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This study investigates the impact of corporate governance on FinTech disclosure levels in Jordanian conventional and Islamic banks. It aims to determine whether governance mechanisms affect disclosure practices in the FinTech sector, exploring the interplay between governance and transparency in financial innovations.

The research methodology entails a thorough analysis of data from all 15 Jordanian conventional and Islamic banks listed on the Amman Stock Exchange, covering the period from 2015 to 2022. This study uses manual content analysis using a custom FinTech Disclosure Index (FDI) and quantitative analysis with a two-way clustered error regression model.

The findings show that corporate governance mechanisms, particularly board size, board meetings and “Big4” audit firms, are crucial in enhancing FinTech disclosure across conventional and Islamic banks. However, Islamic banks consistently show higher disclosure levels than their conventional counterparts, attributed to their distinct governance structures that emphasize ethical governance and transparency. These results indicate an awareness among decision-makers about the importance of business model transformation toward FinTech.

This study pioneers the introduction of FDI, using it for a novel comparative analysis of FinTech disclosure levels between Islamic and conventional banks. By exploring how various governance structures influence FinTech disclosure, this research provides fresh insights into the interplay between corporate governance and financial technologies in the banking sector.

This research examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and governance structure on corporate narrative reporting (CNR) concerning Industry 4.0 (I4.0) technologies in Jordanian commercial banks. The study aims to explore how these factors influence the extent and nature of disclosures in annual reports.

The study uses a comprehensive manual content analysis method to investigate the annual reports from all 15 Jordanian commercial banks from 2010 to 2022. This approach allows for the detailed examination of I4.0 disclosures, using a specially developed index to measure various disclosure dimensions. An ordinary least squares model is used to assess the determinants of CNR on I4.0, considering factors such as the pandemic’s impact and various governance attributes.

The findings indicate that both the COVID-19 pandemic and specific governance factors (e.g. board size and audit committee size) significantly enhance the disclosure of I4.0 technologies. The study reveals that during the pandemic, banks significantly increased their level of detailed disclosures about I4.0 strategies, challenges and benefits, reflecting a strategic response to the pandemic’s disruption.

This study introduces a novel I4.0 Reporting Index for banks, measuring disclosures across strategy implementation, business model transformation, challenges and benefits. It adds to the existing literature by offering insights into narrative reporting practices concerning I4.0 technologies within the banking sector and illuminates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on these practices.

The paper aims to review prior literature on the impact of audit quality and climate change reporting on corporate performance. It also aims to offer avenues for future research.

Based on the systematic literature review, bibliometric investigation and forest plot, the authors systematized the scientific knowledge from 183 papers.

Earlier studies either focused on audit quality and corporate performance or discussed the link between climate change and corporate performance. However, the way that audit quality and climate change can together influence corporate performance is yet to be examined. The authors fill the gap by examining the possible link between audit quality and climate change and establishing the influence of it on corporate performance from the existing literature.

Because of the immense importance of the company's contribution to climate change, the research findings will open up avenues for future research. In addition, findings will be useful for world policymakers in strengthening or modifying existing corporate responsibility policies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of financial reporting quality (FRQ) on dividend policy. This paper also examines the moderating role of corporate liquidity on the FRQ–dividend policy relationship.

The sample of this paper contains 113 non-financial companies listed on the Saudi Stock Exchange from 2003 to 2019 (1,675 firm-year observations). The authors use OLS regressions to test the hypotheses.

The authors find a positive relationship between FRQ and dividend policy. They also find that the positive effect of FRQ on dividend policy is not strengthened by the presence of corporate liquidity.

The findings of this study offer implications for stakeholders, including investors and others in Saudi Arabia and other developing countries with comparable business environments. This is because of the significant impact of the dividend policy on a company’s value, as it is a crucial decision that involves distributing substantial amounts of money to shareholders on a regular basis and interacts with other critical decisions within the company. Therefore, the dividend policy has a crucial role in determining the company’s value, which is reflected in its stock prices.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study in Saudi Arabia that provides new empirical evidence on the impact of FRQ on dividend policy and the moderating role of corporate liquidity on this relationship.

This study aims to examine the association between chief executive officers’ (CEOs) characteristics and sell-side analysts’ recommendations.

This study uses a sample of firms listed on the London Stock Exchange and uses two databases, Capital IQ and BoardEx to study the above relationship. A variety of regression analyses are used in the empirical models, including ordinary least squares, fixed effect, random effect, Tobit, Logit and generalized method of moments.

The authors find that firms with CEOs who had a wider network size and firms with foreign CEOs receive favorable investment recommendations. Further, firms with CEOs who have more time to retire are more likely to receive favorable investment recommendations. However, the authors find that firms with CEOs with more qualifications receive unfavorable recommendations and female CEOs are not affecting investment recommendations.

Ultimately, this study demonstrates the importance of CEO characteristics for sell-side analysts who play an important role in the stock markets.

This study conducts a meta-analysis to investigate the impact of board diversity, independence and size on carbon emission disclosure.

The results of 22 empirical investigations on the association between board qualities and carbon emission disclosure are synthesised using a meta-analysis approach. Inclusion and exclusion criteria are established, and search strategies are devised to locate relevant material. Data extraction entails gathering important information such as the names of the authors, variables and correlation coefficients. Fisher's z-transformation is used to compute and synthesise effect sizes and assumptions, sensitivity testing and subgroup analysis are performed to assess the robustness of the findings.

A substantial association was discovered between board characteristics and carbon emission disclosure. Board independence and gender diversity revealed small to medium-strength positive relationships, whilst board size had a medium-strength positive correlation. The study periods varied from 2011 to 2022, with 2018 having the most studies. However, highly heterogeneous groups were discovered; further subgroup analyses were then carried out to sort out this issue.

Several limitations were recognised due to the limited number of studies and heterogeneity, although subgroup analysis was used to reduce the influence of heterogeneity. To investigate alternate outcomes, more analysis of the heterogeneity level and potential modifications to the model assumptions may be required.

Companies should consider board size, independence and gender diversity when formulating long-term competitive strategies in the climate change movement. These characteristics can aid in bridging information gaps and garnering stakeholder support for carbon-reduction initiatives.

This meta-analysis addresses a gap in the literature by addressing prior studies' conflicting and inconsistent findings on the association between board characteristics and carbon emission disclosure. It employs a rigorous approach and synthesis strategy to provide a thorough and robust understanding of the crucial role of board characteristics in carbon emission disclosure.

The authors motivate this research on the gender diversity of the board because of the recent increases in the number of women in top executive teams (Francis et al., 2015), which has probably been the result of the adoption of legislation for gender quotas as well as the establishment of corporate governance recommendations for gender diverse boards in several countries. The purpose of this study is to consider the quality of board directors when examining the effect of female directors on earnings management.

The analyses follow the system generalized method of moment to address endogeneity concerns (e.g. a board with higher quality is more likely to have female directors on board and vice versa). Besides the lags of the endogenous variables, the authors use the female industry ratio as an additional instrument (Liu et al., 2014), as female directors might be inspired by other female directors according to industrial sectors (measured by the two-digit industry codes), where competitors are likely to follow gender diversity practices of other firms within the same industrial sector.

The authors’ findings show a negative and significant association between board gender diversity and earnings management (EM), suggesting that independent female directors are the drivers of such effect. High-quality boards decrease the incidence of EM but hinder the potential involvement from female directors towards reducing EM. The incumbent effect of high-quality boards on female director’s contribution on EM reverses with less powerful CEOs.

The authors contribute to the extant literature by recognizing that the effectiveness of a female director on decreasing EM is a function of the environment in which decision-making takes place (i.e. board quality/powerful CEOs).

This study aims to examine the relationships between various components of digital financial literacy, namely, awareness, subjective knowledge, experience, the digital legal framework and skills, and their influence on the adoption of cashless payment systems among university affiliates in Jordan. It also explores the mediating role of gender in this relationship. The study integrates the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) and social role theory (SRT).

This study uses a cross-sectional survey across 34 Jordanian universities. Data from 418 participants were analyzed, focusing on factor analysis to assess the constructs' reliability and validity and to explore the moderating effects.

The findings illuminate that digital financial awareness, experience and skills are significant catalysts for using cashless payments among the targeted demographic. In contrast, the digital legal framework and subjective financial knowledge did not significantly influence cashless payment use. Additionally, gender differences emerged, highlighting a stronger association between digital financial experience and cashless payment usage for women.

The study's uniqueness stems from its detailed analysis of digital financial literacy's effect on cashless payment adoption in Jordan's academia, incorporating aspects like legal frameworks, awareness, and skills. It innovatively considers gender's moderating role, adding fresh insights into digital finance practices. Using the TPB and SRT, the research connects theory with Jordan's empirical data, suggesting strategies for education and policy. This work advances understanding of digital financial literacy in fostering a more inclusive digital financial system, contributing significantly to digital finance and behavioral economics literature.

The purpose of this study is to test whether the prediction of firm performance can be enhanced by incorporating nonfinancial disclosures, such as narrative disclosure tone and corporate governance indicators, into financial predictive models.

Three predictive models are developed, each with a different set of predictors. This study utilises two machine learning techniques, random forest and stochastic gradient boosting, for prediction via the three models. The data are collected from a sample of 1,250 annual reports of 125 nonfinancial firms in Pakistan for the period 2011–2020.

Our results indicate that both narrative disclosure tone and corporate governance indicators significantly add to the accuracy of financial predictive models of firm performance.

Our results offer implications for the restoration of investor confidence in the highly uncertain Pakistani market by establishing nonfinancial disclosures as reliable predictors of future firm performance. Accordingly, they encourage investors to pay more attention to these disclosures while making investment decisions. In addition, they urge regulators to promote and strengthen the reporting of such nonfinancial information.

This study addresses the neglect of nonfinancial disclosures in the prediction of firm performance and the scarcity of corporate governance literature relevant to the use of machine learning techniques.

This study aims to address a notable gap in the existing literature by exploring the relationship between gender diversity and dividend policy within the context of US Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs).

The authors use a substantial data set comprising 1,398 firm-year observations across 209 US REIT companies from 2011 to 2021 to address the research aims. Fixed effects models and generalized least squares regression methods are used in the analysis.

The results demonstrate a significant positive association between board gender diversity and higher dividend payouts among US REITs. This relationship holds after controlling for corporate governance and other firm-level factors. The findings have strong implications that the presence of women on REIT boards contributes to a greater propensity for discretionary dividend increases in the USA.

This research contributes to the literature by empirically examining female directors’ role in influencing US REITs’ dividend policies, an area lacking adequate prior scholarship. The paper also considers the unique regulatory environment of REITs, highlighting the importance of the study for externally financed firms.