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1 – 2 of 2Umar Habibu Umar, Jamilu Sani Shawai, Anthony Kolade Adesugba and Abubakar Isa Jibril
This study aims to evaluate how audit committee (AC) characteristics affect the performance of banks in Africa.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to evaluate how audit committee (AC) characteristics affect the performance of banks in Africa.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors manually generated unbalanced panel data from 78 commercial banks operating in twelve (12) countries whose annual reports were published on the website of African Financials between 2010 and 2020.
Findings
The results indicate that AC size has an insignificant positive association with bank performance (return on equity and Tobin’s Q). AC independence has a significant positive association with bank performance. However, AC gender diversity has a significant negative association with bank performance. Besides, AC financial expertise has a significant positive and negative association with return on equity and Tobin’s Q, respectively.
Research limitations/implications
The study considered only 78 banks that operate in twelve (12) African countries. Besides, the authors consider only four (4) AC attributes.
Practical implications
The findings suggest the need to maintain a smaller AC, appoint more independent members to AC, reduce the number of women appointed to AC and ensure most AC members have financial expertise. These measures could improve bank performance in Africa.
Originality/value
Unlike previous African studies that are mostly restricted to a country level, the study examined how AC attributes influence the performance of banks that operate in Africa.
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Keywords
Umar Habibu Umar, Egi Arvian Firmansyah, Muhammad Rabiu Danlami and Mamdouh Abdulaziz Saleh Al-Faryan
This paper aims to examine the effects of corporate governance mechanisms (board chairman independence, board independent director meeting attendance, audit committee size and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the effects of corporate governance mechanisms (board chairman independence, board independent director meeting attendance, audit committee size and audit committee meetings) on the environmental, social and governance (ESG) and its individual component disclosures of listed firms in Saudi Arabia.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used unbalanced panel data obtained from the Bloomberg data set over 11 years, from 2010 to 2020.
Findings
The findings indicate that board chairman independence (BCI) and audit committee size (AC size) have a significant negative and positive association with ESG disclosure, respectively. However, the results show that board independent director meeting attendance (BIMA) and audit committee meetings (AC meetings) do not significantly influence ESG disclosure. Regarding the individual dimensions (components), the results show that only BIMA has a significant negative association with environmental disclosure. Besides, only BCI and AC meetings have a significant positive association with social disclosure. Also, only BIMA and AC size have a significant positive and negative relationship with governance disclosure, respectively.
Research limitations/implications
The study used a sample of 29 listed companies in Saudi Arabia. Each firm has at least four years of ESG disclosures. Besides, the paper considered only four corporate governance attributes, comprising two each for the board and audit committee.
Practical implications
The results provide insights to regulators, boards of directors, managers and investors to enhance ESG and its components’ reporting toward the sustainable operations and better performance of Saudi firms.
Originality/value
This study is among the few that provide empirical evidence on how some essential corporate governance attributes that have not been given adequate attention by prior studies (board chairman independence, board independent directors’ meeting attendance, audit committee size and audit committee meetings) influence not only ESG reporting as a whole but also its individual dimensions (components).
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