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The purpose of this study is to analyse the level of online disclosure of firms in the USA and to evaluate the impact of diversity in terms of director nationality (boardroom internationalisation) on online disclosure.

The authors apply, for the first time, a new modified scoring system to measure online disclosure levels by securing more detailed information on each of the items in the voluntary disclosure index. Regarding the percentage of foreign board members, unlike in previous research, the authors calculate two additional proxies to more accurately specify the level of international diversity on the board: the Blau Index and the Shannon Index. Moreover, the authors use a cross-sectional model for the sampled non-financial S&P500 firms using both ordinary least squares (OLS) and heteroskedasticity-corrected estimates to analyse the impact of boardroom internationalisation on the level of online disclosure.

The findings reveal that the average online disclosure level for the sample in question is 64% for the 0–1 index and 57% for the 0–4 index. In addition, the results of the regression analysis confirm the study’s proposed hypothesis, which is that the presence of international board members correlates with an improvement in the level of online disclosure. This can be attributed to the fact that foreign directors bring unique skills and knowledge from their home countries and thus, increase board discussion, creativity and innovation, which has a positive impact on the level of online disclosure.

Financial firms are subject to capital requirement regulations; consequently, disclosure practices can be influenced. Therefore, these firms were excluded from the sample of the study.

This research contributes to the body of literature on nationality diversity of firm boards and corporate online disclosure in several respects. Firstly, the study adds an international dimension to the existing literature. Secondly, this study provides new evidence that foreign diversity on the board can improve firm value, insofar as the corresponding enhancement of online disclosure leading to positive capital market implications. Thirdly, the authors use, for the first time, a new scoring system approach to measure the level of online disclosure. Finally, it contributes to the corporate governance literature by basing its analysis on a multi-theoretical approach.

The 1997 financial crisis in Asia has entailed significant changes and governance reforms in the Korean banking industry. This study investigates the impact of corporate governance on the risk and return of Korean banks during the 10 years that followed the financial crisis era. In particular, we investigate the ownership structure of banks, the extent of involvement of foreign institutions and investors in ownership and board membership of Korean banks, and the heterogeneity of board structure on bank performance. Our findings indicate that foreign ownership, the extent of external board involvement, and the presence of foreign directors on the board are associated with significantly higher bank returns. Although foreign ownership and the number of outside board directors are associated with lower risk, the involvement of foreign board members is positively associated with risk. The results are fairly robust to a battery of tests and control variables, and offer the first detailed empirical documentation of the Korean banking governance reform and its achievements since 1997.

This paper seeks to explore such questions as: “What are the impacts of foreign investors and what are the channels through which foreign investors contribute to or detracts from firm value in Korea?” It aims to discuss how foreign investors and foreign outside directors interact to enhance firm value.

Using longitudinal data from the KOSPI200 index in Korea during 2004‐2007, the study examined the direct and interaction effect of foreign blockholders and foreign board members. To address the representativeness of foreign investors, the authors verified the mandates of foreign board members though telephone interviews.

Foreign block shareholders and foreign outside directors respectively provide expertise and independent monitoring over management. Foreign blockholders' management control via board membership is likely to mitigate leverage of value enhancement when foreign outside directors represent private interests of foreign blockholders. The moderating effect is also supported since foreign ownership concentration has an inverted U‐shaped relationship with value enhancement. The paper confirms that board independence reinforces the positive impact of foreign outside directors on firm value.

This study offers a key to understanding corporate governance in that mutual monitoring and a balance among various types of stakeholders are crucial to value enhancement.

The paper provides clues to the extant diverse findings concerning the impact of foreign investors on firm value. It applies an integrated perspective to the empirical analyses of the impact of foreign investors by giving consideration to the agency – foreign outside directors – to implement management control on behalf of foreign blockholders.

This study aims to understand whether board diversity has a direct effect on “corporate social responsibility (CSR)” performance of companies or not. In addition, this study also aims to examine the moderation effect of age and education level of female board members on the relationship between board gender diversity and CSR performance.

A “corporate social performance (CSP)” measurement instrument was designed to conduct a content analysis that analyzes the CSR disclosure in the annual reports of Turkish companies listed on the “500 biggest Turkish companies” report of “Istanbul Chamber of Industry (ISO)” in 2015. The data coming from content analysis of 117 company reports were analyzed by using hierarchical regression analysis.

Despite of supporting the increase in CSR performance when there is a greater presence of independent board members in an organization, evidence supports that ratios of female and foreign board members do not have any significant effect on CSR performance.

The study contributes to previous literature on board diversity and CSR performance as follows. First, this paper contributes to previous literature by examining and testing independent, female and foreign board members as a new antecedent of CSR performance in research on Turkey; second, by examining a sample of the “500 biggest Turkish companies” and providing some tips about both Turkey and other developing countries; third, by reopening the debate about the positive impact of a greater presence of independent directors on board on CSR performance and the non-effect of female and foreign board members. Finally, it also offers a partially new CSP measurement instrument based on content analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of board composition on the profitability of banks in Tanzania. First, it examines the differences between local and foreign-owned banks in terms of their boards and profitability, and then the contribution of board composition to banks’ profitability.

The paper utilizes a secondary panel data set of information on the boards, their operations and financial statements of 35 banks. The data were collected between 2009 and 2013. The authors tested the stated hypotheses using descriptive and econometric analyses.

The results show a significant difference in board composition and profitability between local and foreign-owned banks. Local banks have a higher income and profits. With their contextual knowledge they are able to attract diverse board directors who contribute positively to their performance. The paper also found that large boards and those with women on them were associated with high profitability.

The study focused on three aspects of boards, which are size, foreign directors and women’s representation. The paper is limited in the sense that other aspects of composition that also affect performance are not included in the study.

The paper suggests that in order to maximize profitability, banks should increase the number of directors. Many board members can share skills and knowledge, which can improve performance. Women are underrepresented on boards. With current changes in policy and education in emerging countries, there is a need to increase their representation.

This study contributes to the agency theory by showing that large boards are indeed efficient at monitoring and bringing in profits, especially in an emerging economy where there are multifaceted risks at country and company level. These risks require shareholders and investors to have a much better understanding of the banks and that is where a large board plays a key role.

In this chapter we study the intra-group transactions between the parent bank and its foreign subsidiaries in European Union (EU) countries during the crisis. We use hand-collected data from annual statements on related party transaction and find that they may create a serious problem for the stability of the foreign banks’ subsidiaries. Moreover, as some of those subsidiary banks were large by assets in some of the member states the related party transactions with the parent bank created a serious threat to the host countries’ financial system stability. We attribute this transaction to the weak governance in foreign subsidiaries. We suggest improvements in governance as well as greater disclosure of related party transactions in bank holding companies in Europe.

Many organizations around the world currently are facing board diversity issues and challenges. Hence, this empirical paper investigates the relationship between board diversity and firm’s financial performance. We use a sample of 35 companies from five countries in Southeast Europe (Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Greece) for the period between 2008 and 2012 to find that, on average, companies with well-educated board members are more profitable and overvalued on the market. When running the regression again to test the levels of heterogeneity, we also find that the companies with more women on board tend to be overvalued on the market, while those with more foreigners on board are subject of undervaluation. The paper mostly contributes to the literature on corporate governance and board diversity. First, we postulate the impact of each of the board diversity variables on the financial performance and then show the extent of this impact and its economic interpretation. Our findings have important practitioners’ implications for corporate regulators and policy-makers since the demonstrated positive impact of the well-educated board members on firm’s financial performance gives a new impetus in building a corporate strategy that will intend to engage more people holding PhD on board.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effects of appointing foreign directors on the foreign acquired Turkish banks. Based on the developments in the Turkish banking system and the distinctive features of the Turkish market, the authors examine the appointment of foreign directors in three different levels: as a CEO, chairman and board member. The authors analyse how the appointments of foreign directors in each of these three levels affects the profitability and strategies of foreign acquired banks.

The authors use the difference-in-difference (DID) model where the authors compare two groups: foreign acquired banks vs domestic banks for a five-year period. By applying the DID model, the authors aim to remove the time invariant individual characteristics of the banks that could be due to the permanent differences between the two groups, as well as biases from comparisons over time that could be due to trends.

The authors find that the presence of the foreign chairman has a positive effect on the profitability of the foreign acquired bank and on the improvement of the income generated from interest activities, indicating that foreign chairman improves the monitoring of board of directors and brings new skills and experiences. Furthermore, foreign acquired banks are associated with an increase in the income generated from non-interest activities in the fifth year following their acquisitions, showing the introduction of new strategies. The change of the foreign acquired bank’s strategies in the fifth year after acquisition also suggests that it takes time to implement new strategies in a new environment.

Though the effects of foreign board membership on bank’s performance have been previously discussed in literature, this study differentiates in that it distinguishes among different positions, e.g. chairman or CEO when examining the effect of a foreign director on a foreign acquired bank’s performance. In addition, the use of foreign acquired Turkish banks in the sample in this context adds to the general academic literature.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the presence of returnees serving on the audit committee affects auditor choice in emerging markets.

Using a logistic model, this study tests the relationship between the presence of returnees in the audit committee and auditor selection and how this relationship varies with the level of agency costs. The authors also perform several other additional analyses to ensure the robustness of the results, including propensity score matching, Heckman’s two-stage model and change analysis.

Using A-share listed companies in China from 2008 to 2016, the authors find a positive association between the presence of audit committee returnees and a demand for high-quality auditors and such association is strengthened in firms with a higher level of agency costs. The authors further find that discretionary accruals and the incidence of financial restatements are lower in firms with audit committee returnees.

Although this study focuses on audit committee members with foreign study or foreign work experience, it remains to be seen if similar effects could be achieved through foreign ownership or work experience with foreign customers or suppliers.

This study provides evidence on a new channel of international knowledge spillover through which the emigration of talent increases board monitoring by demanding high-quality auditors in an emerging economy.

This study aims to purport to investigate the relationship between firm size, profitability, board diversity (namely, director gender and nationality) and the extent of corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosures within a developing nation context.

The dataset comprises 116 listed Bangladeshi non-financial companies for the period of 2005-2009. A CSR disclosure checklist was used to measure the extent of CSR disclosures in the annual reports and a multiple regression analysis to examine its association with firm characteristics and two board diversity features – female and foreign directorship.

Results indicate that large and more profitable firms provide more CSR disclosures. It was also found that female directorship has a negative association with CSR disclosures, while foreign directorship has a positive impact on such disclosures. This paper documents that CSR disclosures decrease further when family ownership is higher and there are more female directors on the board.

This study extends empirical evidence on the association between firm characteristics, board diversity and CSR disclosure practices from a developing nation context. Furthermore, this study also reveals that female directors’ impact on firm disclosures may differ between developing and developed nations, and somewhat impeded in the latter. This paper also provides empirical evidence on the importance of appointment of foreign nationals on the boards of developing countries to influence CSR practices.