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We investigate the effect of the adoption of formal board structure and board processes on firm performance in Colombian family firms, in a context where firms can choose specific aspects of board structure and processes. We deploy insights from the behavioral governance perspective to develop arguments about how family businesses may choose board elements based on their degree of control over the firm (absolute control or less), and its effect on firm performance.

We use an unbalanced data panel of 404 firm-year observations. The data was obtained from the annual financial and corporate governance reports of 62 Colombian stock-issuing firms for the period 2008–2014 – due to change in regulation, data could not be added beyond 2014. Panel data technique with random effects was used.

The results show that board structure is positively associated with financial performance, however, this relationship is negative in businesses where family has absolute control. We also found that there is a negative association between board processes and performance, but positive association in family-controlled businesses.

Our research contributes to research streams on effects of family control in firm choices and on the interactive effect of governance choices and institutional context and more generally how actors interact (rather than react) with their institutional context.

This study aims to explore the relationship between risk governance characteristics (chief risk officer [CRO], chief financial officer [CFO] and senior directors [SENIOR]) and regulatory adjustments (RAs) in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development public commercial banks.

Using principal component analysis (PCA) and regression models, the research analyzes a representative data set of these banks.

A significant negative correlation between risk governance characteristics and RAs is found. Sensitivity analysis on the regulatory Tier 1 capital ratio and the total capital ratio indicates mixed outcomes, suggesting a complex relationship that warrants further exploration.

The study’s limited sample size calls for further research to confirm findings and explore risk governance’s impact on banks’ capital structures.

Enhanced risk governance could reduce RAs, influencing banking policy.

The study advocates for improved banking regulatory practices, potentially increasing sector stability and public trust.

This study contributes to understanding risk governance’s role in regulatory compliance, offering insights for policymaking in banking.

The literature has dealt with the relationship between board characteristics (BC) and firm performance (FP) on a large scale. However, it yielded inconsistent results. Thus, this paper aims to examine the indirect relationship between BC and FP through the mediating role of the capital structure (CS).

This study used a sample of 528 non-financial companies listed on Bursa Malaysia from 2015 to 2019. Also, a two-step system generalised method of moments estimation technique was applied.

The results show that board diversity and the frequency of board meetings positively affect financial performance, and it is negatively influenced by board turnover, size and independence. Also, the results indicate a positive relationship between the independence of the board and all CS variables. Importantly, the findings support the policy-setting role of the board of directors where CS (measured by total debt and short-term debt) suppresses some governance mechanisms’ detrimental effect on FP. Hence, the board of directors, apart from the monitoring function, introduce various policies (financial and non-financial) that enhance the overall performance of companies.

These results are consistent with the agency’s perspective that management practices in selecting the optimal capital reduce agency costs and improve performance. The findings contribute to developing a broader theoretical framework that accounts for the policy-setting role of the board of directors. The current study model of corporate governance offers insight for policymakers into the role of corporate governance other than monitoring functions in organisations and how CS should be taken into consideration with corporate governance and FP association.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) ratings and leverage manipulation and the moderating effects of internal and external supervision.

The authors draw on a sample of Chinese non-financial A-share-listed firms from 2013 to 2020 to explore the effect of ESG ratings on leverage manipulation. Robustness and endogeneity tests confirm the validity of the regression results.

ESG ratings inhibit leverage manipulation by improving social reputation, information transparency and financing constraints. This effect is weakened by internal supervision, captured by the ratio of institutional investor ownership, and strengthened by external supervision, captured by the level of marketization. The effect is stronger in non-state-owned firms and firms in non-polluting industries. The governance dimension of ESG exhibits the strongest effect, with comprehensive environmental governance ratings and social governance ratings also suppressing leverage manipulation.

Firms should strive to cultivate environmental awareness, fulfil their social responsibilities and enhance internal governance, which may help to strengthen the firm’s sustainability orientation, mitigate opportunistic behaviours and ultimately contribute to high-quality firm development. The top managers of firms should exercise self-restraint and take the initiative to reduce leverage manipulation by establishing an appropriate governance structure and sustainable business operation system that incorporate environmental and social governance in addition to general governance.

Policymakers and regulators should formulate unified guidelines with comprehensive criteria to improve the scope and quality of ESG information disclosure and provide specific guidance on ESG practice for firms. Investors should incorporate ESG ratings into their investment decision framework to lower their portfolio risk.

This study contributes to the literature in four ways. Firstly, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, it is among the first to show that high ESG ratings may mitigate firms’ opportunistic behaviours. Secondly, it identifies the governance factor of leverage manipulation from the perspective of firms’ subjective sustainability orientation. Thirdly, it demonstrates that the relationship between ESG ratings and leverage manipulation varies with the level of internal and external supervision. Finally, it highlights the importance of governance in guaranteeing the other two dimensions’ roles by decomposing overall ESG.

The aim of this study is to explore how a practice approach can provide an understanding of board diversity practices. Drawing from Schatzki's practice theory, this study considered how board diversity is practiced from the doings and sayings of directors in Mauritius.

In this study, in-depth interviews with directors in listed companies from different industrial sectors were used to collect data.

The authors' findings indicate that a country's board diversity practices are influenced by the country's unique social, economic and cultural environment. Whilst board diversity practices may appear as the practices that are motivated by compliance, a deeper look at the results reveals that the laws governing board diversity are interpreted very subtly in a way that benefits shareholders' self-interest. A low percentage of female directors on boards and some indications of shareholder-driven practices are also found. Whilst the corporate sector acknowledges the advantages of diversity, there are some practices that they are unwilling to abandon, demonstrating the importance of the teleoaffective structures and normativity in determining what really occurs. Members of boards resolving disagreement further demonstrates the teleoaffective structure.

This research would be of interest to researchers because of the research's novel approach in studying board diversity which could be used by other researchers to experiment with a practice approach in exploring corporate governance phenomena in unique settings.

The findings are of relevance to policymakers and regulators who seek to strengthen corporate governance practices in similar settings.

This research contributes to the literature on board diversity by showing that analysing board diversity through a practice approach enables a more comprehensive understanding of practices. The authors' study confirms that practice theory has the potential to re-orient the way board diversity studies are undertaken.

This paper aims to present insights on the governance of sustainability transitions in higher education in Africa. The authors interrogate the research literatures on the governance of socio-technical transitions in water, electricity, transport and waste management, and identify barriers and enabling factors that enhance transformative practices in universities.

The analytical framework proposed in this paper combines the elements of governance network theory (GNT) and transition topology. The framework of this study is grounded in an actor-centric approach using GNT to understand networks conducive to sustainability transitions. Events and governance networks were mapped on a transition topology to visualise organisational and institutional changes over time. The study engaged students, management, academic and administrative staff in building a community of practice towards sustainability. This research is based on qualitative content analysis grounded in interview data, focus group discussions, workshops, webinars and secondary data analysis.

The findings show that the university has consolidated a sustainability vision and targets, but several factors prevent the community from achieving these targets, including hierarchical decision-making processes, a multitude of disjointed committees and fragmentation in the campus community.

This research adds to an emerging body of literature in the field of sustainability in higher education with two contributions. Firstly, the study presents a novel perspective(s) on the governance of sustainability transitions by combining the literatures on governance and sustainability transitions using a new methodological approach of transition topology to show organisational and institutional changes. Secondly, the study presents new empirical evidence for improving the governance of sustainability transitions in a diverse and highly unequal African university community in the process of (de)colonisation of knowledge and governance.

Using critical disaster studies and state theory, we assess the disaster aid platform named Lebanon Reconstruction, Reform and Recovery Framework (3RF) that was put in place by international donors in the aftermath of the Beirut Port Blast in August 2020, in order to examine the effectiveness of its inclusive decision-making architecture, as well as its institutional building and legislative reform efforts.

The paper uses the case study approaach and relies on two original data sets compiled by authors, using desk reviews of academic literature and secondary data, in addition to 24 semi-structured expert interviews and participant observation for two years.

The aid platform appears innovative, participatory and effectively functioning toward recovery and reform. However, in practice, the government dismisses CSOs, undermines reforms and dodges state building, whereas the 3RF is structured in incoherent ways and operates according to conflicting logics, generating inertia and pitfalls that hinder effective participatory governance, prevent institutional building, and delay the making of projects.

The research contributes to critical scholarship as it addresses an important research gap concerning disaster aid platforms’ institutional design and governance that are under-studied in critical disaster studies and political studies. It also highlights the need for critical disaster studies to engage with state theory and vice-versa.

The research contributes to evaluations of disaster recovery processes and outcomes. It highlights the limits of disaster aid platforms’ claims for participatory decision-making, institutional-building and reforms.

The paper amplifies critical disaster studies, through the reflexive analysis of a case-study of an aid platform.

The purpose of this study include analyzing the conformity between the General Guidelines for the Governance of the Indonesian Sharia Entities (GGG-ISE) and the implementation in the field and proposing a model of corporate governance for Islamic property developers.

This research uses a qualitative method with a case study approach. The researcher used a structured interview method and chose a purposive technique to determine the interviewees. This study has seven interviewees representing three Islamic property developer companies in Jember Regency, East Java, Indonesia. Data collection was conducted from June to July 2023, with a duration of about 60 min for each interviewee. The interviews were conducted face-to-face in each interviewee’s residential office.

The results showed that the companies had implemented several principles of GGG-ISE, namely, ethical and responsible actors, risk management, internal control, compliance, disclosure and transparency by making financial reports, shareholder rights and stakeholder rights, both internal and external stakeholders. Furthermore, this study found that GGG-ISE does not comply with the components of the organizing organ group. This study also found that governance reports have not been implemented in GGG-ISE components. In addition, this study identified a new component that must be present and not found in GGG-ISE, namely, a statement of the use of contracts for mudharib owners and between mudharib owners and stakeholders. Based on these findings, this study proposes a governance model for Islamic property developer companies called the GGG-IPDE.

This research is a pioneer in proposing a corporate governance model for Islamic property developers.

The purpose of this paper is to engage in a systematic examination of previous scholarship on the relationship between Sharia governance (SG), which is represented by the Sharia Supervisory Board (SSB), and the Internal Sharia Review (ISR), to determine whether the ISR can minimize financing risk in Islamic banking.

The literature search consisted of two steps: a randomized and systematic literature review. The methodology adopted in this article is a systematic literature review.

To reduce the risk of financing in Islamic banking, SG must be implemented optimally by making rules regarding the role of the SSB in supervising customer financing. In addition, it is a necessary to establish an entity that assists the SSB in the implementation of SG, namely, the ISR section, but there is still very little research on the role of the SSB and ISR in minimizing financing risk.

Establishing an ISR to assist the SSB in carrying out its duties has direct practical implications for Islamic banking: minimizing financing risks and compliance with Islamic Sharia principles. In addition, new rules regarding the role of SSBs and the ISR in reducing credit risk include monitoring customers to ensure that they fulfill their financing commitments on time. This new form of regulation and review can be used as a reference by the Otoritas Jasa Keuangan or Finance Service Authority to create new policies or regulations regarding SG, especially in Indonesia.

Subsequent research may introduce other more relevant variables, such as empirically testing the competence, independence or integrity of SSB and the ISR team as it attempts to minimize the risk of financing in Islamic banks. In addition, further research is expected to examine whether the SSB or the ISR team has a positive or negative influence on the risk of financing Islamic banks with secondary data.

The article investigates the institutional setup of e-lending in public libraries in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Our point of departure is that e-lending has necessitated new library collaborations between local, regional and national levels, and therefore, institutional e-lending setups have emerged. The study seeks to provide better understanding of how the institutional setups are structured, how governance logics have shaped them and what tensions and dynamics become visible in the key actors’ problematisations of these setups.

The study is situated in the neo-institutional tradition and applies the institutional logics perspective. The research questions are answered by taking a qualitative approach, grounded in an extensive interview study with representatives of libraries, publishers and policy actors in three Scandinavian countries. To provide in-depth insight into e-lending setups, the scope of empirical material is then limited to accounts the central library and policy actors involved in establishing e-lending.

The analysis shows that the e-lending setups are both similar (especially when it comes to financing), and different across Scandinavia, especially when it comes to centralisation and involvement of librarians in this task. The differences are attributed to the influence of different governance logics (question of administrative autonomy, collaboration in the field and existing legal and political frames), and to what extent the digital and market logics are incorporated or rejected in the field.

The study provides new insights into the question of how Scandinavian public libraries face the consequences of the digitalisation of book distribution and consumption by investigating how they organise their e-lending services. This has not been explored before, notably in a comparative perspective.