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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between board structure, financial performance and outreach of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Sri Lanka, using unbalanced panel data for 300 MFI-year observations for the period 2007 to 2012.

Empirical research relating to governance practices in MFIs is still in its infancy, and further studies are needed to determine how improved governance practices may enhance sustainability and outreach of MFIs, especially in emerging economies. The authors use regression techniques to examine whether board structure has an influence on MFI performance.

After controlling for internal corporate governance variables, regulatory status, size, age, leverage and year effects, the authors report that board structure does contribute to the financial performance and outreach of MFIs in Sri Lanka.

The availability of data in the public domain captures the major MFIs but does constrain the generalisability of findings.

This study enables individual MFIs to evaluate potential restructuring of their boards to promote a dual mission and achieve a more accelerated economic development.

The findings may encourage policy makers to promulgate policy guidelines to deepen MFI outreach to the poorest people.

Inconsistent findings in prior studies and a general lack of empirical results for the microfinance industry have led to an unclear message regarding corporate governance and MFI performance. This study fills the research gap, contributing to the existing corporate governance literature in the microfinance sector and providing evidence from an emerging economy.

The purpose of this paper is to answer the increasing calls to analyse how lending relationship between banks and their small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) work. More precisely, the main aim is to investigate the lending approach(es) and criteria used by banks to assess loan applications from their relationship-managed (RM) SMEs’ clients. Other objectives include investigating the level of congruence in terms of lending practices and processes among the sample banks in New Zealand (NZ) and to discern how the assessment of the SME owner/manager is done within the relationship-banking framework.

The research objectives concern investigating processes and not variances. Thus, a qualitative research approach was used. Extensive data was collected via interviews across representative banks in NZ and thematic analysis was used to analyse the data.

The findings include a detailed analysis of how relationship banking actually works; how in NZ, the main bank brands use three criteria of lending (financials, security and character) as a framework of assessing loan applications from RM-clients – which is different from the character, capital, capacity, conditions, and collateral (5Cs) that are widely used and discussed as the framework of lending; and an elucidation as to why and how character assessment is different from the other criteria of lending.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the mechanisms and processes that banks use to deal with their RM-SMEs, show the existence of a different framework of lending other than the 5Cs and attempt an explanation as to why character evaluation is different from that of the other criteria of lending.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between corporate governance (CG) and microfinance institution (MFI) performance, using a dynamic panel generalised method of moments (GMM) estimator to mitigate the serious issues with endogeneity.

Inconsistent findings and a general lack of empirical results for the microfinance industry leave an unclear message regarding the impacts of CG on MFI performance, especially in emerging economies. The authors use GMM estimation techniques to examine whether CG has an influence on MFI performance.

This study confirms that the MFIs’ contemporaneous performance and CG characteristics are statistically significantly positively linked with their past performance. This study finds statistically significant governance effects on MFI performance, including the presence of international directors and/or donor representatives on the board, client representatives on the board, percentage of non-executive directors and the quality of the national governance system.

These findings provide some insights for policy-makers and practitioners to develop suitable policies and guidelines to streamline MFIs’ operations in emerging countries. Moreover, national and international investors and donors may use these finding as a benchmark for their investment and funding decisions.

This paper is the first to estimate the CG and performance relationship of MFIs in a dynamic framework by applying the GMM estimation method. This approach improves upon traditional estimation methods by controlling the likely sources of endogeneity. Further, this paper examines whether quality of national-level governance characteristics is related to performance measures of profitability and outreach of MFIs.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between board composition and firm corporate social responsibility (CSR) scores of the top 30 listed companies in Australia, France, UK and USA.

Using a sample of 120 publicly listed companies covering a 10-year period from 2006 to 2015, the authors examine this relationship in a dynamic modelling framework, which controls for potential sources of endogeneity.

The authors find that board composition appears to have no effect on large firms’ CSR scores. This finding remains robust when they used out-of-sample analysis and is consistent with the perspectives of agency theory stakeholder theory and institutional theory.

This study contributes to the literature in several ways. First, it fills an important gap in literature on CSR and corporate governance, as less is known about how board composition affects social activities. Second, this study controls endogeneity and sample selection bias which are main econometric problems in CG and CSR studies.

This study investigates whether there is an association between business symbiosis and the performance of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs).

The authors conducted 200 surveys, using ordered logistic regression to evaluate the results. Participants are MSME business owners in Cambridge, New Zealand.

The authors found that connections with banks and other businesses in the same and across different industries, positively associates with changes in MSME profitability. Additionally, operating a business as a franchisee under the regulations or headquarter issued rules is positively associated with change in net profit.

While there are limitations with cross-sectional data, the study indicates a mechanism and frameworks for policy analysis when deciding on allocation of funds to particular networks.

Small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) capital structure and financial policies are important areas of policy concern. Only a limited number of studies on capital structure have, however, been conducted on SMEs, and this deficiency is particularly evident when investigating what influences funding decisions around Islamic finance. This paper accordingly aims to investigate whether Omani SME owner-managers’ intention to adopt Islamic finance is influenced by their knowledge of Islamic finance, their own characteristics and/or their firms’ characteristics.

The authors administered a questionnaire survey via face-to-face interviews to 385 SME owner-managers operating in Muscat, Oman’s capital city. The Kruskal–Wallis one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) non-parametric test was used to analyse the questionnaire survey data.

The findings indicate that while SME owner-managers’ Islamic financial knowledge and personal characteristics do influence their intention to adopt Islamic finance, their firms’ characteristics have no significant influence on SME owner-managers’ decisions to accede to Islamic financing.

The research’s first limitation is that it gathered data from SME owner-managers in Muscat only. Future studies could survey a wider sample of Omani SME owner-managers. Second, the study’s findings cannot be generalised to large and public firms, as the sample includes owner-managers of SMEs only. Finally, there is a need to investigate other factors such as nonfinancial and behavioural factors, which were not explored in the present study, but which may influence SME owner-managers’ Islamic financial decisions.

Theoretical and empirical studies on capital structure have focused primarily on large listed firms. Only a few studies have paid attention to the capital structure of SMEs, particularly in the context of an emerging market such as Oman. This gap in the literature is mostly evident when investigating the factors that influence the funding decision towards Islamic financing in a country, such as Oman, where Islamic finance represents a new banking sector offering.

The aim of this study is to critically evaluate the institutionalisation of International Public Sector Accounting Standards in Indonesia.

This case study approach relies on obtaining its data from document sources and interviews with relevant people and/or organisations involved in policy-making and implementation of IPSAS in Indonesia. To inform the study, we developed and used an integrated model of institutionalisation based on the work done by Dillard et al. (2004) and Dambrin et al. (2007).

Our model shows that dissemination of new ideals and the transformation of these new ideals into new discourses were institutionalised at the economic and political level. However, the creation of a new [accounting]technique took place in the organisational field, instead of organisational level. The internalisation of IPSAS in the organisational field is characterised by limited use of IPSAS-based reports for making decisions. Overall the institionalisation of IPSAS in Indonesia is dominated by actors external to local governments.

The study’s results reflect the specific socio-economic and political contexts for a specific point in time.

Policy-makers in developing nations should consider the applicability of IPSAS in accordance with the actual needs and capacities of their local governments.

The findings show that developing nations and international organisations have underestimated the technical and institutional issues of developing nations in the globalisation of IPSAS.

The study extends institutional theory by developing a new model to conceptualise the dynamic processes, the role of actors and outcomes of public sector accounting reforms in an emerging economy.

This paper aims to investigate small and medium enterprises’ (SMEs) owner–managers’ awareness, willingness and perceptions concerning Islamic financing instruments as an alternative sourcing decision in SMEs’ businesses.

The research employed mixed methods to gather data. A questionnaire survey was conducted via face-to-face interviews with 385 SME owner–managers operating in Muscat, Oman’s capital city, along with face-to-face discussion on Islamic finance with 86 SME owner–managers. Descriptive and thematic analysis were used to analyse the data.

The findings indicate that SME owner–managers are aware of Islamic banking principles and have knowledge of Islamic financial instruments, despite Islamic finance being new to Oman. Interestingly, although the majority of the participants indicated their intention to adopt this new finance method, they were motivated by special requirements other than finance. Their positive perception of Islamic financing methods could play a significant role in developing the Islamic banking industry.

The research is limited in that its data came only from Omani SME owner–managers in Muscat. Future research could investigate wider samples. Secondly, the study’s findings lack generalisability to larger and public enterprises, because only SME owner–managers were surveyed.

This study will be important for policy makers concerned about SMEs’ financing, Islamic financial institutions and new entrants into the Islamic banking industry, as it provides empirically evidence of Omanis’ views, and more specifically those of Omani SME owner–managers, on the recent introduction of Islamic finance into the country. The insights this study offers should help them to develop the strategies required to attract SMEs and to construct policies and regulations to improve Oman’s Islamic banking industry.

The research is significant, as it is the first study to investigate the awareness, willingness and perceptions of Omani SMEs regarding Islamic banking in Oman. Even though all Omanis are Muslims, Oman was the last of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council countries to introduce Islamic finance. Thus, this emerging market provides an important basis from which to extend future research on Islamic finance to other potential Islamic finance markets.

This paper aims to review the relevant literature on mergers and acquisitions in an attempt to provide a comprehensive account of what we know about mergers and which parts of the puzzle are still incomplete.

This literature review consists of three key sections. The first part of this paper summarises the literature on the cyclical nature of mergers referred to in the literature as merger waves. The second section reviews the causes and consequences of takeovers; it first reviews the causes, or drivers, of acquisitions, while focusing on the fact that acquisitions happen in waves and then reviews the consequences of takeovers, with a predominant focus on the impacts of mergers on the economic performance of acquirers. The third part of the review summarises the theories, as well as previous empirical studies, on determinants of announcement returns and post-acquisition performance of combined firms.

Merger activity demonstrates a wavy pattern, i.e. mergers are clustered in industries through time. The causes suggested for this fluctuating pattern include industry- and economy-level shocks, mis-valuation and managerial herding. Market reaction to announcement of acquisitions is, on average, slightly negative for acquirer stocks and significantly positive for target stocks. The combined abnormal return is positive. These findings have been consistent over several decades of investigation. Prior research also identifies a number of factors that are related to performance of acquisitions. These factors are categorised and reviewed in five different groups: acquirer characteristics, target characteristics, bid characteristics, industry characteristics and macro-environment characteristics.

This review illustrates a number of issues. Prior research is heavily biased towards gains to acquirers and factors that affect these gains. It is also biased towards finding sources of value creation through mergers despite the fact that several theories suggest that mergers can be value-destroying. In fact, value destruction is often attributed to managers’ self-interest (agency problem) and mistakes (hubris). However, the mechanisms through which mergers destroy value are rarely addressed. Aside from that, the possibility of simultaneous creation and destruction of value in acquisitions is not often considered. Finally, after several decades of investigation, a key question is not completely answered yet: “What are the sources of value in mergers and acquisitions?”

The purpose of this paper is to provide a survey piece on the concept of privacy and the justification of privacy rights.

This article reviews each of the following areas: a brief history of privacy; philosophical definitions of privacy along with specific critiques; legal conceptions of privacy, including the history of privacy protections granted in constitutional and tort law; and general critiques of privacy protections both moral and legal.

A primary goal of this article has been to provide an overview of the most important philosophical and legal issues related to privacy. While privacy is difficult to define and has been challenged on legal and moral grounds, it is a cultural universal and has played an important role in the formation of Western liberal democracies.

The paper provides a general overview of the issues and debates that frame this lively area of scholarly inquiry. By facilitating a wider engagement and input from numerous communities and disciplines, it is the authors' hope to advance scholarly debate in this important area.