The effect of corporate governance quality and its mechanisms on firm philanthropic donations: evidence from the UK

Purpose This paper aims to investigate whether and how better corporate governance practices can lead to philanthropic behavior among companies in the UK. In particular, this study attempts to determine whether corporate governance quality in general, as well as its specific mechanisms, affects corporate giving. Design/methodology/approach The analysis is based on a sample of Financial Times Stock Exchange All-Share nonfinancial companies. Data on firm donations, including donations amount and donations intensity, were manually collected from companies’ annual reports for the period 2018–2020. This paper uses panel data models to examine the research hypotheses. Findings The results of this study indicate that both donations amount and donations intensity are positively associated with the practice of better corporate governance. Board independence is positively associated with donations amount, but not with the intensity of donations. Furthermore, board size, board gender diversity and the establishment of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) committee are likely to have a positive impact on the amount and the intensity of firms’ donations. However, neither the chief executive officer board membership nor the audit committee’s independence is related to the firm’s donations. Practical implications This study sheds light on specific governance factors that affect firm donations in the context of UK companies. This allows regulators and legislators to evaluate the donations activities in the country and issue more directives to reinforce corporate governance practices that support corporate donations. In addition, the findings of this study are considered crucial to investors who prefer investing in companies with significant CSR-related activities to improve the value relevance of their investments. Originality/value This study provides a shred of unique evidence on the impact of corporate governance practices on firms’ donations

Board Compensation in Financial Sectors: A Systematic Review of Twenty-Four Years of Research

We aim to provide a comprehensive systematic analysis of scholarly publications in the field of board compensation in financial sectors extending through the years 1987 to 2021. Hence, the most notable themes, theories, and contributions to the literature are identified, and research developments over time are evaluated. With the identification of a final sample of 87 research papers indexed in Scopus, we identify research gaps to provide insight into future research following a systematic method. The results revealed that the United States of America received the broadest research interest, along with cross-country research. While the literature lacked to provide investigations for other countries of the world. Although the effect of compensation on organizational outcomes (performance and grow) is still unclear in the literature, several factors have been introduced as key drivers of the compensation, including the country’s level of development, the development of equity markets, the development of banking system, its dependence on foreign capital, collective rights empowering labor, the strength of a country’s welfare institutions, employment market forces, and social order and authority relations. On a theoretical level, agency theory has been most popular in the literature, along with providing multiple theoretical frameworks with agency theory as a slack resources theory, managerial talent theory, and managerial power theory. This is the first research to our knowledge that used a systematic review (SR) of literature to give a complete and comprehensive evaluation of the literature on board compensation in the financial sector. The current study documents the flow of literature on the board’s compensation in the financial sectors over 24 years and establishes future research opportunities

The Financial Determinants of Integrated Reporting Disclosure by Jordanian Companies

The paper aims to investigate the effect of financial leverage, profitability, liquidity ratios, cash holdings, and interest coverage ratios on the level of integrated reporting disclosure—as one of the reports that promotes sustainable development—of Jordanian industrial listed companies. The content analysis method was used to analyze the annual reports of 51 listed Jordanian industrial companies during the years from 2014 to 2019 (306 firm-year observations). The analysis showed that financial leverage, profitability, liquidity and cash holdings are important determinants for integrated reporting, whereas the analysis did not support the effect of the interest coverage ratio. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first empirical study that deals with the impact of a set of financial variables on integrated reporting in the context of emerging countries such as Jordan. This is also the first study that deals with disclosing integrated reports through the perspective of shareholders and stakeholders, as integrated reporting contains two parts, financial and non-financial; therefore, the current study contributes to the disclosure literature by providing new theoretical and empirical evidence in the context of emerging markets

Taking Stock of Carbon Disclosure Research While Looking to the Future: A Systematic Literature Review

Carbon disclosure research has sparked a growing interest due to climate change phenomenon and the impact thereof on the global market in recent years. Despite this trend, there is still a gap in knowledge regarding the role that carbon disclosure plays in the economic activities of corporations. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to systematically review the available literature on corporate carbon reporting by assessing current research trends, theoretical perspectives, and themes discussed in the field. A final sample of 168 studies from the Scopus database that explicitly discussed carbon reporting were included in this investigation. The results indicated an increase in the number of studies, especially in the last five years. In addition, carbon disclosure practices vary between different firm types, sectors, and countries. However, there is a shortage of empirical studies on some contexts that have rarely been considered. Moreover, it was found that the existing literature has only focused on the demographic characteristics of firms as the driving factor of carbon disclosure, while little attention has been paid to the attributes of governance, auditing, top management, and ownership. Nevertheless, there is no academic consensus on some determinants of carbon reporting, including profitability and the effect of the industry. With regard to the reporting quality, there is no evidence that less disclosed information means that reporting is rare in quality. This study provides a comprehensive, systematic analysis of carbon disclosure studies. The implications for future research are also discussed

Soft skills and knowledge required for a professional accountant: Evidence from Jordan

AbstractDue to the rapidly changing economic environment, increasing competition, and the pervasive influence of new technologies in businesses, the accounting profession is encountering challenges in adapting to these changes. Accountants worldwide face new market demands, leading to numerous organizations and individuals in many countries advocating for modifications in accounting curricula to equip students with the necessary skills and knowledge. This quantitative study aims to assess the soft skills possessed by Jordanian accounting graduates and evaluate their adequacy in meeting employer expectations, as employers play a crucial role in enhancing employability. It also investigates the extent to which accounting graduates perceive their university programs to have promoted soft skills and knowledge. A total of 101 students, 75 professionals, and 54 academics participated in the online questionnaire. The participants were asked to assess the importance of 45 skills, categorized into five groups: interpersonal and communication skills, intellectual skills, personal skills, technical and functional skills, and organizational skills/business management skills. The study uncovered disparities between students’ perceptions of skill importance and the perceptions of academics and employers. Moreover, the study’s findings align with existing literature, indicating that employers and academics emphasize interpersonal and communication skills, while graduates prioritize technical and functional skills

Audit committee chair effectiveness and firm performance: The mediating role of sustainability disclosure

AbstractThe primary goal of this study is to investigate the influence of sustainability disclosure (SD) practices on the relationship between audit committee chair characteristics and firms’ performance. The current study used an experimental approach to data collection and analysis. The predicted variable is the AC chair characteristics; the predictor variables are the performance indicator’s return on equity (ROE). The study investigated the indirect impact of the mediating role in the SD index. We manually analysed 405 annual reports of the companies listed on the ASE from 2014 to 2018. The findings revealed a significant and positive relationship between the accounting expertise, tenure, and monitoring expertise of the AC chairs and the performance of the firm measures tested, namely, ROA and ROE. Meanwhile, AC chair experiential expertise types and firm performance measures have a positive but insignificant relationship. Furthermore, the findings revealed that sustainability disclosure mediates the relationship between AC chair effectiveness and ROE in part. The results of this study will help firms understand the expertise of AC chair characteristics that can help firms in Jordan to perform better. The findings indicated that the effectiveness of AC chairs contributes to improved firm performance through sustainability practices. This study is one of the few studies that dealt with AC chair characteristics and one of the first studies that linked this variable to firm performance. Furthermore, our selection of the Jordanian context emphasizes the topic’s importance, as it is one of the developing contexts that has recently seen regulatory reforms in financial markets. It also expands on previous research by looking at Jordan’s listed ASE firms

The Retained Earnings Effect on the Firm’s Market Value: Evidence from Jordan

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the retention per share compared to the dividend per share by modeling the firm’s market value as a function of the retention per share and the dividend per share for all firms in the Jordanian context using unbalanced panel data analysis for a sample of 2281 firm years covering the period from 2010 to 2021. The results of the pooled sample indicated a strong positive significant effect for dividends per share. However, the retention per share indicated a negative significant effect on the firm’s market value. The other robustness analysis for the two sub-samples and the financial and non-financial sub-samples indicated the same results, consistent with the pooled sample for the two main explanatory variables

Green Purchasing: Past, Present and Future

In recent years, discussions on green purchasing have increased; most studies were concentrated in developed countries, with limited studies conducted in developing countries. This study aims to systematically analyze studies that have discussed green purchasing. Using the Scopus database, 142 studies from 61 journals published during the period 1998 to 2021 were analyzed. Our analysis focused on three fundamental aspects: the determinants, the effect of green purchasing, and exploring the theoretical foundations and the most common theories that the studies relied on. The analysis results focused on researchers’ demographic and physiological determinants based on the theory of planned behavior. There has been a development in discussing the determinants related to products and marketing and social and environmental determinants in recent years. The analysis results of the studies that addressed green purchasing show that green purchasing contributes to sustainable development. This study contributes to decision-makers by identifying the mechanisms of persuasion that motivate consumers to buy green products and provides a clear picture of the contribution of green purchasing to improving company performance and thus achieving sustainability, which encourages stakeholders to devise policies, promotional, and marketing strategies through which they can attract consumers

The Relationship between Corporate Governance Quality and Firm Performance: The Moderating Role of Capital Structure

This study aims to explore whether capital structure (CS) has a contingent role in the relationship between corporate governance (CG) quality and firm performance. The empirical findings indicate that CG quality had a positive and significant effect on the performance of Jordanian non-financial firms listed on the Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) from 2014 to 2019. Additionally, the moderate effect of the CS reinforces this relationship. These results are robust to alternative econometric specifications and variable definitions. This study utilizes certain firm-specific characteristics to represent the CS to assess its role as a moderating variable in the relationship between CG quality and firm performance. This study makes a contribution to the literature by showing that CS can strengthen the relationship between CG quality and firm performance. The results have important managerial implications for the practice of CG in developing countries. Firms in developing countries can enhance performance by implementing and abiding by good governance practices. Moreover, firms in developing countries should adopt effective financial strategies regarding CS to enhance the relationship between CG quality and firm performance. Finally, potential investors should consider the debt level in the CS of non-financial firms in Jordan when making investment decisions

The research trend of security and privacy in digital payment

The aim of this study is to synthesize the rapidly increasing literature on privacy and security risk of digital payment. By reviewing 591 studies, the literature on this topic was evaluated using a bibliographical approach to highlight the intellectual development of the field and recommend potential research directions in this still-emerging field. According to our assessment, academics have continued to focus on perceived privacy and security, while more multigroup analyses based on subdimensions of risk are needed. In addition, the vast majority of studies have not considered the inter-relationship between risk attributes. We analyse the potential causes of the lack of research diversity and provide additional suggestions to improve digital payment research in the future. This study will be valuable for academics, analysts, regulators, practitioners, and investors