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This study aims to investigate the relationship between corporate governance risk and agency costs across different countries.

Corporate governance risk indicators were obtained from the Institutional Shareholder Services Europe (S.A.) for 4,135 firms across 27 countries. Agency costs and other control variables were derived from companies’ annual financial reports using the DataStream database. Ordinary least squares multiple regression analysis model was used to test the study hypothesis.

Agency costs have a significant negative impact on corporate governance risk across countries. The extent of corporate governance mechanisms used, however, varies across geographic regions and industry types. The relationship between corporate governance risk and agency costs is more obvious in the non-financial than financial sector. These results were robust after several statistical checks.

The findings will help stakeholders, including corporate management, regulators and investors to improve corporate governance mechanisms and capital allocation decisions across countries.

Evidence is provided on the role of agency costs in corporate governance risk across geographic regions for financial and non-financial companies. The paper also overcomes common problems in corporate governance research such as construct validity, limited data and endogeneity.

This paper aims to measure the extent of related party transactions disclosure and investigates their determinants across all listed companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) stock market during 2010 to 2012.

An index was manually constructed for related party transactions disclosure in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) (IAS 24) using company financial statements.

Empirical results show relatively low level of related party transactions disclosure in the UAE emerging market. Furthermore, the multiple regression analysis (OLS) shows that related party transactions disclosure has significant relationships with the number of board members, audit quality, block-holders’ ownership, company size, leverage and product market competition. The multiple regression analysis (OLS) also highlights that industry type plays a significant and crucial role in disclosure levels across companies.

This paper does not control for some corporate governance mechanisms such as audit committee characteristics.

This paper provides useful guidelines for several stakeholders including policy makers, accounting standard setters and corporate managers.

IFRS (IAS 24) standards were used to measure the strength of related party transactions disclosure. In addition, several variables were tested such as corporate governance mechanisms, ownership structure and product market competition on related party transactions disclosure over time; in an emerging market such as the UAE.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between related party transactions disclosure (RPTD) and firm valuation in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), an emerging market.

Data on study variables were obtained manually from the published financial statements of all listed companies in the stock market during the period 2008-2012. Panel regression analysis models with fixed and random effects were used to ensure reliability of results. Several robustness checks were undertaken on the study outcomes.

The empirical results show that there is a significant negative relationship between RPTD and firm valuation in the UAE. RPTDs for subsidiaries and associates have the most damaging impact on firm valuation. Other control variables such as corporate governance disclosure (CGD), debt to equity, asset tangibility and sales growth show significant impact on firm valuation.

The potential difference in the understanding of what constitutes “related party” across companies may affect the extent of related party disclosure across companies. Furthermore, some variables are not controlled for such as ownership structure and cultural values.

This paper provides useful practical guidelines for regulatory agencies, corporate managers and other stakeholders for improving the financial reporting system.

RPTD was measured according to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IAS 24) standards. Furthermore, the impact of new control variables such as CGD and product market competition was tested for financial and non-financial sectors.

This paper aims to investigate the internal and external determinants of firms’ efficiency and develop optimal corporate governance risk benchmarks for the manufacturing sector across different countries.

Corporate governance risk data were acquired from Institutional Shareholder Services Europe SA. Data on firms’ efficiency and for explanatory and control variables were taken from the DataStream database. The generalised directional distance function data envelopment analysis (GDDF-DEA) model and its stochastic extension provided corporate efficiency measures and optimal corporate governance benchmarks. The authors used ordinary least squares multiple regression analysis with wild bootstrapping to test the study hypotheses.

The authors found significant differences between firms’ optimal and actual efficiency input/output variables and corporate governance risks in the manufacturing sector across countries. Internal firm characteristics such as group affiliations, product market competition and insider ownership and external institutional factors such as the legal system, the rule of law, control of corruption, law enforcement and cultural values are vital determinants of firms’ efficiency.

This paper provides valuable guidance to enable corporate managers, regulators and policymakers to enhance firms’ efficiency and corporate governance practices.

This paper develops optimal corporate governance risk benchmarks and identifies the most critical internal and external factors affecting firms’ efficiency in the manufacturing sector in various countries. It also used a novel GDDF-DEA model, with the multi-parametric model for bias correction of efficiency estimator.

This study investigates the impact of organizational culture on the governance transparency of audit firms operating in the emerging market of the United Arab Emirates. The study unpacks how organizational culture influences audit firms' perceptions and practices regarding transparency in leadership, operations and reporting.

The primary data for this study is collected through an online survey distributed to auditing firms in the UAE, with statistical analysis conducted using multiple regression models and robustness checks. The survey is designed to assess transparency practices in leadership, operations and reporting based on the Financial Reporting Council’s (UK) audit firm governance code. Then, the data is analyzed using SPSS software, representing a diverse sample of auditors from different firm types, ownership structures and sizes.

The study reveals that organizational culture significantly influences audit firms' perceptions of governance transparency practices. Specifically, cultural aspects such as public interest, improvements and consultation positively and significantly impact voluntary transparency in leadership, operations and reporting. Notably, reporting practices are particularly affected by organizational cultural norms and values. Furthermore, transparency practices vary based on audit firms' size, type and industry. These findings offer valuable guidance for audit firms, regulators and accounting standards setters in developing suitable governance mechanisms for global audit firms, including developed and developing countries.

Future studies may extend the scope by including additional transparency issues such as independent non-executives and dialogue practices. Further, it would be valuable to investigate the influence of organizational culture components, such as symbols and assumptions shared by employees, on governance transparency and to include an additional set of control variables, such as corporate governance. By incorporating these aspects into research, a more comprehensive understanding of transparency practices within organizations can be achieved.

This study offers directions for stakeholders in the audit industry, aiding them in developing effective governance strategies both locally and internationally. The study further highlights ways audit firms can foster a culture of transparency, regulators can establish relevant frameworks, and accounting standards setters can contribute to developing consistent and appropriate governance mechanisms across different countries.

This study explores the influence of organizational culture on governance transparency in UAE audit firms, emphasizing the role of cultural elements in shaping transparency practices. It provides insights for enhancing governance mechanisms in global audit firms. Previous studies dealt with different determinants of audit behavior and performance. This study extends this prior literature by focusing on organizational culture as a vital underlying informal mechanism for controlling agency relationships.

This paper investigates the relationship between information quality and stock returns during the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS 9) pre-adoption announcements and examines the influence of modern technology on these relationships across 24 emerging countries.

This paper conducts an event study using data obtained from the DataStream, Osiris, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the World Bank databases from 2009 to 2014. The non-linear generalized additive model (GAM) was implemented to test the study hypotheses.

Results indicate a significant positive non-linear relationship between low information quality and stock returns during IFRS 9 pre-adoption announcements. This result implies that IFRS 9 announcements have a positive impact on corporations with low pre-adoption quality information. This result is also more pronounced in small rather than large corporations and financial rather than nonfinancial institutions. Furthermore, modern technology plays a significant decisive antecedent role, while industry type has a moderating effect on the relationship between information quality and stock returns. The codified legal system has a positive impact on stock returns across emerging countries.

Data unavailability in some emerging countries.

The empirical evidence provides useful guidelines for corporate managers, investors, international accounting standard-setters and regulators to improve financial reporting practices.

This paper extends the work of Armstrong et al. (2010); Onali et al. (2017) by including the impact of non-linear relationships using GAM analysis and the role of modern technology across emerging countries.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether bank capital strength and external auditing requirements influenced international stock market stability during the 2007/2008 global financial crisis.

Bank mandatory regulation data are obtained from the World Bank database, while stock market stability is gauged for 385 listed banks across 43 countries by means of generalised least squares regression models.

The authors find that mandatory capital strength requirements and the existence of mandatory audit increase stock market stability across countries. Further, more profitable banks increase stock market stability. The results are robust to both country institutional settings and economic freedom characteristics.

This paper provides evidence of the impact of bank regulations on stock market stability during the global financial crisis, thereby providing a useful insight for stakeholders to enhance financial regulation and policy.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between the quality of property rights institutions (PRIs) and bank financial performance in an empirical study of 136 countries over the period 1999-2006.

The quality of PRIs and financial accounting-based measures of bank performance are obtained from the Economic Freedom of the World Project (Gwartney et al., 2006), the Polity IV Project, the World Bank data indicators database, and the International Monetary Fund. Several multiple regression analyses are conducted to test the study hypotheses.

The results reveal that the quality of legal structure and security of PRIs positively (negatively) affects both bank cost efficiency (inefficiency) and profitability. The presence of a quality political structure negatively (positively) affects bank cost efficiency (inefficiency). The quality of political structure has no direct impact on bank profitability. The impact of PRIs on bank cost efficiency is more evident in the upper middle and high income group of countries than in the low and lower middle income group of countries. An appropriate level of PRI quality is essential to achieve both competition and development.

The paper highlights policy implications for international policy makers, regulators, and the management of banks who are interested in banking sector development across countries.

The study investigates the fundamental importance of PRI quality in its effect on the banking sector and extends the largely US-focused literature to a broader international setting.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of corporate governance disclosure on share price accuracy of listed companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Data on corporate governance disclosure were obtained from the financial statements of companies listed in the UAE stock market, and share price accuracy indices were crafted from each company’s weekly share price returns between 2008 and 2009, using generalized least squares regression analysis. Multiple regression analysis with fixed effects was then implemented to test the study hypotheses.

Voluntary corporate governance disclosure has a significant positive impact on share price accuracy. There is also evidence that mandatory corporate governance disclosure plays an important positive role on share price accuracy in the UAE business environment.

This paper covers a two-year transitional period during implementation of a new corporate governance code in the emerging market of the UAE.

This paper encourages corporate managers in the UAE, as well as in other countries with similar business conditions, to review their voluntary corporate governance disclosure policies in accordance with international good practice. The authors suggest that regulators and accounting standard setters should extend mandatory corporate governance disclosure rules for the benefit of stock market participants and the overall welfare of the economy.

This paper extends the literature on the relationship between accounting disclosure and share price accuracy to include corporate governance disclosure in emerging market economies such as the UAE. It also shows the importance of both voluntary and mandatory corporate governance disclosure.

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between organizational culture and corporate risk disclosure for listed companies in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

The organizational culture is represented by four dimensions: Clan, Adhocracy, Market and Hierarchy (Cameron and Quinn, 1999). Data are computed from the financial reports of all listed companies on the UAE Stock Market as of the year ending 2005. The multiple regression analysis model, ordinary least square, is used to test the study hypotheses.

Results show that the organizational culture of Hierarchy, which focuses on more formalized work procedures, has a significant positive effect on the companies’ risk disclosure in the UAE business environment. Several other control variables are implemented to ensure reliability of results.

Listed companies in the UAE are more responsive to formal rules and regulations on reporting risk disclosure, which is quite different from the “self-regulation” practices that are more common in some Western countries. Consequently, policymakers and regulators in the UAE, and in other countries with similar conditions, are encouraged to focus on continuous development of formal rules and procedures to enable more harmony with international best practices of risk disclosure.

Unlike the majority of previous empirical studies, this is the first study to incorporate a behavioral endogenous organizational culture model to explain the main determinants of risk disclosure, which opens the door for more understanding of the risk disclosure output function as a management process.