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The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which public service motivation (PSM) can be explained by the big five personality factors.

Original data are gathered from two online surveys of public service professionals from across the USA. The two surveys employ the same measures of personality traits but different measures of PSM. This was done to test the generalizability of the findings across different operationalization of PSM.

The big five personality factors explain a large share of the variance in PSM, above and beyond basic demographic factors (sex, age and race). Agreeableness has the most consistent association with PSM. Extroversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience also display positive associations with at least some measures and dimensions of PSM.

The two surveys involved somewhat small, non-probability samples of public service professionals. Additional research is needed to confirm the generalizability of these findings.

This study contributes to both the theoretical and empirical understanding of the origins of PSM.

This paper aims to examine the influence of corporate governance mechanisms on the extent of intellectual capital (IC) disclosure among companies listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE).

A content analysis approach was used. The association between dependent and independent variables was examined using multiple regression analysis.

The results suggest that corporate governance mechanisms strongly influence the quantity of IC information disclosed in the annual reports of KSE-listed companies. Specifically, companies with larger boards, higher proportions of external directors and higher blockholder ownership are associated with higher levels of IC disclosure.

The findings highlight the effectiveness of corporate governance mechanisms in promoting IC disclosure. They are a useful guideline for regulators, company management and shareholders regarding corporate governance mechanisms that influence the extent of IC disclosure. Given recent Kuwaiti Government initiatives to promote transparency and the informational efficiency of the stock market, this research provides timely empirical evidence in support of these initiatives.

In the frontier market context, the study contributes to a theoretical understanding of the corporate reporting of IC and the relationship between IC disclosure and corporate governance mechanisms. The findings provide empirical support for the theoretical notion that effective corporate governance plays an important role in increasing the extent of voluntary disclosure.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to assess the degree of disclosure about compliance with corporate governance code and the explanations provided by Italian firms and second, to analyze the relationships between this disclosure and different variables of ownership structure.

The sample was composed of 75 non-financial companies listed in Italy in 2016. Content analysis of the corporate governance statement and ordinary least squares (OLS) multiple regression models were used to test the hypotheses.

Companies tended to comply with the corporate governance code and to disclose this information, but when they decided to not comply, they did not provide adequate explanations. Findings revealed a negative relation between ownership concentration and the disclosure analyzed. Results also highlight that a more equal distribution of shares among larger shareholders is beneficial for disclosure. Moreover, the presence of a dominant financial shareholder at a high level of ownership concentration creates inefficiency of the degree of adherence to the comply-or-explain principle.

This study examines in depth the underexplored issue of “explanation” and exceeds the issue of ownership concentration, which has already been examined extensively, raising the issues of counterweight power and shareholders’ identities, which remain underexplored. In this way, results presented contribute to explaining some causes of the diverse findings that research has found about the relationship between ownership concentration and voluntary disclosure, demonstrating the importance of counterweight power and largest shareholder’s identity. Consequently, when self-regulating initiatives are designed and implemented, legislators, regulators and managers should not ignore the characteristics of the firms’ ownership structure.

This study examines the bi-directional relationship between corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) and ownership structure through a dynamic empirical framework in an emerging economy context.

Data over 10 years are used to investigate the response of disclosure to ownership structure variables and vice versa. Dynamic bi-directional relationships are hypothesised and empirically investigated using a panel vector autoregressive (PVAR) model. The ownership structure variables used are government ownership, block ownership and director ownership, while CSRD is constructed as a score through content analysis.

A bi-directional negative relationship between CSRD and government ownership is found, revealing a preference for the state to invest in companies with opaque disclosure. CSRD is found to respond negatively to block ownership, albeit weakly. Results also show that directors prefer to own shares in the company they manage when there are low levels of CSRD.

The current empirical set-up of using a small emerging economy may not carry to the context of larger emerging economies where the institutional context may differ. Thus, future research could use this dynamic empirical approach to re-examine the questions raised in this paper using data from other emerging economies. The use of a longer time series makes it feasible to explore further analysis what was not possible in this study, such as an impulse response analysis examining the reaction of the variables of interest, CSRD and ownership variables for a specific time horizon to particular changes or shocks associated with one of the endogenous variables in the PVAR.

A major implication is that expecting disclosure practices to improve due to government and director initiatives would be less likely in emerging economies. State and director shareholders prefer to invest in opaque companies because they may purposely choose to keep the minimum disclosure levels. The paper calls for a transparent process and ethical guidelines to guide government investment in firms.

The study investigates the bi-directional relationship between ownership structure and CSRD in contrast to the existing literature's presupposed one-way relationship between these variables by demonstrating that bi-directionality does matter. This paper also contributes to the CSRD literature in the emerging economy context. The bi-directional negative relationship between CSRD and government ownership calls for a transparent selection process of board members as representatives of the state in those companies where the government has an ownership stake. It also calls for a transparent process and ethical guidelines to guide government investment in firms.

Few studies have focused on emerging markets owing to difficulties in identifying the real effect of disclosures on these economies. To fill this gap, the purpose of this paper is to first: investigate the main drivers for risk disclosure quality for Chinese financial firms, second: further study the impact of such disclosure on market liquidity.

The sample comprises all financial firms listed in the Shanghai A-shares market for the period 2013–2015. By relying on manual content analysis of annual reports, the risk disclosure quality is measured through a multidimensional approach which encompasses three factors: quantity of disclosure, coverage of disclosure and the semantic properties of depth and outlook. The findings of this paper are based on ordinary least squares and fixed-effects estimations.

The findings suggest that firm characteristics (especially size) influence risk disclosure practices of Chinese financial companies. Furthermore, the authors found that risk disclosure quality has an impact on market liquidity, and when the authors analysed each year the authors noticed that the results were driven by the year 2013; moreover, the authors noticed no or little significance from the period of the emerging financial crisis.

The sample of this paper is limited to financial firms in China. The usage of manual content analysis limits the authors’ ability to investigate risk reporting drivers and its impact on market liquidity on a large scale.

The importance of this paper stems from documenting several reporting incentives concerning not only firms’ quantity, but also firms’ quality of risk reporting. Collectively, the findings support activism for reforms and the enhancement of regulations in China in order to make the market more efficient.

This paper provides new evidence for financial companies in China on the principal drivers for risk disclosure quality and highlights how the quality of such disclosure impacts market liquidity. Furthermore, this paper confirms previous findings on the Chinese market (Ball et al., 2000; Zou and Adams, 2008) in which, given a decreasing but still strong state presence, there is higher stock volatility and weak corporate governance.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the content of the sustainability reports of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and the factors influencing the sustainability information they disclose.

Drawing upon the literature on sustainability disclosure, institutional logics and hybrid organizations, several hypotheses were deduced. By means of a quantitative content analysis, the sustainability disclosure index of 45 Swedish SOEs was calculated. Statistical analyses were conducted to test which variables affected the sustainability disclosures of the selected SOEs.

The findings reveal that only state ownership and corporate size significantly affect SOEs’ sustainability disclosures. Fully state-owned SOEs disclose less sustainability information than partially state-owned SOEs. Large SOEs disclose more sustainability information than small SOEs. However, there are weak indications that having a public policy assignment (PPA) (activity) negatively influences environmental sustainability disclosures, and that having a majority of female directors on the board decreases the total sustainability information disclosed. In addition, the statistical analyses show that having state representatives on the board and being profitable may positively affect the disclosures.

Accountability is particularly important in SOEs, and their complex hybrid nature has an impact on sustainability disclosures in a surprising way. State ownership and control do not necessarily imply an increased amount of sustainability disclosure.

This paper aims to examine the effect of ownership structure variables on social and environmental disclosure practice in Nigeria. The paper also investigates the moderating impact of intellectual capital disclosure on the relationship between ownership structure elements, social and environmental disclosure.

The paper adopted the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) disclosure framework to extract social and environmental disclosure information from corporate social and environmental reports of 80 companies listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. The study spanned from 2012–2017. Management ownership, foreign ownership, block ownership and dispersed ownership are considered as determinants of social and environmental disclosure. A multiple regression analysis was used to test the relationships specified in the study.

The result of the descriptive analysis has shown evidence of a low-level disclosure of social and environmental information in corporate reports (annual reports and corporate social and environmental reports) of companies. From the regression analysis, block ownership, foreign ownership and dispersed ownership are found to enhance the disclosure of social and environmental information in the corporate report of companies. However, management ownership was found to be insignificantly related to social and environmental disclosure. The result also revealed that intellectual capital disclosure has a significant positive effect on the relationship between management ownership, foreign ownership and dispersed ownership, social and environmental disclosure. However, intellectual capital disclosure does not moderate the relationship between block ownership, social and environmental disclosure.

This paper is the first to empirically examine the moderating effect of intellectual capital disclosure on ownership structure variables, social and environmental disclosure. The result of the study offer researchers a better understanding of the impact of ownership structure variables on social and environmental disclosure. The findings are useful to researchers, corporate managers, policymakers and regulatory bodies.

This paper aims to examine the impact of corporate governance on corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance, paying particular attention to modern Chinese businesses. Particularly, it examines how ownership concentration, boards of directors and boards of supervisors affect the quality of CSR performance.

This study employs the regression analysis using a sample from listed companies in Shanghai and Stock Exchanges covering 2014 until 2018.

Using a sample of listed companies in Shanghai and Stock Exchanges, the empirical evidence, A-share listed companies between 2014 and 2018, this empirical investigation demonstrates that corporate governance does indeed have a significant effect on CSR. However, various types of corporate governance mechanisms have differing effects on CSR. The authors find that ownership concentration has a positive impact on CSR performance, while the size of a company’s board of supervisors has a positive impact on CSR performance. By doing so, the authors provide practical implications to users, and regulatory authorities to make better decisions

This paper contributes to the existing literature by examining the impact of corporate governance on a company’s abilities to meet its CSR objectives in China. Much of the empirical studies on this issue are centred on the Western world, notably Western Europe and the USA.

This paper aims to measure the extent of related party transactions disclosure and investigates their determinants across all listed companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) stock market during 2010 to 2012.

An index was manually constructed for related party transactions disclosure in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) (IAS 24) using company financial statements.

Empirical results show relatively low level of related party transactions disclosure in the UAE emerging market. Furthermore, the multiple regression analysis (OLS) shows that related party transactions disclosure has significant relationships with the number of board members, audit quality, block-holders’ ownership, company size, leverage and product market competition. The multiple regression analysis (OLS) also highlights that industry type plays a significant and crucial role in disclosure levels across companies.

This paper does not control for some corporate governance mechanisms such as audit committee characteristics.

This paper provides useful guidelines for several stakeholders including policy makers, accounting standard setters and corporate managers.

IFRS (IAS 24) standards were used to measure the strength of related party transactions disclosure. In addition, several variables were tested such as corporate governance mechanisms, ownership structure and product market competition on related party transactions disclosure over time; in an emerging market such as the UAE.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between business ethics practices disclosure and corporate governance characteristics in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The study uses multiple regression to investigate the association between business ethics disclosure (BED) and corporate governance characteristics in SAA. The study sample is based on 573 non-financial corporations listed on the national stock exchanges of Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe as of 31 December 2015.

The findings show that corporate governance characteristics (including the proportion of government ownership, board independence and board gender diversity) are positively and significantly related to BED.

The study contributes to the limited literature by analyzing the relationship between BED practices and corporate governance characteristics in the sub-Sahara African context, which is significantly different from the Anglo-Saxon world.