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This chapter proposes that corporate lawyers be studied as committed to their clients, asking how they advance exercises of power by those whom they have chosen to represent. Currently, corporate lawyers are studied as independent from their clients, asking how they resist client demands. Such research continues despite repeated findings that corporate lawyers are not independent. This chapter explains the puzzling persistence of independence by cultural understandings of both professionalism and law. It recovers a submerged historic voice in which corporate lawyers are judged by their position in a network of relations. It argues that it was the organization of the corporate law firm as a factory which allowed it to become a professional ideal. Market competition has led corporate law firms to move away from a factory model to one in which commitment to clients, not independence from them, is the organizing principle.

One of the most dramatic controversies over judicial independence in the United States occurred at the state level, in antebellum Kentucky, when two entirely different state high courts remained in operation, each claiming to be the only legitimate tribunal. This chapter describes Kentucky's two-court crisis, but focuses primarily on the constitutional convention of 1849, which followed it. Through the lens of modern scholarship about judicial independence, the lessons that antebellum Kentuckians drew from their own history seem quite counterintuitive. They did not view their project of judicial design as a matter of balancing judicial independence with accountability, a task that many modern scholars of American politics have posited as the central problem of judicial design. Instead, Kentucky's constitutional convention sought to structure an institution that would allow the state's courts to respond to popular sentiment without compromising their independence. Thus, these debates suggest frameworks for understanding judicial independence that do not pit independence against judicial accountability or popular politics, but attempt to discern which forms of politics threaten the independence of courts, and which forms may not.

This study examines the non-linear effect of board independence on the investment efficiency of listed firms worldwide. This study further tests whether the COVID-19 pandemic, industry competition and economic development influence the relationship between board independence and investment efficiency.

The data are retrieved from the Thomson Reuters (Refinitiv) database and include international data from 33 countries, comprising 21,363 firm-year observations. The authors' regression analyses include firm-specific variables as controls that may impact investment efficiency. The authors also perform various robustness tests including, alternative measures of investment efficiency, weighted least squares regression, quantile regression and endogeneity issues.

The results reveal a non-linear relationship between board independence and investment efficiency. Specifically, the relationship follows a U-shaped pattern, indicating that the negative impact of board independence on investment efficiency becomes positive after it reaches its optimal point, thus supporting optimal board structure theory. Interestingly, the authors find no significant evidence of board independence’s effect on investment efficiency during the pandemic. In contrast, the relationship between board independence and investment efficiency is significant only during the non-pandemic period. Furthermore, the authors discover evidence of a U-shaped relationship in both emerging and developed markets, as well as in industries with high and low competition.

The authors' study discovers new evidence on the non-linear impact of board independence on investment efficiency, which has not been explored previously in existing research.

This study has practical implications for investors by emphasising the importance of corporate governance and the appointment of independent directors. Investors should consider the findings of this study when making decisions related to corporate governance, as they can impact a firm's investment efficiency.

Despite a considerable body of literature exploring the link between corporate governance and investment effectiveness, there is a dearth of research on the non-linear effects of board independence. Furthermore, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, industry competition and economic development remain unexplored.

We suggest that a notion of auditor independence, constructed in Anglo-American epistemology and practice, is a social construct that has different meanings in different historical, socio-cultural and economic milieus. We have researched how this idea of auditor independence, incorporated locally from the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) Code, is perceived and has been implemented in three countries of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) region: Poland, the Czech Republic and Russia. With a view to seeking a comprehensive understanding of what is happening in transition economies, all aspects of auditor independence – from basic educational provision for an auditor, to complex aspects such as the provision of non-audit services – were considered. From all these aspects of independence, a framework of the requirements for independence was developed. As a result of this research, we question whether the usual international definitions of auditor independence, as laid out in the IFAC Code, with their separation into mind and appearance, are at all realisable.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of the revised Code of Corporate Governance 2017 (CCG-2017) clauses pertaining to board independence, mandatory inclusion of female directors, audit committee (AC) chair independence and directors’ expertise on earnings manipulation.

Using an unbalanced panel of 323 listed companies from 2015 to 2019, this study uses panel data regression models with a robust methodology called difference-in-differences to tackle the potential endogeneity.

This study’s findings show that, as compared to the pre-CCG-2017 period, board- and AC-related variables increased significantly in the post-CCG-2017 period. Furthermore, financial experts on the board and board independence have a negative effect on discretionary accruals (DAs), whereas female directors and DAs are positively related, as is real activity manipulation. The AC-related variables, such as AC independence, expertise in AC, and AC chair independence, are significantly different from the preperiod to the postperiod, whereas their relationship is not according to the hypotheses of the study. Moreover, these results are robust to additional analysis of the alternative proxies for female directorship and the endogeneity problem.

The findings of this study have implications for regulators and practitioners who are concerned with the functions of the board of directors (BOD). The findings of this research study show that earnings management (EM) may be reduced by independent and expert directors. However, board gender diversity is not reducing the EM. Therefore, the decision to appoint female directors to the board should be based on their business and professional attributes rather than simply filling quotas or blindly adhering to regulations. Moreover, the findings of this research may assist the regulator in encouraging listed firms to enhance board governance via independence, diversity and competency, which are useful for effective monitoring.

This study fills a gap in the literature by providing the first evidence of country-specific regulation (CCG-2017), concerning the BOD and AC-related clauses on EM in Pakistan, which is missing in the relevant literature general and in Pakistan in particular.

This paper aims to examine the relation between SEC regulations centered on board of director independence and financial reporting quality and investigates the different routes to board independence.

The sample includes 1,248 firm observations whose board composition is compared between 2001 and 2008. Each firm is categorized based on how they increase board independence. The authors test the hypotheses using ordinary least squares regression models.

Results show that firms choose between multiple routes when complying with the independence requirements, and how firms operationalize the SEC requirement impacts financial reporting quality. Specifically, firms that achieve increased board independence through increased board size are associated with higher financial reporting quality. However, there is no association between higher financial reporting quality and a subsequent increase in audit fees. Suggesting the reporting quality results from the board monitoring function and not from an increase in auditor effort.

No evidence exists on how a firm’s chosen route to increased board independence relates to financial reporting quality.

This study aims to examine the direct influence of workplace bullying (WB) on internal auditors’ independence using the nexus between the agency theory and social exchange theory. From the internal auditors’ perspective, the investigation covered both government and private colleges and universities in one of the Middle East countries.

A survey was administered and delivered to internal auditors at each of the 85 educational institutions. A total of 267 valid questionnaires were analysed. The study’s measurement and structural models were tested and evaluated by using SmartPLS v.4 and partial least squares-structural equation modelling.

The study results indicated that bullying is common among senior managers, and that it has a significant, negative, high-level and direct effect on the independence of internal auditors in the higher education sector.

Regulators and other stakeholders should make a deliberate effort to promote positive behaviours and abandon negative ones regarding the independence of internal auditors and the performance of audit teams, which play a crucial role in enhancing the efficiency of audit units. For example, enhancing coordination and communication internally and externally. In addition to providing the internal auditors with equitable advancement and learning opportunities, senior management should also support their professional development.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to examine the relationship between WB and the internal auditor’s independence in the context of government and private organisations in Southwest Asian countries.