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In this paper, the impact of stock-based compensation and further the joint effects of stock-based compensation and investor sentiment on pension discount rate choice is examined.

The hypotheses is tested using fixed effects models and instrumental variable analysis where pension discount rate is the dependent variable, and stock-based compensation and investor sentiment are our variables of interest.

It was found that pension discount rate is negatively associated with managers' stock-based compensation. Further analysis indicates that managers with larger stock-based compensation tend to adjust down their pension discount rates in higher (smaller) degree, responding to high (low) investor sentiment.

The findings provide important insights into how managers use pension discount rates to engage in earnings management. Understanding these relationships has implications for interpreting pension numbers reported in the financial statements and designing pension accounting rules that minimize the possibility that managers take advantage of the complexity associated with pension accounting to influence the reported earnings and executive compensation. Moreover, the findings suggest the need for increased attention from boards of directors, auditors and regulators to reported pension liabilities and service costs, especially for firms paying higher proportion of stock-based compensation to managers and during periods of high investor sentiment.

The findings contribute to the extant literature by identifying the joint impacts of stock-based compensation and investor sentiment as incentives for pension discount rate manipulation. The empirical results of this study also have important implications for corporate governance and regulation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how investor sentiment, proxied by Michigan consumer confidence index, affects the choice of defined benefit pension plan discount rates.

The authors use multivariate analysis to test our hypotheses. The dependent variable is defined pension plan discount rate and the testing variables are investor sentiment and a dummy variable representing underfunded status.

The authors find a negative and significant relation between investor sentiment and pension plan discount rate. During high (low) sentiment periods, pension discount rate tends to be adjusted downward (upward) discretionarily. Further analysis indicates the relationship between pension discount rate and investor sentiment is more pronounced for firms with underfunded pension plans. The results can be explained by limited attention effects, capital budgeting strategy and earning smoothing.

The empirical results of this study have important implications for corporate governance and regulation. Specifically, the results suggest the need for increased attention from boards of directors, auditors and regulators to reported pension liabilities, especially during periods of high investor sentiment when pension plan sponsors are more likely to adjust down pension discount rate and accordingly to increase pension liabilities.

The paper contributes to the extant literature by identifying investor sentiment as a new incentive of pension discount rate manipulation. The empirical results of this study also have important implications for corporate governance and regulation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate two audit committee characteristics – independence and expertise of the audit committee – and the property‐liability insurers' financial reporting quality, which is proxied by loss reserve error.

The authors' hypotheses are tested using multivariate analysis where the loss reserve error is the dependent variable, and audit committee independence, and four types of audit committee financial expertise (accounting, finance, supervisory, and insurance expertise) are the testing variables.

It is found that accounting, finance, and insurance financial expertise are associated with more accurate loss reserve estimate. In contrast, a supervisory financial expertise and an independence audit committee are not found to be associated with better loss reserve quality.

The sample includes publicly‐held property‐liability insurers. Although the results from publicly‐held insurers could provide a good laboratory for such investigation in all insurers, they might be limited due to different organization structures of public vs private insurers.

The implications of the study are important for the SEC and NAIC. The results suggest that the requirements on the audit committee financial expertise would be necessary, even in highly regulated industry, such as property‐casualty insurance.

The paper contributes to the extant literature by studying audit committee characteristics in the insurance industry. It also contributes to the extant literature on audit committee effectiveness by decomposing the financial expertise into four types of financial expertise (accounting, finance, supervisory, or insurance expertise) and investigates which (if any) of these four types of expertise really drives the improvement of loss reserve quality.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relation between chief executive officer (CEO) compensation and firm performance proxied by efficiency estimated from data envelopment analysis (DEA) of the US property‐liability (P&L) insurance industry.

This study was conducted in two stages. First the authors applied DEA model to calculate efficiency scores. In the second stage, a translog model was used to correlate the level and structure of CEO compensation and the efficiency for the sample P&L insurers over the period of 2000‐2006.

Firm efficiency is positively and significantly associated with total CEO compensation. While revenue efficiency is associated with CEO cash compensation, cost efficiency is associated with incentive compensation.

These findings suggest that while CEO compensation is tied to both revenue and cost efficiency, revenue efficiency is more important in determining cash compensation, and cost efficiency is more prevalent in influencing incentive compensation.

This is the first paper to use efficiency scores as proxies for firm performance to explore the relation between CEO compensation and firm performance in the P&L insurance industry. Due to the nature of insurance business, using efficiency as a performance measurement is more appropriate than accounting and financial ratios since it enables us to net out the effects of differences in exogenous firm‐specific conditions that are beyond management's control.

The purpose of this paper was to examine the difference in the effect on external marketing effectiveness of gender similar boards and gender dissimilar boards in the agro-manufacturing industry in Zimbabwe.

Based on a multi-item construct of external marketing effectiveness, data were gathered from 56 agro-manufacturing firms. The significant differences in the effect of marketing activities designed by male, gender-diverse and female boards on the level of external marketing effectiveness of the firms were examined using MANOVA.

The results suggest significant differences on the levels of external marketing effectiveness between all female boards and all male and gender-diverse boards. Female boards indicated high levels of external marketing effectiveness on customer-perceived value, loyalty, satisfaction, brand performance and symbolic meaning. The study concludes that marketing effectiveness will only be achieved by firms that develop relevant marketing strategies for the female consumer market.

The sample for this research was drawn from agro-manufacturing firms in Zimbabwe. Therefore, the applicability of these findings to other countries should be done with caution. In addition, the sample for the research was rather small, with only a few female boards. If conducted with a larger sample, the results could be different. The developed scale to measure external marketing effectiveness may require to be tested by other researchers in different settings to confirm its applicability in measuring the construct in multiple settings.

Prior research shows that corporate board effectiveness has tended to be measured in terms of corporate financial performance. This research measures board effectiveness from the extent to which its gender composition has an effect on the ability of manufacturing firms to serve emerging needs of female consumers.

This paper aims to examine the relation between chief executive officers (CEOs) compensation and organizational performance in KSA listed companies. It also aims at investigating the effect of corporate governance mechanisms according to this relation.

The researcher uses unbalanced panel data regression analysis on a sample of 181 KSA listed companies from 2005 to 2014.

The estimation result suggests that CEO Compensation is positively associated with firm performance. The results also show that corporate governance positively and significantly affect the relation between CEO Compensation and performance.

This research, like any other, has some limitations that can be addressed by future research. The important limitation of this research is that the generalizability of the results is limited by the fact that the majority of the firms in the sample are from material sector which is represented by 42 (32 per cent) firms versus pharmaceutical sector which is represented by only one (1 per cent) firm. Therefore, a future research can tackle the effect of CEO compensation, corporate governance on future firm performance independently.

The findings have some important implications for stakeholders such as policymakers, listed firms managers, business owners and academic researchers in the emerging KSA market. Besides, understanding the relation between CEO compensation, corporate governance and firm performance can aid the success of corporate modernization and economic reform in KSA.

The research attempts to fill a substantial gap in the literature by providing the first rigorous econometrics evidence on CEO compensation, corporate governance and firm performance. In addition, it provides interesting insight for researches, decision-makers and board members in KSA.