffective in monitoring the knowledge assets of the company compared to physical assets.

This study is pioneering in investigating the moderation role of knowledge intensity on the relationship between AC effectiveness and FP. While providing a comprehensive and holistic view of AC effectiveness by considering 11 AC characteristics’ individual as well as aggregate effects on FP, it removes the obsolescence of earlier research in the Indian context owing to the latest regulatory reforms.