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This paper attempts to examine the nature of the relationship between employee stock ownership (ESO) and value creation in the context of shareholder governance.

The research sample includes 129 French CAC All-Tradable index companies observed from 2015 to 2019. The system generalised moment (GMM) estimator (Blundell and Bond, 1998) is used in the dynamic panel.

The results estimated from the system GMM model show a threshold effect in the ESO–value creation relationship. For an employee shareholding ratio less than 3%, ESO has a positive impact on value creation; above this level, the impact becomes negative. Furthermore, the nature of the relationship largely depends on the form of employee shareholding.

These results are with strong economic implications. The risk of CEO entrenchment increases with the rise in share parts owned by employees. Companies with high shareholder value creation are companies with low employee ownership.

The main contribution in this study is that the form of ESO was considered in our analysis, which was not done in previous research. Another contribution is the use of recent data (2015–2019), which takes into account the large-scale development of French ESO practices, especially the absence of crises that may bias the results.

This article attempts to investigate the impact of COVID-19 outbreak on the earnings management (EM) for listed Tunisian companies.

The study focuses on both accrual-based and real EM (REM) practices. With panel data, the authors employ the multiple regression approach and the generalized least squares (GLS) estimate method. The sample is made up of 41 listed companies observed from the first half of 2016 to the second half of 2020.

This study finds that, during the pandemic period, Tunisian firms use decreasing income discretionary accruals. Also, with regard to REM, the COVID-19 variable displays a negative response coefficient but of lesser magnitude.

This study's findings can help Tunisian authorities, listed companies and market investors to better understand EM practices during a negative shock and to better understand the various internal and external factors influencing the quality of financial reporting. These findings may contribute, also, significant EM implications for scholars interested in other emerging markets. As limitations, the authors point out mainly to the small sample size used in this study and that the authors used a single model, namely the modified Jones model (1995), to measure the accounting EM. Also, the authors used a binary variable as a proxy for the COVID- 19 pandemic.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, it is the first in Tunisia, if not in Africa, to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on EM practices. Second, this study builds on previous work by examining both the accrual-based EM and the REM.