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This study aims to examine the association between the effectiveness of risk committee (RC) and firms’ performance in Malaysian context. It also explores whether political connection has an impact on the relationship.

This study, using a principle components analysis, derives a factor score for RC attributes to proxy the effectiveness of RC. It also uses both accounting and market performance to measure the company performance.

Using a sample of financial firms from 2004 to 2018, this study finds that both accounting and market performance are higher for firms with an effective RC. It also finds that the effectiveness of RC in monitoring and management of risks is more pronounced for politically connected firms (PCFs). In further tests, the paper finds that RC attributes (i.e. RC independence, qualification and gender) are positively and significantly associated with accounting performance, while those of RC existence and overlap are positively and significantly related to market performance. The study also finds that RC size (RC diligence) has a positive (negative) impact on financial firms accounting and market performance. The further analysis also shows that PCFs with a separate as well as larger RCs experience both higher accounting and market performance. This study’s results are robust for concerns of endogeneity.

The findings of this study resolve the ongoing debates surrounding political connection by suggesting financial firms not to have politically connected board members as doing so may deteriorate their performance. This study’s results are also useful for investors, regulators and policymakers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study, for the first time, introduces on the interaction term between the effectiveness of RCs and political connection to empirically explore how an effective RC may reduce the potential risk of political ties. As such, this study adds to the literature and sheds light on an aspect of risk (i.e. risk stems from establishing close link with the government) that is growing in importance.

The purpose of this study is to look at the structure of the interactions between the board of directors’ chairman qualities such as chairman independence, tenure, ethnicity, age- and impression management (IM).

The research population consists of non-financial Malaysian companies listed on Bursa Malaysia’s Main Market, using data gathered via annual reports and DataStream. The study relies on the ordinary least square regression to test the direct relationships between the directors’ chairman characteristics and IM. Moreover, robustness and sensitivity tests were used to examine the effectiveness of chairman characteristics with IM. Furthermore, the results rely on the FGLS regression as an additional test. The study found that chairman independence, chairman ethnicity and chairman age have a significant impact on IM.

The results reveal that chairman independence has a negative association with qualitative IM (IMSC1). Moreover, chairman ethnicity has a positively significant relationship with qualitative IM (IMSC1) and quantitative IM (IMSC2). Also, the effectiveness of chairman characteristics has a negative and significant association with IMSC1.

The primary goal of this paper is to fill a gap in the literature and to open up opportunities for more in-depth research on the subject. So far, there has been no research into the impact of the board chairman’s (BC) personality on IM. This study serves as a warning to policymakers, businesses and their stakeholders, as well as researchers, about the importance of BC characteristics, which may impede the effectiveness of corporate governance mechanisms. The paper provides a framework for investigating these characteristics in the context of IM.

The authors empirically investigate the impact of the existence of a stand-alone risk committee (RC) and its characteristics on the likelihood of stock price crash risk in listed financial firms on the Bursa Malaysia. The authors also test whether the effect of RC on crash risk is attenuating or amplifying by the level of institutional ownership.

The authors use a principal components analysis (PCA) to aggregate and derive a factor score for risk committee characteristics (i.e. independence, qualification, and size) as a proxy for the effectiveness of RC. The study also employs two distinct stock price crash risk measurements to corroborate the findings and partition institutional ownership into dedicated and transient to examine the potential impact of institutional shareholding on RC-stock price crash risk association.

Regression analysis reveals that only RC qualification has a significant negative impact on stock price crash risk. However, when RC characteristics are aggregated into one composite factor, the authors find that firms with effective RCs exhibit lower risk of stock price crash. The authors also find that firms with high level of institutional shareholdings and effective RCs are less likely to experience crash risk likelihood. The additional analyses indicate that the complementary moderating effect of institutional ownership on RC-crash risk nexus is likely to be driven by dedicated institutional ownership. The results are robust across two measures of stock price crash risk and regression specifications for a longer run window.

The study, to the best of the researchers' knowledge, is the first to provide evidence in an emerging market financial sector companies' perspective suggesting that effective RCs are individually and aggregately associated with lower stock price crash risk, which is further strengthened by dedicated institutional investors. These findings are unique and contribute to a small but growing body of literature documenting the need for effective RCs and specific institutional investors and their consequences of improvements in stock price crash risk environment. Results of our research in this area provide important insights to financial and capital market participants, investors, regulators, and policymakers in Malaysia.

This paper seeks to examine the effects of Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance on the nature of financial restatements in Malaysia and whether corporate governance characteristics are associated with financial restatements.

Data for this paper are obtained from annual reports that had been restated for the period of 2002‐2005 with firm‐years being the unit of observation. A control group comprising non‐restating firms is formed using match‐pair procedures where restated and non‐restated firms are matched by size, industry, exchange board classification, and financial year end. The data are subsequently analyzed using a t‐test, the Pearson correlation and logistic regression.

The results show that the primary reason for misstating the accounts is to inflate earnings. The nomination committee of the firms that restated is found to be less independent with higher managerial ownership. The logistic regression analysis indicates that the extent of ownership by outside blockholders deters firms from misstating accounts. Surprisingly, audit committee independence is associated with the likelihood of financial misstatement. Financial restatements, nevertheless, are not found to be associated with board independence, managerial ownership, and CEO duality. Finally, the results show that firms with high level of debts are more likely to commit in financial misstatement.

The research is significant as it provides evidence on the role of corporate governance, especially the independence of the nomination committee and extent of ownership by outside blockholders in Malaysia. It shows that outside blockholders is effective in disciplining managers so that the accounts so prepared are not misleading. The move in 2007 by the Malaysian Government to require companies audit committee to be composed of only independent and non‐executive directors, as well as requiring audit committee members to be financially literate, should be seen as important in ensuring the effectiveness of the audit committee.

This research is considered as the first study which examines the effects of corporate governance variables on the incidents of financial restatements in a developing country. The findings of this paper would be useful for policy makers in evaluating the importance of corporate governance in emerging countries, specifically on the issue of quality financial reporting.

This study empirically investigates the role of product market competition and mature-stage firm life cycle on the relation between corporate social responsibility (CSR) and market performance in an emerging market context – Malaysia.

The authors construct a comprehensive CSR index toward the economy, environment and society (EES) and apply both Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) instrumental variables (IV) approaches to test the hypotheses of the study.

The authors find that EES-based CSR generally enhances firms' market performance; however, the level of product market competition undermines the market performance of socially and economically responsible firms. In addition, the study results indicate that mature-stage firm life cycle with more involvement in CSR activities shows better market performance. However, the endogeneity check of CSR suggests that both CSR and mature-stage firms are mutually exclusive in influencing market performance. The study findings are robust to alternative measures and different identifications of high and low default risk situations of sample firms.

This study carries practical policy implications for the listed firms, regulators and stakeholders in general. For example, regulatory bodies may promote greater involvement in CSR activities by listed companies in the Malaysian stock market. Investors and other market participants should be aware of factors influencing socially responsible firms' market performance such as the corporate life cycle and the level of competition in product markets.

This research work responds to the call of regulatory bodies in Malaysia at a time when the Malaysian economy is under threat of environmental distraction practices by the palm oil industry and import ban by the largest export market, i.e. the European Union by 2030. The study also contributes to the theoretical literature by refining the moderating role of product market competition and mature-stage life cycle on the relationship between CSR and market performance from the perspectives of resource-based and stakeholder theories in emerging economy settings.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether there is any relationship between the effectiveness of an audit committee and the financial reporting timeliness of Tunisian listed companies as proxied by external audit delay (AD). Analysis focuses on five audit committee characteristics: authority, financial expertise, independence, size and diligence.

Empirical tests address 162 firm-year observations drawn from Tunisian listed companies during 2011-2013.

Multivariate analyses indicate that audit committees with members who have financial expertise are significantly associated with shorter AD. Thus, the results suggest that audit committee financial expertise contributes to the improvement of financial statements’ timeliness.

The audit committee attributes examined in this study were based on DeZoort et al. (2002) framework. There could be other aspects of audit committee effectiveness such as audit committee tenure and audit committee chair characteristics, which were not addressed in the present study. Thus, future research may consider and examine these other components of audit committee effectiveness.

Findings have managerial implications. Companies can re-look into how to further improve audit committee composition in order to enhance the timeliness of financial reporting. The issues of audit committee effectiveness and timely reporting also affect regulators and policy makers since they need to play a role in the establishment of effective audit committees and the improvement of financial reporting timeliness.

This study is one of few that have examined the impact of audit committee effectiveness on ADs in an emerging market country. Findings lend credence to the belief that audit committee members’ financial expertise enhances the quality of financial reporting by firms in a North African market criticized for the lack of maturity of its corporate governance system (Klibi, 2015; Fitch Ratings, 2009).

This study examines the nature of the relationship between board structures (BSs) and intellectual capital (IC) of banks in Africa.

Using annual data from financial statements of 366 banks from 26 African countries from 2007 to 2015, the study estimates IC using the value-added intellectual coefficient (VAIC) and BSs using board size, board independence and board gender diversity. The system generalized method of moments and panel-corrected standard error estimation strategies are used to estimate panel regressions.

There is a significant negative relationship between board independence and intellectual capital. The results also indicate that the IC of banks does not depend on board size and board gender diversity.

The study's findings provide evidence of the extent to which BSs have been instituted to support investments in intellectual capital as a means of improving the performance of banks in Africa.

This study provides some empirical evidence from Africa's banking sector to justify that banks with better IC have boards that are less independent. This study is one of the few studies that employs many countries' data.

The purpose of this paper is to model the convective flows in a room equipped by a glass door and a heated floor of length l = 0.8 × H and submitted to a sinusoidal temperature profile and mono alternative temperature profile.

The paper opts for a numerical study of convective flows in a large scale cavity using the Lattice Boltzmann Method (LBM) by considering a two dimensions (2D) square cavity of side H and filled by air (Pr = 0.71). All the vertical walls, the ceiling and the rest of the floor are thermally insulated, the hot portion of length l = 0.8×H is heated with two imposed temperature profiles of amplitude values 0.2 ≤  a  ≤ 0.6 and for two different periods ζ = ζ0 and ζ = 0.4×ζ0. One of the vertical walls has a cold portion θ_c = 0 that represents the glass door.

A systematic study of the flow structure and heat transfer is carried out considering principal control parameters: amplitude “a” and period ζ for Rayleigh number Ra = 10⁸. Effects of these parameters on results are presented in terms of isotherms, streamlines, profiles of velocities, temperature in the cavity, global and local Nusselt number. It has been found that an increase in amplitude or period increases the amplitude of the temperature in the core of cavity. The Nusselt number increases when the amplitude “a” of the imposed temperature increases, but this later is not affected by variation of the period.

The authors used LBM to simulate the convective flows in a cavity at high Ra, heated from below by tow imposed temperature profiles. Indeed, they simulate a local equipped by a solar water heater (SWH). The floor is subjected to a periodic heating: Sinusoidal heating (Case 1) for which the temperature varies sinusoidally (SWH without a supplement), and mono alternation heating (Case 2), the temperature evolves like a redressed signal (SWH with a supplement). The considered method has been successfully validated and compared with the previous work. The study has been conducted using several control parameters such as the signal amplitude and period in the case of turbulent convection. This allowed us to obtain a considerable set of results that can be used for engineering.

The purpose of this paper is to further the understanding of the determinants of audit report lag, which is the number of days from a company’s fiscal year-end to the date of its auditor’s report, by synthesizing extant literature. Audit report lag has been a variable of interest in many studies due to its use as a proxy for the occurrence of auditor-client management negotiations and audit efficiency and because long audit report lags delay the release of earnings information to the market.

The author uses meta-analysis to examine commonly identified predictors of audit report lag to determine if the prior research provides a consistent portrayal of audit report lag drivers.

The author finds that a number of variables relating to client profitability and financial condition, client complexity and audit opinion modifications increase audit report lag. In addition, audit report lag decreases with client size, when clients have positive earnings news to report and when the auditor has long tenure and provides non-audit services. Several variables, such as those relating to corporate governance and various auditor characteristics, have been little explored and would benefit from future research.

These results will be useful to researchers when selecting control variables for future audit report lag studies and provide insights into the key factors that contribute to the delay in audit reporting.