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The purpose of this study is to examine the association between the combined roles of chief executive officer (CEO)-chairman titles (CEO duality) and investment efficiency, defined as a lower deviation from expected investment for targeted S-curve firms used to propel an innovation-driven economy. This study also aims to investigate the moderating effect of financial reporting quality on this association.

This paper focuses on the ten targeted S-curve industries – under the definition of the Thailand 4.0 model – listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) from 2000 to 2019. Data related to CEO/chairman titles and investment supports were manually collected from the annual reports, the SET market analysis and reporting tool database and the company websites. Financial data used to estimate investment behaviors and discretionary accruals were extracted from 1999. The study analyzes unbalanced panel data using fixed-effects regressions. Additional tests embrace replacing the sample with nontargeted firms, partitioning into granted and nongranted firms, adding CEOs’ demographic moderators, using alternative variable measures and analyzing for lagged independent variables.

The main findings show that CEO duality reduces overinvestment but worsens underinvestment in targeted firms. Financial reporting quality (FRQ) appears to strengthen CEO duality in mitigating extreme spending but has no impact on the association between CEO duality and underinvestment. Additional results, for example, conclude that CEO duality has no association with both over- and underinvesting at nontargeted firms, but its effect becomes positively significant on overinvestment when financial reporting quality is high. The negative association between CEO duality and overinvestment is found only in government-granted and targeted firms. FRQ encourages CEO duality in lowering overinvestment among targeted firms without grants. CEOs’ female and serviced early years appear to elevate those main findings.

These findings assist innovative corporations in choosing a proper leadership structure to cope with investment inefficiency. The research gives the government and regulatory bodies an insight into the qualifications of the leadership structure and financial information that helps them put forward effective policies.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is among the first to establish the association between CEO duality and investment efficiency for innovation-driven firms in a transforming economy. The study fills the gap in the literature on management, accounting and finance by unveiling the interplay between dual leadership and financial reporting in affecting the efficiency of investments.

This study investigates the relationship between foreign ownership, earnings quality and overinvestment in Japanese zombie firms.

The study makes use of data from Japanese firms listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange from 2009 to 2019. The study employs logistic and multinomial logistic models to test whether the overinvestment behavior of zombie firms is mitigated by foreign shareholdings and earnings quality.

The results show that (1) zombie firms tend to overinvest; (2) an increase in foreign ownership mitigates the overinvestment of zombie firms and (3) the mitigation of zombie firms' overinvestment by foreign ownership is stronger with higher earnings quality.

This study extends the discussion of earnings quality and investment efficiency to the zombie firm setting. Previous studies in accounting suggest that high earnings quality enhances firms' investment efficiency. The findings suggest that both a change in ownership structure and high-quality accounting information are necessary to mitigate the inefficiency of zombie firms.

This study aims to comprehensively examine the relationship between financial reporting quality (FRQ) and investment efficiency (IE). The central thrust of this research endeavor is to empirically analyze the impact of FRQ on diverse facets of investment, including overinvestment, underinvestment and overall IE.

Using a sample of 13,902 firm-year observations from publicly listed US companies, this study uses the generalized method of moment (GMM) in conjunction with three distinct measures for FRQ under three different investment settings, considering firm liquidity and industry performance.

This study offers interesting insights into the intricate relationship between FRQ and IE. The results indicate a strong positive relation between the two constructs. In particular, the research reveals a negative link between FRQ and underinvestment, and an inverse relationship between FRQ and overinvestment. These findings suggest that FRQ is one of the key drivers of IE and that by enhancing FRQ, businesses can better optimize their investments.

This study highlights the significant implication of the effect of FRQ on IE, as it enables businesses to optimize their investments by improving their decision-making processes and better risk assessment of associated projects, resulting in more efficient capital allocation. A higher degree of FRQ increases investors’ confidence in a company’s financial statements, resulting in higher liquidity. It can benefit regulators to set higher standards and promote transparency.

The study examines the relationship between FRQ and IE. The study finds a strong positive relation between FRQ and IE, with FRQ being a key driver of IE. The paper’s original contribution lies in its comprehensive examination of the complex relationship between FRQ and IE, using robust analytical techniques by applying GMM and taking into consideration firms liquidity and industry performance.

The study of the relationship between external auditing services and investment deviation in a French setting has received relatively little research attention thus far. There are insufficient indicators to measure audit quality and then have a measurable link to investment efficiency. This study is motivated by such a research gap as well as the important role of auditing services in assuring investment efficiency. The purpose of this study is to test whether a good audit quality service improves corporate investment awareness in French-listed companies and contributes to establishing a comprehensive analysis framework for inefficient investment and how audit services have become an important tool to reduce the investment deviation of listed companies in France.

Based on a sample of 89 non-financial French firms listed on the Stoxx 600 Index from 2015 to 2021, this study uses feasible generalised least squares (FGLS) regressions to study the relationship between investment deviation and auditing service quality.

After running an FGLS regression model for two firm groups (overinvestment and overinvestment groups) and testing for a set of control variables, especially COVID-19, the findings show a non-linear correlation between audit service and corporate investment deviation. Both underinvestment and overinvestment decisions are negatively and statistically significantly impacted by audit indicators. Furthermore, involving a high-quality specialised auditor may enhance overall monitoring and lead to a lower investment deviation level. Overall, the empirical results show that a high-quality audit service enhances the investment efficiency of French-indexed companies.

This study offers crucial information that audit regulators can use to better appreciate the advantages of high audit quality and to take seriously the policy issues that affect it. Board members are urged to provide excellent audit quality that improves investment efficiency with careful consideration.

This study contributes to the existing audit literature by illuminating the effect of audit quality services on investment deviation to show a deeper understanding of the factors that contribute to the differences in prior studies’ findings in the field of audit quality impacts.

This paper aims to investigate whether managerial overconfidence has an impact on investment inefficiency beyond its influence on the use of internal financing or whether internal financing behaves as a full intermediary.

The study employed three dependent variables, namely business investment scale, overinvestment and underinvestment, and analyzed data from 282 firms across five different industries listed in 11 Middle East/North Africa (MENA) countries between 2013 and 2019 using regression analysis via least square dummy variable (LSDV).

The findings indicate that while internal financing can provide funding for investment opportunities and address capital shortages, it may also result in overinvestment, particularly in companies led by overconfident managers.

Stakeholders, including shareholders and board of directors, should pay attention to the chief executive officer (CEO)'s behavioral aspects such as overconfidence in decision-making while undertaking new investment projects. Additionally, regulators and policymakers in emerging markets like MENA should re-evaluate the corporate governance framework, devise a corporate governance index and promote boardroom gender diversity as it can significantly reduce risk.

This study adds to the limited research on the impact of managerial overconfidence on investment efficiency in the MENA region. By focusing on this region, which has unique economic, political and social characteristics, the study provides new insights into the role of behavioral biases in investment decision-making in emerging markets.

Financial flexibility and investment efficiency are of vital importance in strategic choices at boardrooms, particularly in post-crisis recovery strategies. This study examines the moderating effects of investment efficiency and investment scale on the relationship between financial flexibility and firm performance.

The authors use sample of 10,755 US-listed firms over the period 2010–2021 to examine the relationships between investment scale, investment efficiency, financial flexibility and firm performance. Particular attention is paid to overinvestment and underinvestment.

Findings of this study reveal that financial flexibility mitigates investment inefficiency through reducing overinvestment. Financial flexibility contributes to boost a firm’s accounting and market performance. Additionally, investment efficiency and investment scale have moderating effects on the relationship between financial flexibility and firm performance. However, the influence of investment efficiency is greater than the influence of investment scale. Finally, the authors find that the direct and indirect effects of financial flexibility are stronger on market performance than accounting performance, implying that market is more sensitive to corporate financial policies.

Findings of this study have implications for scholars, decision-makers policymakers, investors and other stakeholders.

This study has its own limitations due to the sample selection issues, country context and the research model adopted by this study.

The novel contribution to the extant literature is incorporating the influence of investment scale and investment efficiency into the relationship between financial flexibility and firm performance.

This paper aims to investigate empirically the impact of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) on small-to-medium enterprises’ (SMEs) investment efficiency and whether product market competition influences this association.

The study was conducted on French SMEs listed on the “CAC Mid & Small” Index over 2008–2021. This paper proposes a quantitative approach to test the relationship between the EPU and SME investment efficiency.

These findings show that EPU significantly alleviates SMEs’ investment inefficiency, reflected in the reduction of overinvestment and underinvestment. As EPU increases, firms with more exposure to such uncertainty invest more efficiently, and their overinvestment tendency becomes lower, while reducing the risk of underinvestment. These results are still significant after a series of robustness checks. Further analysis shows that EPU mitigates investment inefficiency to a greater extent for firms operating in highly competitive industries, and better information environments.

This study was limited to the French EPU index and could be extended to a European or even international scale. Moreover, using alternative uncertainty indexes across various European countries can be more advantageous in further studies. Although results suggest that EPU affects investment efficiency, future studies could further explore the mechanisms through which EPU affects SMEs’ investment efficiency and, in particular, across different industries. Understanding these variations due to the specific industry-EPU sensitivity can provide valuable insights. Finally, it would be interesting to examine the risk management strategies adopted by SMEs in the face of EPU, combined with other growing risks, such as climate risk.

In the face of high EPU, SME managers must improve risk management, adopt appropriate investment strategies, consider using predictive analytics or economic forecasting tools and embrace technology and innovation that enhance agility and responsiveness to policy uncertainty. Besides, political decision-makers should adapt their regulatory policies (tax, labor, housing, etc.) to preserve the efficiency of SME investment.

Although the debates on how policy uncertainty affects the investment and financing of large businesses have received a great concern of academia, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that focuses on the effect of EPU on investment distortions for SMEs.

This study examines the effect of stable institutional investors on firms' product quality failures. Furthermore, the authors investigate the channels through which institutional ownership stability enhances product quality management.

This study uses probit, ordered probit and negative binomial regression frameworks to investigate the research questions. In addition, the authors utilize the three-stage least-squares to address the endogeneity issues.

Using a sample of product recall incidents from 2012 to 2021, the authors find that firms with more stable institutional ownership have a lower probability, frequency and severity of recall incidents and adopt a proactive product recall strategy. Institutional investors with significant and persistent holdings improve quality management by reducing overinvestment and the use of option-linked and relative performance executive compensations. Furthermore, the influence of stable institutional owners on product quality failures is more pronounced in firms with low managerial ability and specialist CEOs. Lastly, the empirical evidence demonstrates that stable holdings by active investors have a more substantial impact on reducing product recalls than passive and other stable institutional holdings.

This study is the first to examine the impact of institutional ownership stability on firms' product recalls. The authors contribute to the literature on the benefits of stable institutional ownership on firm outcomes and the determinants of product quality failures.

This study aims to empirically examine the impact of internal corporate governance mechanisms (ICGM) related to the size of the board, board composition, CEO duality and audit committee independence as a single metric on a firm’s investment decisions.

This study attempts to develop an internal corporate governance quality index comprising 10 items under four main ICGMs – size and independence of the board, CEO duality and audit committee independence – employing panel data analysis to investigate its impact on the investment decisions in 301 nonfinancial firms listed in six emerging capital markets in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member countries for the years 2015–2020. Data were extracted from sample companies' websites, stock markets, annual reports and Refinitiv database.

This study provides convincing evidence that effective ICGMs minimize inefficient investment and ultimately boost investment efficiency. The findings remain consistent even after considering the potential endogeneity bias.

This study provides empirical evidence on investment efficiency in the GCC region and emphasizes the importance of high-quality ICGMs in reducing inefficient investment. By examining the impact of ICGMs on investment inefficiencies, this study contributes to the corporate governance literature. The GCC region's unique economic and social contexts, with its growing economies, are considered to shed light on this issue.

This study aims to explore the relationship between the level of busyness of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and investment efficiency in the context of emerging markets.

The sample includes firms listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2018 using ordinary least square estimation.

The findings suggest that companies led by busy CEOs tend to exhibit lower investment efficiency, thus providing support for the hypothesis that as CEOs’ commitments increase, their ability to concentrate on the company diminishes. Furthermore, our analysis reveals that companies with busy CEOs tend to demonstrate a greater tendency to over-invest, potentially in response to market pressures to showcase strong performance. A more in-depth examination of the data shows that the negative impact of busy CEOs on investment efficiency is especially noticeable in firms lacking risk and management committees (RMC).

These findings have substantial practical implications for the structuring and composition of corporate boards. They highlight the significance of conducting comprehensive assessments to gain insights into the external commitments of incoming CEOs.

This study underscores the importance of establishing RMC.