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The purpose of this paper is to examine the Shariah governance mechanisms of takaful insurance and their impact on its financial performance.

The effect of Shariah governance mechanisms on financial performance is analyzed over 2012–2018 on a sample of 11 takaful listed insurances in the Middle East region. Using multiple regression models, four hypotheses addressing Shariah governance mechanisms are tested.

The findings generally reveal that Shariah governance has an impact on the financial performance of takaful insurance. The Shariah Supervisory Board (SSB) size, the members’ reputation and their qualifications are the main determinants of financial performance for listed takaful insurance.

This paper includes two main limitations that may affect the accuracy of the finding. First, the results are restricted to the Middle East region and may not be generalized to other regions. Second, the sample is dominated by UAE, i.e. 4 takaful insurances out of 11.

Both Shariah governance and regular governance have an impact on the financial performance of takaful insurance. Yet, the effect of Shariah governance is more robust. To improve its financial performance, takaful insurance should expand the size of the SSB, hiring reputable scholars and recruit doctors in Islamic economics.

This research studies takaful insurance, unlike the majority of other works that have focused on Islamic banks.

The need for robust governance standards in financial institutions requires no overemphasis. However, instances of governance failures have been a recurring global phenomenon. This paper examines the key elements of governance in financial institutions, evaluates reasons for failures and suggests ways to strengthen governance and prevent such failures.

The author follows a descriptive design and a behavioural approach to understand the governance issues in financial institutions.

The author identifies key elements of governance, and the potential reasons for failures and highlights that the structure of boards, thrust on the adoption of best practices and regulatory guidelines are necessary but not sufficient to ensure failsafe governance standards. The author emphasises the need for recognition of behavioural factors and a focus on continuous monitoring and red flagging of the conduct of key stakeholders by the third and fourth lines of defence. An effective whistle-blower policy, a clear focus on organisational culture and the subjugation of individuals to the systems can improve the robustness of the governance standards in financial institutions.

To the best of the author's knowledge and belief, the observations and suggestions made in the paper are original. The paper contributes by offering a nuanced perspective for strengthening governance in financial institutions.

This study aims to evaluate the moderating impact of corporate governance on the relationship between internal control mechanisms and financial performance.

The study employs a structured questionnaire to collect data from 250 top managers of rural banks in the capital of Ghana. Cronbach alpha value and Fornell-Larcker tests were performed to assess the reliability and validity of the data used. The study adopted a partial least square structural equation model (PLS-SEM).

The results show that internal control and corporate governance both have a direct positive and significant impact on financial performance. Furthermore, the interaction of internal control and corporate governance also has a positive and significant impact on financial performance, thus confirming the moderating role of corporate governance in the relationship between internal control mechanisms and financial performance.

This implies that organizations need to strengthen their corporate governance procedures to increase the efficiency of their internal control systems, which would ultimately lead to an improvement in their financial performance.

The present study innovates by assessing the moderating role of corporate governance in the nexus between internal control mechanisms and financial performance. This moderating effect assessment implies that corporate governance may not only affect the technical implementation of the internal control structures but will subsequently make an impact on the overall performance of the organization.

This paper examines the association between corporate governance and financial inclusion in terms of correlation. This paper examines whether countries that have a strong corporate governance environment also experience better financial inclusion outcomes.

The indicators of financial inclusion are automated teller machines (ATMs) per 100,000 adults, bank accounts per 1,000 adults and bank branches per 100,000 adults, while the indicators of corporate governance are extent of corporate transparency index, the extent of director liability index, the extent of disclosure index, the extent of ownership and control index, the extent of shareholder rights index, minority investors protection index and ease of shareholder suits index. The association was analyzed using Pearson correlation analysis and granger causality test.

Strong corporate governance is significantly associated or correlated with better financial inclusion outcomes. The regional analyses show that corporate governance has a significant positive association with financial inclusion in Asian countries and in Middle East countries. However, a positive and negative association was observed between some indicators of corporate governance and financial inclusion in European countries, North American countries, South American countries, African countries and in Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries, implying that strong corporate governance has a positive and negative association with financial inclusion depending on the indicators of corporate governance and financial inclusion used. There is also evidence of uni-directional granger causality between corporate governance and financial inclusion.

Little is known about the association between corporate governance and financial inclusion. This paper is the first to examine this association.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the mediating role of local government delivery system (here after delivery system) in the relationship between local governance (hereafter, governance) and financial distress of local governments in Uganda.

This study is correlational and cross-sectional. It uses a questionnaire survey on a sample of 109 local governments (districts) of Uganda. The data are analysed using SPSS, partial least squares structural equation modelling and Jose’s MedGraph.

Results indicate that government delivery system mediates the relationship between governance and financial distress. Delivery system in terms of capacity development and community participation causes positive variances in local government’s financial distress. Also, governance in terms of political clientelism significantly contributes to financial distress more than oversight mechanisms and audit quality. The study finds that delivery system causes more variance in financial distress than governance.

This study applies the new public management and network governance theory and tests the efficacy of delivery system and governance on financial distress in one-go and succeeded in explaining financial distress of local government using Uganda as the setting; the authors join previous scholars that root for multi-theoretical approaches. Also, this study’s design has allowed for the consideration of more than simply the main effects of governance and delivery systems by exploring the mediating role of delivery systems in the link between governance and financial distress. As such, the authors may now have a more accurate and detailed description of the relationships between governance, delivery system and local government financial distress.

Governance quality has been a dominant factor to formulate policies for the development of financial institutions in the world. Therefore, this study aims to explore the impact of governance quality on financial institutions along with globalization in the case of Pakistan.

Time series data from 1996 to 2018 are considered for analysis. The NG-Perron is applied to check the order of integration. In addition, Kim and Perron (2009) structural break unit root test is used to identify break years. The autoregressive distributive lags (ARDL) bound testing approach is used to detect the long-run association among governance quality, financial institutions and globalization.

The results of unit root analysis show that all series are stationary at a different level of integration, I(0)/I(1). However, the long-run association is detected in the presence of break years. The authors find a positive impact of governance quality to determine financial institutions in the long-short-run. Similarly, globalization also enhances financial institutions but only in long run.

This study fills the gap in the economic literature by exploring the linkages between the financial institution and disaggregated governance indicators in the case of Pakistan. Moreover, a role of structural break is also captured during analysis. This study also opens some new insights for policymaking.

The study aims to yield evidence on the relation between the quality of governance characteristics and the firms' financial credibility involved in financial violations.

The study uses annual data ranging from 2000 to 2018. The sample consists of 154 nonfinancial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange, comprising 77 fraudulent and 77 non-fraudulent companies. To examine the relationship between improvements in the governance structure and financial credibility of the firms, hypotheses are tested using the univariate analysis and multivariate regression model through the ordinary least square method.

The results affirm that fraud firms are possessed with poor governance structure compared to control firms in the pre-fraud year. The findings further imply that an improved governance structure brings foremost performance in stock price. The results of the study divulge that board of directors characteristic i.e. change in outside directors' percentage has a significant positive impact (β = 0.015, p = 0.05) on the financial credibility of the firms. The governance variables in terms of CEO-COB joint position has a significant negative (β = −0.824, p = 0.05) association with the financial credibility, which means that whenever CEO-COB joint position enhances, the financial credibility of the firms decreases. However, governance variables in the context of blockholders percentage has a significant positive (β = 0.13, p = 0.01) impact on financial credibility. The results of the study overall indicate that the governance structure has a significant influence on the financial performance of firms in the stock market.

The study provides an understanding of how fraudulent firms rehabilitate their governance structure and accrue economic benefits by the means of financial credibility after when the fraud is made public. It also adds to the literature in the area of corporate frauds specifically the role of governance structure in the financial performance of fraudulent firms in the stock market; this field is in its initial stage, even in developed countries, while, in developing countries, little work has been done.

Financial flexibility, investment efficiency and effective corporate governance mechanisms have been issues of concern to stakeholders. Yet, little empirical evidence on the combined moderating effects investment efficiency and corporate governance mechanisms on the nexus between financial flexibility and firm performance. This study aims to address this gap and extend the extant literature by examining the moderating effects of corporate governance and investment efficiency on the nexus between financial flexibility and financial performance.

The empirical study is based on progression analysis using a sample of 13,865 US listed companies selected from BoardEx (WRDS) for the period (2010–2022) with 89,198 firm-year observations.

Findings of this study indicate that financial flexibility improves firm value as well as accounting performance. Furthermore, the results reveal that both investment efficiency and corporate governance moderate the effect of financial flexibility on firm performance. The authors complement and extend the literature on the optimal investment strategies domain by showing that the combined impact of corporate governance mechanisms and investment efficiency strengthens the nexus between financial flexibility and firm performance.

Key limitations of this study due to the characteristics of the sample selection: country-specific context and proxies used by this study.

Findings of this study have managerial and theoretical implications for firms’ boardrooms, institutional and individual investors, regulators, academics and other stakeholders regarding behavioural aspects of investment decision-making.

The authors’ novel contribution to the extant literature is articulated by the conceptual framework underlying this study and by the new evidence regarding exploring the combined effect of corporate governance mechanisms on nexus between financial flexibility and companies’ performance.

This study examines the role of institutions and governance on the digital financial inclusion and economic growth nexus in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) from 2014 to 2020.

This study adopts the generalised method of moments technique which controls for endogeneity. The authors employed four main variables namely, index of digital financial inclusion, gross domestic product per capita growth, institutions and governance.

The results suggest a significant positive effect of institutional quality and governance on the digital financial inclusion-economic growth nexus in SSA. Furthermore, the authors find that effect of trade and population growth on economic growth was significantly positive while inflation reduces economic growth in the region.

This study also ignored the effect of digital financial inclusion on environmental quality. Future researches should focus on addressing these drawbacks and replicating the study in Africa as a whole and other developing countries across the world that are experiencing digital financial inclusion and economic growth challenges. The results from the study imply that a positive relationship between digital financial inclusion and economic growth. It is important to note that the study was carried out on the premise that institutions play a pivotal role in enhancing economic growth in SSA.

The results confirm the significance of policies that enhances institutional quality and governance which are other avenues the authorities can pursue to enhance economic growth in SSA.

The paper documents the importance of institutions in boosting economic growth which impacts on social life rather than digital financial inclusion only.

The paper makes a contribution through analysing the role of institutions and governance on the digital financial inclusion-economic growth nexus rather than the traditional financial inclusion–economic growth nexus which is common to the majority of the available empirical studies.