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Many organizations around the world currently are facing board diversity issues and challenges. Hence, this empirical paper investigates the relationship between board diversity and firm’s financial performance. We use a sample of 35 companies from five countries in Southeast Europe (Macedonia, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Greece) for the period between 2008 and 2012 to find that, on average, companies with well-educated board members are more profitable and overvalued on the market. When running the regression again to test the levels of heterogeneity, we also find that the companies with more women on board tend to be overvalued on the market, while those with more foreigners on board are subject of undervaluation. The paper mostly contributes to the literature on corporate governance and board diversity. First, we postulate the impact of each of the board diversity variables on the financial performance and then show the extent of this impact and its economic interpretation. Our findings have important practitioners’ implications for corporate regulators and policy-makers since the demonstrated positive impact of the well-educated board members on firm’s financial performance gives a new impetus in building a corporate strategy that will intend to engage more people holding PhD on board.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the internal control disclosure (ICDISC) practices in South Asia and compare those disclosure practices across enforced setting (India) versus comply or explain setting (Pakistan and Bangladesh). Further, whether the audit firm size moderates the relationship between ICDISC practices and board & audit committee effectiveness.

To achieve these objectives, a sample of 100 non-financial companies was selected from Pakistan and India for three years’ period (2013-2015), whereas 93 companies were selected from Bangladesh based on market capitalization. The ICDISC index has been used which is based on the COSO framework.

Results of univariate analysis show that public sector companies in South Asia tend to disclose significantly more internal control information as compared to private sector companies. In terms of enforcement variable, the results of Mann–Whitney test show that companies listed in enforced setting have disclosed significantly greater extent of overall as well as individual categories of ICDISC as compared to companies listed in comply or explain setting. Based on multivariate analysis results for overall sample, it was found that board and audit committee characteristics and ownership by government have positive significant effect on ICDISC except representation of female or foreigner on audit committee which was found negatively significant. In addition to this, listing on foreign stock exchange and enforcement effect emerged as significant variables to influence ICDISC. Finally, the results of additional analysis state that the role of board and audit committee for influencing ICDISC has been moderated by the external auditor size in South Asia. In addition, enforcement variable is highly positively significant for companies having non-big four audit firm.

These results imply that enforcement variable acts as an important alternative external control mechanism when companies do not have big four audit firm as their external auditors.

This is very first study on ICDISC in South Asia which explores the effect of enforcement and governance on ICDISC practices of firms. It also contributes toward the literature that the regulation on reporting of internal control can be effective in developing country only if there is strong penalty for non-compliance by regulatory authorities.

This paper investigates the impacts of globalization processes on the Swiss business elite community during the 1980–2010 period. Switzerland has been characterized in the 20th century by its extraordinary stability and by the strong cohesion of its elite community. To study recent changes, we focus on Switzerland’s 110 largest firms’ by adopting a diachronic perspective based on three elite cohorts (1980, 2000, and 2010). An analysis of interlocking directorates allows us to describe the decline of the Swiss corporate network. The second analysis focuses on top managers’ profiles in terms of education, nationality as well as participation in national community networks that used to reinforce the cultural cohesion of the Swiss elite community, especially the militia army. Our results highlight a slow but profound transformation of top management profiles, characterized by a decline of traditional national elements of legitimacy and the emergence of new “global” elements. The diachronic and combined analysis brings into light the strong cultural changes experienced by the national business elite community.

This study aims to examine the effect of social reputation on the relationship between boards and foreign ownership on the quality of sustainability disclosure.

The sample of this study consists of publicly-traded primary and secondary sector companies in Indonesia for 12 years, from 2009 to 2020. This study uses panel model regression to generate its results. The disclosure data are hand-collected data sourced from annual financial and company sustainability reports.

Higher foreign board component companies report lower quality of sustainability disclosure, whereas companies that possess foreign ownership components report a higher quality of sustainability disclosure. This result is strengthened by obtaining consistent results tested with economic, social and environmental disclosure components. In addition, if the company has a good social reputation, it will strengthen the relationship of foreign ownership to the quality of sustainability disclosure.

These findings are relevant for policymakers, professional organizations and practitioners in Indonesia and other developing countries.

The moderating effect of social reputation on the relation of the foreign board and foreign ownership-quality of sustainability disclosure as this study does remain rare in developing countries. This study complements various research conducted in developing countries, such as Indonesia, by offering a new dimension. The results indicate that social reputation has a moderating role in determining the impact of foreign ownership on the quality of sustainability disclosure.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of board composition on the profitability of banks in Tanzania. First, it examines the differences between local and foreign-owned banks in terms of their boards and profitability, and then the contribution of board composition to banks’ profitability.

The paper utilizes a secondary panel data set of information on the boards, their operations and financial statements of 35 banks. The data were collected between 2009 and 2013. The authors tested the stated hypotheses using descriptive and econometric analyses.

The results show a significant difference in board composition and profitability between local and foreign-owned banks. Local banks have a higher income and profits. With their contextual knowledge they are able to attract diverse board directors who contribute positively to their performance. The paper also found that large boards and those with women on them were associated with high profitability.

The study focused on three aspects of boards, which are size, foreign directors and women’s representation. The paper is limited in the sense that other aspects of composition that also affect performance are not included in the study.

The paper suggests that in order to maximize profitability, banks should increase the number of directors. Many board members can share skills and knowledge, which can improve performance. Women are underrepresented on boards. With current changes in policy and education in emerging countries, there is a need to increase their representation.

This study contributes to the agency theory by showing that large boards are indeed efficient at monitoring and bringing in profits, especially in an emerging economy where there are multifaceted risks at country and company level. These risks require shareholders and investors to have a much better understanding of the banks and that is where a large board plays a key role.

This study aims to contribute to the debate on the relationship between board diversity and performance, a hot topic for scholars and shareholders. A number of studies have found contrasting impacts of board diversity on firm performance and this paper adds new and original evidence in the context of the automotive supply chain focusing on gender, age and nationality diversity.

The authors propose a triple stage empirical analysis. First, the authors use linear models according to different performance indexes for investigating diversity (gender, age and nationality) within the board of directors and executives. Second, the authors investigate the issue of diversity in different contexts such as position in the supply chain, nationality of the owner and family/corporate ownership. Finally, the authors use non-linear models to find a better combination of diversity in terms of gender and nationality for retrieving some managerial implications.

First, the authors demonstrate a robust positive effect of women in board representation on firm performance in terms of profitability and firm risk. In the case of, age and nationality the results are more equivocal in particular for the former. Second, the authors depict board diversity in different contexts as follows: positioning in the supply chain, type and nationality of the final owner. Again, gender heterogeneity is more adequate in the complex firm as Tier 1 suppliers, corporate and foreign company.

The authors focused the analysis on a specific industry, shedding light on the main specificities linked to operating in certain phases of the supply chain, a substantial novelty in this field. The empirical evidence is based on a very large data set containing quantitative and qualitative information on a representative sample of 1,538 firms operating in the Italian automotive supply chain, one of the most relevant in Europe.

This study investigates whether there are relationships between the characteristics of the boards of trustees of universities in the Arab region, higher education quality assurance and the output of scientific research.

The descriptive analytical approach was used in this study. The study was conducted on the universities of the Arab region that are included in the classification of the British Institution for the Arab Region: QS Arab Region University.

The findings show that there is an effect of the characteristics of the trustees combined in the universities of the Arab region on ensuring the quality of higher education, other than the output of scientific research. The findings also indicate when measuring the characteristics individually that the trustee system is not effective in the Arab region and it is only formal for nominal purposes.

Most universities in the Arab region do not disclose the data of boards of trustees, their roles, committees, rules of procedure and the nature of their work. A large number of universities also do not operate under the trustee system because the regulations and instructions do not allow this in the country.

This study seeks to improve practitioners knowledge, including boards of trustees, in ensuring the quality of higher education and the output of scientific research.

The research projected the governance model through the characteristics of the boards of directors of for-profit companies on the boards of trustees of universities in the Arab region. The study examines the nature of the characteristics of the boards of trustees that are compatible with its responsibilities, the most important of which is the supervision of the strategy to ensure the quality of higher education research.

This study aims to revisit the corporate social and environmental disclosure (CSED) practices of Pakistani companies using unique CSED index which measures the CSED through three dimensions such as theme, news type and nature of information. In addition, the effect of board composition, ownership structure and corporate characteristics on CSED was tested through performing multiple regression analysis.

For this purpose, data were collected from annual reports of top 120 companies’ selected based on market capitalization for three years period of 2013-2015.

Based on the descriptive statistics, the results found that overall level of CSED in Pakistan is moderate. However considering CSED using three dimensions, the results demonstrate that highest level of disclosure on the basis of theme is reported in terms of human resource category as compared to other categories where, as in terms of news type and nature of information, analysis shows that companies in Pakistan feel resistant to disclose bad news, monetary and non-monetary aspect of CSED information. Using multiple regression analysis, the results found that all the variables have hypothesized relationship with CSED except government and institutional ownership. The variables such as chairman as non-executive director, board diversity, appointment of independent director as audit committee chairman, CSR committee, industry type and firm size are found to have significant influence on the CSED practices in Pakistan.

These results imply that the CSED phenomenon is still lacking behind. Under individual categories of CSED, descriptive statistics found that environment is still not a matter of concern for companies operating in Pakistan. In addition, the results demonstrate that CSED practices are only performed by very few companies in Pakistan based on standard deviation. In addition, appointment of non-executive and independent director as chairman of board and audit committee and representation of foreigners on the board should be encouraged in order to improve CSED practices in Pakistan.

This study contributes to the existing literature in developing country like Pakistan through using unique CSED index and also making comparison of financial versus non-financial sectors. The author suggests that regulatory authorities in Pakistan must take reasonable steps to make the company’s operations environment-friendly.

The empirical study aims to examine the impact of board diversity with respect to gender and nationality on firm performance in an emerging economy. This research further splits the sample into family and non-family domains and investigates the diversity–performance nexus in isolation.

The sample consists of 183 listed companies in Bangladesh over the period 2007 to 2017. This study employed the generalised method of moments (GMM) technique to address the possible endogeneity issue in the governance–performance connection. To underscore the strength of diversity, three distinctive assessment measures were used: percentage representation of females and foreign directors, the Blau index and the Shannon index.

The results for the full sample models reveal that board heterogeneity regarding both female and foreign directors positively and significantly influences firm performance as measured by return on assets (ROA). Further to this, female directors in family-owned businesses have a positive association with profitability, whereas foreign nationals demonstrate a significant positive association with performance in non-family firms. Additionally, at least three women directors are needed to make a positive difference in profitability; however, a sole director with foreign nationality is capable of demonstrating a similar impact on performance.

The findings are significant for policymakers and organisations that advocate diversity on corporate boards of directors, and the minimum number of diverse board members needs to be considered depending on the identity to bring about a significant change in organisational outcome. Therefore, the findings of this study may be applied to other emerging economies with similar institutional characteristics.

This study reinforces the existing stock of knowledge on the impact of board diversity on the profitability of firms, especially in the context of an emerging economy – Bangladesh. Irrespective of the given backdrop, this study finds that both gender and nationality diversity in the case of Bangladesh is found to have a positive and significant effect on financial performance with respect to all the diversity metrics, i.e. the proportionate number of female and foreign directors on the boards, the Blau index and the Shannon index.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of corporate board characteristics on the financial performance of Nigerian quoted firms. Board characteristics studied comprise board size, board skill, board nationality, board gender, board ethnicity and CEO duality.

The study employed the random‐effects and fixed‐effects generalised least squares (GLS) regression to test the six hypotheses formulated for the study, while controlling for firm size and firm age.

Using panel data from 122 quoted firms in Nigeria between 1991 and 2008, it was found that board size, CEO duality and gender diversity were negatively linked with firm performance, whereas board nationality, board ethnicity and the number of board members with a PhD qualification were found to impact positively on firm performance. The result of the robustness test using the same board characteristics for 160 small firms showed that board duality was positively linked to firm performance, while a PhD qualification was negatively linked to firm performance.

The study contributes to the understanding of the board‐performance link by examining both the traditional variables such as board size, CEO duality and other organisational attributes such as ethnic diversity, foreign nationality and competence variables represented by women and PhD holders, respectively. The results provide an insight for practitioners and policy makers on the importance of relying on institutional specifics in the prescription of corporate governance codes.

The study adds value to the global corporate governance discourse in two ways: first, the use of Nigeria, which is claimed to have one of the weakest business cultures in the world, and secondly, using a good number of proxies that are country‐specific for corporate boards.