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This study examines the mediating effect of sustainability disclosure on the relationship between political connections and firm performance from the resource-based view.

The sample of this study was sourced from 888 public companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX) from 2016 to 2017. Path analysis and Sobel tests were used to determine the mediating effect of sustainability disclosure.

The results show that political connections have a positive and significant influence on firm performance. Furthermore, sustainability disclosures mediate the relationship between political connections and firm performance.

In the context of developing countries such as Indonesia, managers can make the existence of parties in politically connected companies as a medium to demonstrate their adherence to external stakeholders through the disclosure of sustainability information.

This study is the first to investigate the mediating effect of sustainability disclosure on the relationship between political connections and firm performance, especially in emerging markets. The parties of the politically connected companies use a social responsibility mechanism as a medium that can sustain their operational sustainability whilst gaining long-term economic benefits.

This paper examines the influence of different types of political connections and political uncertainty on earnings credibility in Pakistan. Based on discernible differences, connected firms are grouped into civil connected and military connected firms.

The authors provide evidence concerning the earnings credibility incentives of groups of political connected firms and report that their incentives are significantly different. The findings remain robust to alternate methods of earnings credibility.

The findings evidence that civil (military) connected firms report less (more) credible earnings than the control group. High political uncertainty reduces the credibility of earnings. Results for the interaction of political connections and political uncertainty variables are not significant.

The paper investigates just one aspect of Pakistan's political economy, i.e. credibility of earnings; thus, it requires to be cautious on part of readers and policymakers. To reach a clearer conclusion, earnings credibility should be ex amined in the larger context, i.e. in conjunction with rent extractions, etc. A possible extension of the paper can be to investigate the channels of rent extractions used by the two types of connected firms.

The paper has contribution for policymakers as well as users of general purpose financial reports. The findings indicate that the users of general purpose financial reports should be more careful in the use of financial information during political uncertain periods and also of politically connected firms. Furthermore, policymakers should keep the larger context at the forefront while attempting to strengthen the enforcemnet regime.

This paper adds to extant political connections literature by identifying two types of politically connected firms and report that both groups have divergent financial reporting incentives. Furthermore, political uncertainty reduces the credibility of earnings.

This paper aims to examine how different types of corporate political connections (PCs) affect auditor choice decisions (and, therefore, audit quality) and audit opinions following the 2013 Egyptian uprising.

This paper utilizes a unique hand-collected dataset on the type of PCs of Egyptian listed companies from 2014 to 2019. Several analyses are employed to test the hypotheses, including logit regression, probit regression and generalized linear mixed models (GLMM). A number of additional analyses are conducted to ensure the robustness of the results, including the instrumental variables (IVs) probit models and propensity score matching (PSM).

The results show that firms' choice of auditor and audit opinion is heavily influenced by firms' PCs. Companies with PCs through boards of directors and major shareholders hire Big 4 audit firms to enhance corporate legitimacy; however, government-linked companies usually retain non-Big 4 audit firms to avoid increased transparency and to conceal improper activities, including tunneling and rent-seeking. Further, the results indicate that companies with PCs through boards of directors or major shareholders are more likely to receive favorable audit opinions, whereas government-owned businesses are less likely to receive such opinions.

This study provides additional evidence to policymakers that binding regulations and guidelines are necessary to oversee politically connected firms (PCFs) and to enhance governance and investor protection.

This study provides the first empirical evidence on how corporate PCs influence the choice of auditors and the opinions of audit firms in Egypt. This paper also sheds light on the impact of different types of corporate PCs on the choice of auditors and audit opinions.

This paper aims to examine the effects of the social distinction of company directors on firm performance.

The social distinction of company directors adds to the firm’s reputation, allowing the firm to access resources and privileges. The indicators of social distinction this study uses are the prenominal titles of directors in Malaysian companies. As Malaysian companies are known to have directors with political connections and the prenominal titles can be intertwined with these connections, to ascertain the effects of social distinction on firm performance, this study examines whether social distinctions proxy and complement political connections in improving firm performance. This study uses Tobin’s Q (TQ) for longer-term performance and gross sales for current-year performance.

This study finds evidence to suggest that the impact of higher-order titles on Tobin’s Q and sales is greater in politically unconnected firms than in connected firms. This study also finds evidence to suggest that higher-order titles amplify the effect on Tobin’s Q in politically connected firms, whereas lower-order titles amplify sales, both moderated by firm-age. The findings shed light on the mediating variables that contribute to the above, and are robust for alternative performance measures, and account for endogeneity concerns.

The results are generalisable only to countries where social distinctions are of significance.

Future research on political connections should consider social connections that affect firms. Also, such research should prompt the awarders of titles to prohibit the use of titles for pecuniary motives to minimise market imperfections.

Adding to the prior literature on the characteristics of directors and firm performance, this study shows that the social distinctions of directors do matter.

In this study, the authors explore the effects of politically controlled boards on bank loan performance in both state-owned commercial banks (SCBs) and private sector commercial banks (PCBs) in Bangladesh.

The data consist of 409 bank-year observations from 46 sample SCBs and PCBs of Bangladesh for the period 2008–17. The authors apply ordinary least squares pooled regression with year fixed effect for baseline econometric analyses and generalized method of moments regression for robustness tests after addressing the endogeneity issue.

The regression results reveal that the presence of bank “boards controlled by politically affiliated directors” (PA) have significant positive effects on non-performing loans (NPLs). Similarly, the presence of “boards controlled by politically affiliated directors without substantial ownership interests” (PAWOI) show positive association with NPLs. In contrast, the presence of “boards controlled by politically affiliated directors with substantial ownership interests” (PAOI) exhibit an inverse relationship with NPLs. These findings support ‘agency conflict’ arguments and document that both PA and PAWOI are detrimental to bank loan performance in Bangladesh, while PAOI do not have significant effect on increasing NPLs.

This study contributes to the existing bank governance literature by providing evidence from an emerging economy perspective, where politically affiliated directors (PADs) exploit their positions for personal and/or political gain at the cost of other stakeholders by taking advantage of relaxed regulatory oversights and investor protections.

The authors examine the effect of the politically connected supervisory board (PV_SVP) on corporate investment behavior in Indonesia in the period of 2015–2019.

The authors use Indonesian listing companies as our sample. Ordinary Least Squares regression is applied to investigate this association. Also, the authors address the endogeneity problem by using the generalized method of moments.

The authors find that firms with political connections through Supervisory Boards (SBs) are negatively significantly associated with corporate investment. Our results are robust to alternative measures and to test for endogeneity.

The authors contribute to prior research by showing empirical findings on the investment behavior of politically connected firms using an emerging economy context, Indonesia, which has a unique political landscape. The authors offer practical implications for practitioners and policymakers, such as improving the corporate governance system and promoting better investment opportunities by establishing a transparent and competitive environment.

Our study differs from other studies due to different corporate governance and political connection settings. While most prior studies examine the investment behavior of politically connected firms using the Chinese context, the authors use Indonesia which has different political and governance landscapes. Indonesia applies a two-tier board system that promotes the strategic role of the political supervisory board.

Firm performance has become a thriving research field. However, a review of previous studies shows that the answers to several fundamental questions remain vague and require further investigation. Thus, the purpose of this study is twofold. The first is to determine the extent of the involvement of political connections (PCs) in Pakistani-listed companies, and the second is to examine the association between PCs and firm financial performance with director efficacy’s moderating role.

A data set of 221 non-financial companies listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange for 10 years (2008–2017) was analysed using panel-corrected standard error regression. Additionally, the authors address endogeneity issue by using Hackman two-stage estimation and lagged variables regression.

The study found that PCs negatively affected the firm’s financial performance, and director efficacy as a moderator strengthened this relationship. The result is consistent with the political economy theory that argues that an unstable political system and a weak judicial system will strongly affect investors and their rights.

The impact of political influence on the corporate sector remains a concern for policymakers, regulators, investors, financial experts, auditors and academic researchers. This study’s findings are that an effective board of directors can strengthen the company’s best practices by controlling political connectedness to protect all the interested parties, particularly investors, and restore their confidence. Therefore, the results of this study can assist all stakeholders when a PCs exists to make the right decisions.

The study extends the literature in terms of theoretical contribution that uses an integrative approach to combine political economy theory, agency theory and resource dependence theory to address the moderating role of director efficacy with an association between PCs and firm financial performance. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no extant research has investigated the association between PCs and firm financial performance using five aspects of PCs, along with moderator director efficacy.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of politically connected directors (PCDs), media coverage and their interaction on firm performance in an emerging market economy (UAE).

This study relies on the agency theory and the resource dependency theory and uses a panel data set of a sample of non-financial firms listed in the UAE stock market from 2009 to 2016. Data were analyzed using fixed-effects regression. Instrumental variable regression was used to address potential endogeneity.

PCDs and media are positively associated with firm performance (ROE and Tobin’s q). Media moderates the PCDs–performance relationship, as the interaction between PCDs and media coverage is negatively associated with firm performance. Under growing media attention, reputational concerns prevent PCDs from using their connections to gain particular advantages to their firms to avoid damaging their image.

Regulators need to acknowledge and define the roles of PCDs and media in business governance.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, this study is the first empirical examination testing the effect of the interplay between PCDs and media on firm performance in an emerging market economy such as UAE.

A key goal of this research is to examine empirically whether politically connected board members are likely to impact corporate philanthropy. A further goal of this study is to contribute to the existing literature by examining the moderating role of political connections on the relationship between family ownership and corporate donations.

Based on the content analysis approach, the authors determined the level of cash and in-kind donations made by a group of 94 non-financial Jordanian companies listed on the Amman Stock Exchange. This study examined 658 annual reports spanning over seven years from 2010 to 2016. Ordinary least squares regression (OLS) is used to test the study hypotheses. In addition, this study used the probit regression to validate those results reported by the OLS regression.

Compared to unconnected companies, politically connected companies in Jordan are more likely to donate to philanthropic causes. Moreover, the results revealed that the presence of significant family ownership shareholding in a firm can weaken the firm tendency to donate. Despite this, the regression analysis results indicate that family-controlled firms with political connections are more likely to engage in charitable giving activities compared to those without political nexuses.

The study contributes to the conversation surrounding corporate giving and sheds light on the role political connections and ownership structure (particularly family-owned firms) play in affecting donations by firms.

Managers of Jordanian firms listed on the stock exchange can use the study's findings to make better decisions about their donations and other philanthropic activities.

This study is the first to examine the relationship between firm donations and political connections in Jordan, and how political nexuses can moderate the relationship between family ownership and corporate donations. Hence, it extends prior research significantly.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of political connections on the association between firms' business strategy and their tax aggressiveness in an emerging economy such as China.

The authors study a large sample of Chinese public firms from 2011 to 2017 using a panel regression model. In addition, a change analysis, an instrument variable test and alternative measures/samples are implemented as robustness tests.

Firms adopting innovative business strategy are more tax aggressive overall. However, innovative firms with political connections are less tax aggressive compared to those without political connections.

This paper contributes to the understanding of firms' tax behaviors in an emerging economy setting. It suggests that there are costs associated with political connections, such as foregone tax saving opportunities, which are understudies in the prior literature.