Search results

From an agency theory realm, this study aims to respond to the more recent calls to deeply analyze the indirect influence of professional shareholders, namely, institutional, blockholder and foreign owners, on the extent of compliance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) mandatory reporting requirements.

Multivariate regression analysis was applied. Moreover, quantitative static and dynamic panel data have been used. More plainly, ordinary least squares was run as a baseline estimator. Afterwards, one-step system generalized method of moment and two-stage least squares were conducted to control for the potential endogeneity dilemma. The analysis is based on a sample of nonfinancial listed firms on the Palestine Stock Exchange for the time span of 10 years, from 2010 to 2019.

After controlling for the detrimental effect of the endogeneity issue, the findings clearly reveal that the effect of the three types of professional shareholders (institutional, blockholder and foreign) on the extent of compliance with IFRS is more significant under a high proportion of independent nonexecutive directors.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, prior literature on the nexus between shareholding structure and compliance level with IFRS has restricted solely to analyzing the direct influence without casting the light on the moderation effect of independent nonexecutive directors. Hence, analyzing this sensitive configuration merits attention. In this vein, to ameliorate the compliance level with IFRS, regulators have to devote remarkable effort to updating both enforcement mechanisms and best practices of shareholding structure simultaneously.

This study aims to examine how the salient board gender diversity among board directors affects firm performance both directly and indirectly, through the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in listed firms on the Palestine Stock Exchange over the period 2010–2017.

Based on panel data of 384 observations from all firms listed on the Palestine Security Exchange during the period from 2010 to 2017, this study uses panel data regression to examine the effect of the predictors on firm performance. In addition, to mitigate the endogeneity issue, the analysis was repeated by using one-step generalized method of moments.

The results show that board gender diversity has a positive and insignificant influence on firm performance. However, under the moderating effect of CSR, the finding turns from positive insignificant to positive significant.

The study is timely given that gender diversity plays pivotal roles in determining the performance in terms of monitoring and controlling and further willing to engage in social responsibility. The prior research in Palestine has never investigated the effect of board gender diversity. As such, Palestine has not established a legal quota of minimum female representation on boards, and because of it, the country has weak women’s representation among firms. It, therefore, becomes a necessity to examine the influence of board gender diversity on the financial performance of listed firms in Palestine. Besides, the mixed result in previous literature on the board gender diversity and firm performance indicates that there is an indirect effect that needs alternative explanations.

Drawing on the multi-theoretical perspective, the primary purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate the inextricably entwined nexus between board gender diversity and corporate environmental performance within cross-country context.

Multiple regression analysis on a cross-country panel data analysis was used. Further, the authors applied static panel data estimator ordinary least squares (OLS) as a baseline model with different proxies of gender diversity. In addition, to control for the potential endogeneity problem and providing robust findings, the authors run two-stage least squares (2SLS) and lagged independent variables.

The findings clearly unveiled that corporate environmental performance is positively and significantly affected by the level of gender diversity on board. This inextricable and intimate nexus is vastly attributed to the argument that female directors show greater concerns for eco-friendly activities.

The findings of this study provide useful and fruitful insights for regulatory parties and policymakers to mandate gender quota in electing boardroom members to ameliorate corporate environmental performance.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, most of the prior studies have not yet provided a multi-theoretical analysis of the effect of board gender diversity on environmental performance. Thereby, this study handled this contemporary gap and went beyond the narrow perspectives by diving deep with cross-country analysis.

This study aims to provide the intellectual structure of the academic literature on board characteristics and corporate social responsibility disclosure (CSRD) and corporate social responsibility performance (CSRP). To do that, the authors analyse the main theories, data sources and methodologies used by researchers, providing information on methodological bias and research gaps. Beyond that, this study offers a novel picture of the most critical drivers of CSRP/CSRD and offer constructive suggestions to guide future research.

A content analysis was performed on 242 articles extracted from the Web of Science database from 1992 to 2019.

Results indicate that board characteristics have a significant and increasing impact on corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature. The results also revealed that the board practices play a crucial role in managing CSRP/CSRD-related issues. The study also identifies the effect of the critical board characteristics on CSRP, CSRD quantity and CSRD quality. Furthermore, the study findings provide an overarching picture of the patterns and trends of the systematic nexus between board characteristics and CSRP/CSRD quality and quantity.

The study findings help provide an overarching picture of the systematic nexus patterns and trends between board characteristics and CSRP/CSRD quality and quantity. These results draw potential future avenues to bridge the void in the current board–CSR literature by presenting fruitful and indispensable directions for future research (governance mechanisms, new methodologies, variables, countries, etc.). It also suggests multidimensional and in-depth insights for reforming the board of directors’ guidelines.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, minimal attention has been paid to systematising the literature on board and CSR.

Motivated by the growing and urgent demands for a unified set of internationally accepted, and high-quality environmental, social and governance (hereafter ESG) disclosure standards, this exploratory study aims to propose a roadmap for setting out the proper technical groundwork for global ESG disclosure standards.

An exploratory study is conducted to gain initial understanding and insights into establishing a worldwide set of standards for reporting on sustainability, as this topic has not been extensively studied. This study examines the viewpoints of various stakeholders, including sustainability practitioners, academics and organizations focused on ESG issues, to generate knowledge that is more solid than knowledge produced when one group of stakeholders work alone.

The results revealed that there is an ongoing and incompatible debate regarding several conceptual and practical challenges for setting a unified set of ESG disclosure standards.

The study results provide multidimensional insights for regulatory parties and standard-setters to develop a high-quality package of global ESG reporting standards. This, in turn, enables different groups of stakeholders to understand the firm’s impact on the environment, society and economy.

Research into this timely and relevant global issue is considered an appealing area of study and deserves significant attention. Thereby, working on this topic merits remarkable attention. Furthermore, this exploratory article provides valuable and informative suggestions for creating a unified and high-quality set of internationally accepted sustainability reporting standards.

Motivated by the agency theory, this paper primarily intends to empirically investigate the impact of board attributes on corporate cash holdings and how the mentioned nexus is moderated by the level of corporate political connections in a developing country, namely, Palestine during the period of 2011–2018.

Multiple regression analysis on a panel data was employed. Moreover, the authors applied three different approaches of static panel data “pooled OLS, fixed effect and random effect”. Fixed-effects estimator was selected as the optimal and most appropriate model. In addition, to control for the potential endogeneity problem and to profoundly analyze the study data, the authors perform the one-step system generalized method of moment estimator.

The results of this study provide support for the agency theory ideology, which considers that sturdy and well-established corporate governance (CG) paradigms minify the magnitude of cash held by companies. Furthermore, the findings distinctly unveil that the impact of board attributes is more positive under a high level of political connections.

This study was solely restricted to one institutional context “Palestine”; therefore, the results reflect the attributes of the Palestinian business environment. In this vein, it is possible to generate different findings in other countries, particularly in developed markets.

The findings of this study can draw responsible parties, top management and policymakers' attention in developing countries to introduce and contextualize new mechanisms that can lead to better managing of corporate cash holdings.

Empirical evidence on the moderating role of political connection on the effect of board attributes on corporate cash holdings something that was predominantly neglected by the earlier research and has not yet examined by ancestors. Hence, to protrude nuanced understanding of this novel idea, this study minutely bridges this research gap and contributes practically and theoretically to the existing CG–cash holdings literature.

Motivated by the agency theory, this study aims to empirically examine the nexus between board attributes and a firm’s financing decisions of non-financial listed firms in Palestine and how the previous relationship is moderated and shaped by the level of gender diversity.

Multiple regression analysis on a panel data was used. Further, we applied three different approaches of static panel data “pooled OLS, fixed effect and random effect.” Fixed-effects estimator was selected as the optimal and most appropriate model. In addition, to control for the potential endogeneity problem and to profoundly analyze the study data, the authors perform the one-step system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator. Dynamic panel GMM specification was superior in generating robust findings.

The findings clearly unveil that all explanatory variables in the study model have a significant influence on the firm’s financing decisions. Moreover, the results report that the impact of board size and board independence are more positive under conditions of a high level of gender diversity, whereas the influence of CEO duality on the firm’s leverage level turned from negative to positive. In a nutshell, gender diversity moderates the effect of board structure on a firm’s financing decisions.

This study was restricted to one institutional context (Palestine); therefore, the results reflect the attributes of the Palestinian business environment. In this vein, it is possible to generate different findings in other countries, particularly in developed markets.

The findings of this study can draw responsible parties and policymakers’ attention in developing countries to introduce and contextualize new mechanisms that can lead to better monitoring process and help firms in attracting better resources and establishing an optimal capital structure. For instance, entities should mandate a minimum quota for the proportion of women incorporation in boardrooms.

This study provides empirical evidence on the moderating role of gender diversity on the effect of board structure on firm’s financing decisions, something that was predominantly neglected by the earlier studies and has not yet examined by ancestors. Thereby, to protrude nuanced understanding of this novel and unprecedented idea, this study thoroughly bridges this research gap and contributes practically and theoretically to the existing corporate governance–capital structure literature.

The purpose of this paper is to build a framework that intends to help organizations define, implement and control their corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies. Based on the stakeholder perspective, this paper proposes a sustainability management control system (SMCS) specifically made for the definition and implementation of CSR strategy, by linking the firm’s material topics to its key stakeholders, thus, allowing our model to be dynamic to different business environments.

In this paper, the authors constructed their model based on a review of selective relevant studies about CSR and SMCSs. This paper also went through different practical concepts from leading sustainability guidelines and stakeholder’s engagement manuals, discussing the stakeholder identification and prioritization, to re-center the debate to the strategic importance of the stakeholder perspective in defining and implementing CSR strategy, as well as its importance in how organizations can define proxies to assess the performance of their CSR initiatives.

Adopting the stakeholder theory as a key lens to re-frame, organize and guide the debate over the performance consequences of CSR has the potential to overcome the simplistic and (eventual) misleading conceptions of CSR strategy implementation, thus fostering the move toward more effective and efficient CSR strategies, by developing management control system (MCS) typical for CSR issues.

The full process of the model outlined in this paper aims to provide a comprehensive and forward-looking tool for CSR and sustainability strategy implementation and assessment. Our model could help companies to gain an overview and an understanding of the relative importance of the material topics of their business activities that should be addressed and how they are related to the key stakeholders, thus, eventually leading to more equitable and sustainable social development by giving those who have a right to be heard the opportunity to be considered in the sustainability decision-making and strategy processes, in the aim of making valuable contributions to social, economic and environmental spheres.

The paper answers the call for research for developing novel theoretical foundations to design MCSs for CSR implementation. Therefore, the paper suggests an innovative model of SMCS for CSR strategy definition, development and implementation and helping organizations to define and develop key sustainability indicators specific to their business environment. The model also presents an opportunity to rethink and advance the understanding of how managers can prioritize competing stakeholders’ claims, which are constrained by the company’s business activities impacts.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of board diversity (e.g. education, gender, nationality and royal family members) on voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure for a sample of banks listed in the Arabian Gulf Council countries.

The authors use the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines to construct the CSR disclosure index. The empirical analysis is based on the data of banks listed in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries over the period 2011–2019. To tackle the potential issue of endogeneity, the authors apply the system generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation approach to investigate the relationship between board diversity and CSR disclosure index.

The findings of the analysis show that there is a significant relationship between board diversity and the level of voluntary CSR disclosure. Specifically, the authors find that diversity captured by the education level, nationality and the presence of royal family members on board is positively associated with the level of voluntary CSR disclosure while diversity captured by the gender of board members is negatively associated with the level of voluntary CSR disclosure.

The regulators, policymakers, stakeholders and the board of directors become aware of the diversity mechanisms that must be used to promote CSR practices in the banking sector of Arabian Gulf countries.

The authors extend the existing literature by providing empirical evidence on the association between board diversity and voluntary CSR disclosure practices of banks operating in the Arabian Gulf countries. This study also highlights that board gender diversity may have a different impact on voluntary CSR disclosure between developed countries and developing countries. This paper also provides preliminary evidence on the importance of education level, the presence of foreign and royal directors on board to influence CSR practices of banks operating in the Arabian Gulf countries.

The purpose of this study is to empirically examine the deeply rooted relationships between corporate governance (CG) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) disclosure as two complementary mechanisms used by companies to reinforce the link with stakeholders and whether the extent of CSR disclosures made by Palestinian non-financial-listed companies during the period from 2013 to 2016 is associated with CG practices.

Content analysis technique was used to extract and measure CSR information from annual reports of 33 companies listed on the Palestine Stock Exchange (PEX). Therefore, CSR disclosure index was constructed using 32 items divided into four categories as a measure of the extent of CSR disclosure in the firm’s annual reports. OLS regression was performed to test the association between CG and the extent of CSR disclosure in this longitudinal study.

Panel data reveal that the level of CSR reporting has slightly increased over the study period. Further, the results also show that the level of CSR disclosure is positively and significantly affected by board size and independence, while gender diversity has a positive but statistically insignificant influence. Additionally, CEO duality is negatively and significantly correlated with CSR disclosures.

The study designs are limited to the Palestinian non-financial-listed firms. Furthermore, the generalisation of the findings might be restricted solely to the listed companies working in similar socioeconomic status.

The findings of this study can draw policy-makers’ attention in developing countries, particularly in the Arab world, to meet the increasing need for updating the regulatory and institutional framework in the vein of CG reform and the related regulatory policies to promote the efficiency of CSR practices.

More efforts should be made to strengthen the awareness of the Palestinian listed companies of the advantages of CSR reporting on social reality. Thus, from a management perspective, companies have to take equally into account the financial and social outcomes of CSR activities.

Empirical evidence on the nexus between CG and CSR disclosure from countries affected by socio-political instability is extremely limited. This study bridges this research gap and contributes theoretically and practically to the CSR literature by providing empirical evidence from a developing country with a unique business environment.