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This paper aims to verify whether the integration of sustainability in executive compensation positively affects firms’ non-financial performance and whether corporate governance characteristics enhance the relationship between sustainability compensation and firms’ non-financial performance and to expand the domain of the impact of sustainability on non-financial performance.

This analysis is based on a sample of companies listed on the Milan Italian Stock Exchange from the Financial Times Milan Stock Exchange Index over the 2016–2020 period. Regression analysis was used by using data retrieved from the Refinitiv Eikon database and the sample firms’ remuneration reports.

The findings of this paper show that embedding sustainability in executive compensation positively affects firms’ non-financial performance. The results of this paper also reveal that specific corporate governance features can improve the impact of sustainability on non-financial performance.

This analysis is limited to Italian firms included in the Financial Times Milan Stock Exchange Index; however, the findings are highly significant.

The findings provide regulators with useful insights for considering the integration of sustainability goals into executive remuneration. Another implication is that policymakers should require – at least – listed firms to fulfil specific corporate governance structural requirements. Finally, the findings can provide investors and financial analysts with a greater awareness of the role played by executive remuneration in the long-term value-creation process.

This paper contributes to addressing the relationship among sustainability, remuneration and non-financial disclosure, drawing on the stakeholder–agency theoretical framework and focusing on Italian firms. This issue has received limited attention with controversial results in the literature.

This study aims to compare the impact of board characteristics on the performance of listed non-financial firms to the impact of board characteristics on the performance of listed financial firms (commercial banks) in Ghana.

The fixed and random effects models with generalized least square specifications are used in estimating regressions to correct for heteroscedasticity and serial correlation. Additionally, this study uses lagged models of the board variables to address the possibility of the presence of endogeneity and to generate robust estimates.

The empirical results show some similarities and differences on the impact of board characteristics on the performance of listed non-financial firms and banks. On similarities, for both non-financial firms and banks, board size is seen to have a significant non-linear impact on Tobin’s q. Also, the proportion of foreign board members shows a positively significant relationship with firm performance for both listed non-financial firms and banks. The effect of the proportion of board members with higher educational qualifications on firm performance appears to be negative and statistically significant for both sample of firms. On the other hand, the impact of board composition and board gender diversity on firm performance differs from listed banks and non-financial firms.

The panel regressions for the listed banks were run on 63 observations because of the small sample size for the listed banks. Though enough for estimation purposes, inferences from results should be made with caution.

This paper, unlike most corporate governance – firm performance studies, focuses not only on listed non-financial firms but also on listed banks. From a multi-theoretical perspective, this paper provides a comparative analysis on the impact of board characteristics on financial performance of listed non-financial firms and banks.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between board attributes and firm value to identify board attributes that are “pleasant” to have from what is required to have in financial and non-financial firms.

The paper uses five measures of firm value to estimate the relationship between internal governance mechanism for financial and non-financial firms using system generalized methods of moments.

The paper finds that board independence and board size is a “must” have and value-enhancing board attributes for financial firms. On the contrary, board independence may be considered as a “pleasant” board attribute for non-financial firms. Further, the paper finds that duality is not value-enhancing board attribute for both financial and non-financial firms.

The findings imply that differences in requirements for strategic or resource and monitoring functions in financial and non-financial firms are responsible for the differences in board attributes that are value-relevant for these firms.

The findings suggest that the value relevance of board attributes differs in financial and non-financial firms.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of the comply-or-explain principle in the Italian context. In particular, the analysis will evaluate, which factor impact on firms' voluntary adoption of this tool to adequate their non-financial reports to the legal requirements of Directive 95/2014/EU.

The methodology consists of two different levels of analysis. The first part is statistical descriptive, and it consists of a rhetorical analysis on the justifications provided by the firms about their omissions to comply with Directive 95/2014/EU. The second part is inferential and its aim is to evaluate, which factors impact on comply-or-explains adoption.

The findings reveal how the comply-or-explain application in Italy has been characterized by several criticisms. The result highlight how the justifications adopted by the firms is influenced by their sector of activity and omission's type. Moreover, the analysis suggests how the sector of activity and the level of adherence to global reporting initiative influenced the average number of omissions.

The limitations of the research are represented by the focuses on a single country and by the short period of analysis. In this sense, future research could be addressed to the analysis of countries different from Italy. Moreover, accounting scholars could provide further contributions to the political debate through the evolution of the “comply-or-explain” principle’s strategies over the years.

The practical implications connected to the present research are twofold. The first one is represented by the possibility for policymakers to increase the degree of attention about the use of comply-or-explain as legitimization's tool. The second one is represented by the possibility for practitioners to identify a new reporting framework.

The social implications are represented by the possibility for stakeholders to evaluate the reliability's degree of the disclosure produced by Italian public interest entities after the implementation of Directive 95/2014/EU.

Despite the growing attention paid by academics regard Directive 95/2014/EU, this is the first attempt to analyze the comply-or-explain from a rhetorical perspective.

The purpose of this study is to extend existing knowledge in corporate sustainability (CS) and digitalization literature. Innovation strategies (namely, exploration, exploitation and ambidexterity) are used to identify an innovative employee domain that influences a firm’s non-financial performance. Digital reputation – i.e. the set of stakeholders’ sentiments toward the company’s digital footprint – is observed as a moderating variable able to explain where and when the innovative employee domain impacts the non-financial performance.

Using a sample of firms listed on the Fortune 500 list in the period 2015–2018, this study pursued both a qualitative and quantitative analysis. First, content analysis is carried out through a non-financial report-based operational model to operationalize the innovative domain. Second, a regression and moderator analysis are conducted on optimized panel data.

Consistent with previous literature, the results show that the employee domain positively impacts a firm’s non-financial performance. It was found that digital reputation operates as a moderator in this relationship.

This study contributes to the theoretical debate on CS by introducing a new concept relevant to an employee domain of exploration, exploitation and ambidexterity. It enriches the innovation debate by providing a new perspective on how firms can balance exploratory and exploitative innovation strategies in the employee domain to enhance non-financial performance. Finally, it provides a novel definition of digital reputation.

This study attempts to identify fundamental determinants of bond ratings for non-financial and financial firms. Further the study aims to develop a parsimonious bond rating model and compare its efficacy across statistical and range of machine learning methods in the Indian context. The study is motivated by the insufficiency of prior work in the Indian context.

The authors identify the critical determinants of non-financial and financial firms using multinomial logistic regression. Various machine learning and statistical methods are employed to identify the optimal bond rating prediction model. The data cover 8,346 bond issues from 2009 to 2019.

The authors find that industry concentration, sales, operating leverage, operating efficiency, profitability, solvency, strategic ownership, age, firm size and firm value play an important role in rating non-financial firms. Operating efficiency, profitability, strategic ownership and size are also relevant for financial firms besides additional determinants related to the capital adequacy, asset quality, management efficiency, earnings quality and liquidity (CAMEL) approach. The authors find that random forest outperforms logit and other machine learning methods with an accuracy rate of 92 and 91% for non-financial and financial firms.

The study identifies important determinants of bond ratings for both non-financial and financial firms. The study interalia finds that the random forest technique is the most appropriate method for bond ratings predictions in India.

Better bond ratings may mitigate corporate defaults.

Unlike prior literature, the study identifies determinants of bond ratings for both non-financial and financial firms. The study also experiments with modern machine learning techniques besides the traditional statistical approach for model building in case of relatively under researched market.

The main purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between credit risk and financial performance in non-financial firms.

In order to test the relationship between Altman Z-score model as a credit risk proxy and the Return on Asset and Equity as indicator for financial performance with control variables leverage, liquidity and firm size. Least Square Dummy Variable regression analysis is opted. This research's sample included 69 non-financial companies from the Pakistan Stock Exchange KSE-100 Index between 2012 and 2017.

This study establishes the findings that Altman Z-score, leverage and firm size significantly impact the financial performance of the KSE-100 non-financial firms. However, liquidity is found to be insignificant in this study. Altman Z-score and firm size have shown a positive relationship to the financial performance, whereas leverage is inversely related.

This study brings in a new and useful insight into the literature on the relationship between credit risk and financial performance. The results of this study provide investors, businesses and managers related to non-financial firms in the KSE-100 index with significant insight about credit risk's impact on performance.

The evidence of the credit risk and financial performance on samples of non-financial firms has not been studied; mainly it has been limited to the banking sector. This study helps in the evaluation of Altman Z-score's performance in the non-financial firms in KSE-100 index as well.

To investigate the extent to which finance managers in non‐financial firms speculate in the currency markets and particularly to investigate the effect of individual‐owners on such speculation.

This paper uses survey data in order to analyse the extent of currency speculation in non‐financial firms. It uses survey data and publicly available data in an ordered probit regression analysis in order to analyse the decisive factors behind the extent of currency speculation in non‐financial firms.

Currency speculation is widespread among non‐financial firms and takes the form of selective hedging as well as speculation not related to the underlying business. The extent of speculation is positively related to the size of the firm, to the international involvement of the firm, and to the conservatism of its capital structure. If an individual (often the founder or a descendant of the founder) is the largest shareholder in the firm, the extent of such speculation is significantly reduced.

The findings are based on Danish, non‐financial firms listed on the Copenhagen Stock Exchange.

The contribution of this paper is to provide evidence on the negative relationship between individual‐owners (ownership structure) and the extent of currency speculation in non‐financial firms and more generally to investigate the factors behind such speculation.

This study aims to examine the influence of corporate governance (CG) mechanisms and ownership structures on corporate governance disclosure (CGD) in listed Mauritian companies.

Multivariate regression techniques, both static and dynamic panel data models, were employed to analyse the effect of the determinants on the CGD level of 42 Mauritian listed companies (38 non-financial and four financial firms) from 2009 to 2019.

In the static model comprising 42 firms, CG attributes such as board size, board meeting frequency, CG committee meeting frequency and audit committee meeting frequency are major determinants of CGD, whereas ownership structure variables such as managerial ownership and institutional ownership do not influence CGD. In the dynamic model, only the CG meeting frequency is a major determinant. The determinants of CGD vary between non-financial and financial firms.

This study is limited to CGD in listed firms, excluding mandatory disclosures and unlisted firms. Future research can use qualitative approaches to better understand CGD behaviour with an extension to mandatory disclosures and non-listed firms.

Policymakers can rely on determinants to draw policy measures to raise CG standards further. Domestic and foreign investors may also depend on the determinants of their expectations of CGD while making investment and credit decisions.

This study contributes to the extant literature by examining a new determinant of CGD: CG committee meeting frequency. It also investigates any differences in the determinants between financial and non-financial firms with different listing status.

This paper aims to analyse the causes and impact of the significant mean price discounts (25 per cent for financial and 29 per cent for non-financial firms) in rights issues in the UK using a sample of 268 observations for the period of 1994 to 2012. It is observed that for non-financial companies, the issue terms announcement returns are negatively affected by the discount size, while firm size, growth prospects and good previous stock performance have a positive impact. It is also investigated which factors seem to influence managers to engage in deeper discounts when these are so disliked by investors. Evidence is provided that firms with more leverage, larger bid-ask spreads or suffering losses tend to choose deeper discounts. The authors conclude that managers balance the expected negative reaction of the market to a price discount with the risks of a costly issue failure, with these being higher when the firm experiences losses, has a higher volatility and also when the stock market climate is more adverse.

The analysis is divided in two stages. In a first step (thereafter pre-announcement), the authors evaluate the firm’s and market conditions that determine the price discount. In a second stage (post-announcement), the authors measure the market reaction to the rights issues announcement by calculating the abnormal announcement returns by cumulating the difference between daily returns (R) and expected market returns (ER) for the period of −2 to 2 relative to the announcement day.

The authors document that price discounts in right issues for non-financial and financial firms are determined by a set of firm-characteristics and market sentiment. They also bring evidence that price discounts are not arbitrarily determined by firm managers.

The results are consistent with the idea that despite the negative signal to investors conveyed by a significant price discount in the new shares, managers of non-financial companies still engage in substantially price-cutting.