Board structure-performance relationship in microfinance institutions (MFIs) in an emerging economy

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (5) ◽  
pp. 815-830 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sujani Thrikawala ◽  
Stuart Locke ◽  
Krishna Reddy

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between board structure, financial performance and outreach of microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Sri Lanka, using unbalanced panel data for 300 MFI-year observations for the period 2007 to 2012. Design/methodology/approach Empirical research relating to governance practices in MFIs is still in its infancy, and further studies are needed to determine how improved governance practices may enhance sustainability and outreach of MFIs, especially in emerging economies. The authors use regression techniques to examine whether board structure has an influence on MFI performance. Findings After controlling for internal corporate governance variables, regulatory status, size, age, leverage and year effects, the authors report that board structure does contribute to the financial performance and outreach of MFIs in Sri Lanka. Research limitations/implications The availability of data in the public domain captures the major MFIs but does constrain the generalisability of findings. Practical implications This study enables individual MFIs to evaluate potential restructuring of their boards to promote a dual mission and achieve a more accelerated economic development. Social implications The findings may encourage policy makers to promulgate policy guidelines to deepen MFI outreach to the poorest people. Originality/value Inconsistent findings in prior studies and a general lack of empirical results for the microfinance industry have led to an unclear message regarding corporate governance and MFI performance. This study fills the research gap, contributing to the existing corporate governance literature in the microfinance sector and providing evidence from an emerging economy.

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 382-394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beyza Oba ◽  
Elvin Tigrel ◽  
Pinar Sener

Purpose – This paper aims to understand the determinants of board structure of listed firms at institutional, industry and firm levels within an emerging economy. At the institutional level, the paper explores laws, managerial culture and the role of state in instituting and endorsing corporate governance practices. At the firm level, ownership patterns (family and non-family), experience in the capital markets, age and size of the firms are studied to find out the relation between these variables and the board structure. Design/methodology/approach – The research domain of the study is listed firms operating on the Istanbul Stock Exchange. The data for the study are collected at two phases; at the first phase, compliance reports, annual reports, articles of association and annual shareholders’ meeting reports of each firm in the sample are analyzed. At the second stage, secondary data are used for understanding the dynamics of Turkish institutional context. Findings – The results of this study reveal that boards of directors of listed Turkish firms comply with the governance practices instituted by state agencies, except on issues as independent members and committees that will influence the majority owners’ control domain and private benefits. Originality/value – This paper draws attention on institutional context and argues that “good governance” instruments developed for Anglo-Saxon stock market-controlled business systems provide limited explanation for an emerging economy that is characterized by close cooperation between the state, family-owned businesses and financial markets. The study offers insight to policy makers at a national level, interested in developing corporate governance principles regarding boards of directors of listed firms.


2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 681-700 ◽  
Author(s):  
Androniki Katarachia ◽  
Electra Pitoska ◽  
Grigoris Giannarakis ◽  
Elpida Poutoglidou

Purpose Based on agency theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants on the dissemination level of corporate governance disclosure (CGD). Design/methodology/approach The sample of the study incorporates listed companies in Nifty 500 Index for the period 2009-2014. The Governance Disclosure Score calculated by Bloomberg is used as a proxy for the dissemination level of corporate governance information. In total, eight explanatory variables are uses, namely, board’s size, number of board meetings, CEO duality, presence of women on the board, company’s size, financial performance, Tobin’s Q ratio and financial leverage. Findings The results of study suggest a need for improvement in CGDs by Indian companies, as they fail to comply the majority of the proposed disclosure items. Furthermore, it is revealed that the number of board director, the value of company, the financial leverage and the presence of women affect negatively the dissemination level of corporate governance information. While, the size of company is the only determinant that positively affects the extent of CGD. Practical implications The results are valuable because they reveal the attributes that determines which companies needs less or extra monitoring by shareholders and investors regarding the applied corporate governance practices. In addition, the study can be valuable to policy makers responsible for the regulation of company’s accountability in relation to corporate governance practices. Originality/value The study extents previous studies by incorporating for the first time Bloomberg’s rating approach regarding the dissemination level of CGD in Indian context.


2014 ◽  
Vol 29 (7) ◽  
pp. 649-671 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nkoko Blessy Sekome ◽  
Tesfaye Taddesse Lemma

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to examine the nexus between firm-specific attributes and a company’s decision to setup a separate risk management committee (RMC) as a sub-committee of the board within the context of an emerging economy, South Africa. Design/methodology/approach – The authors analyse data extracted from audited annual financial reports of 181 non-financial firms listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE) by using logistic regression technique. Findings – The results show a strong positive relationship between the existence of a separate RMC and board independence, board size, firm size and industry type. However, the authors fail to find support for the hypotheses that independent board chairman, auditor reputation, reporting risk and financial leverage have an influence on a firm’s decision to establish RMC as a separately standing committee in the board structure. The findings signify the role of costs associated with information asymmetry, agency, upkeep of a standalone RMC, damage to the reputation of directors and industry-specific idiosyncrasies on a firm’s decision to form a separate RMC. Research limitations/implications – As in most empirical studies, this study focuses on listed firms. Nonetheless, future studies that focus on non-listed firms could add additional insights to the literature. Investigating the role of firm-specific governance attributes other than those considered in the present study (e.g. gender of directors, ownership structure, etc.) could further enhance the understanding of antecedents of risk-management practices. Practical implications – The findings have practical implications for the investment community in assessing the quality of risk management practices of companies listed on the JSE. Furthermore, the results provide insights that are potentially useful to the King Committee and other corporate governance regulators in South Africa in their effort to improve corporate governance practices. Originality/value – The present study focuses on firms drawn from an emerging economy which has profound economic, institutional, political and cultural differences compared to advanced economies, which have received a disproportionately higher share of attention in prior studies. Thus, the study contributes additional insights to the literature on corporate risk management from the perspective of an emerging economy.


2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (11) ◽  
pp. 1431-1446 ◽  
Author(s):  
Namporn Thanetsunthorn ◽  
Rattaphon Wuthisatian

Purpose The purpose of this study is to explore the current state of corporate governance in various aspects of business settings and to empirically examine the impact of national culture on corporate governance performance, with a view of supporting business corporations in further enhancing the effectiveness of their corporate governance system. Design/methodology/approach A pooled sample of 9,003 companies drawn from 50 countries across ten different regions is collected. A variety of statistical methods, including the paired sample t-test, the ordinary least squares regression and the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient are implemented to analyze the current state of corporate governance. To empirically investigate the causal relationship between national culture and corporate governance, the multivariate regression analysis is also applied. Findings This study proposes a broad set of the empirical findings regarding the current state of corporate governance. Despite being accepted as a prerequisite building block for sustainable corporate social responsibility (CSR), corporate governance is still receiving far less attention among business corporations. The governance framework is widely adopted by business corporations, yet the intensity of implementing corporate governance is significantly different across regions. The variation of the intensity observed across regions can be explained by the national cultural characteristics that are all likely to impact the degree to which corporations act in corporate governance manners. Corporate governance performance is strongly related to three other aspects of socially responsible corporate performance – community, employee and environment. Research limitations/implications This study provides both the motivation and a starting point for further investigation in the milieu of corporate governance. It would be interesting for future research to further explore the extent to which corporate governance has a positive indirect impact on a firm’s financial performance. There is potential to provide a more comprehensive analysis of the interaction effect of national culture and geographic region on corporate governance performance of the corporations embedded in that region through a statistical interaction method. In addition, it may be interesting to integrate corporate financial performance (CFP) into the analysis to identify a specific type/practice of the corporate governance that could provide the highest return on the investment. Last, another interesting avenue for future research would be to explore the ethical mechanisms that have been institutionalized to promote corporate governance practices. Practical implications The present study is beneficial to both business corporations and policy makers. In essence, the study can potentially draw managers’ attention to applying modified corporate governance strategies according to their national culture. Furthermore, the study can alter business corporations to promote a strong corporate governance regime in chorus to CSR strategies so as to promote CSR development, which ultimately results in higher levels of competitiveness and CFP. In addition, policy makers who are responsible for inward foreign investment can use the findings of this study to evaluate the investors’ potential governance adoption. Originality/value The findings of this study are useful in encouraging the business corporations to further strengthen their corporate governance system. This study helps to fill the theoretical void regarding the cultural impact on corporate governance by exploring a broad set of national cultural characteristics under which good corporate governance is more or less likely to occur.


2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 404-418 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ojonugwa Usman ◽  
Umoru Adejo Yakubu

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of corporate governance practices on the post-privatization financial performance of the firms listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) over the period 2005-2014. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a two-step dynamic system Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimation technique for 27 privatized firms by considering a wide range of controlled variables such as managerial shareholdings, board composition, debt financing and stock market development. Findings The empirical result suggests that the improvement in the firms’ financial performance is attributed to good corporate governance practices through effective board composition, debt financing (leverage) and stock market development. The result further shows no substantial evidence to support that managerial shareholding improves firms’ financial performance. Research limitations/implications Therefore, based on the empirical findings of this study, the authors recommend that the firms need to maintain the optimum board composition and the ratio of debt to share capital as well as developing the stock market to function effectively. Originality/value This study contributes to the existing literature in several ways: (1) the first time that the role of corporate governance is considered in explaining the post-privatization financial performance of firms listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange; (2) the paper applies a two-step dynamic system GMM estimation technique, proposed by Arellano and Bover (1995) and Blundell and Bond (1998) to control for the serial correlation and heterogeneity, which remain the major weaknesses of the panel data modeling in the literature.


2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 462-477 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erika López-Quesada ◽  
María-del-Mar Camacho-Miñano ◽  
Samuel O. Idowu

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of corporate governance practices on firms’ financial performance, as measured by comprehensive income (CI).Design/methodology/approachUsing a sample of 237 firms from the Standards & Poor (S&P) 500 index during the years 2004-2009, multivariate statistical analyses are conducted to confirm the authors’ main hypothesis.FindingsThe results indicate that having high levels of corporate governance culture has a positive impact on a measure of firms’ financial performance, namely, CI. Furthermore, they indicate a positive correlation between a higher percentage of external directors and financial performance, and a negative relationship between number of board meetings and financial performance.Originality/valueThe main contribution of this research is that good corporate governance strategies deliver superior financial performance for businesses in terms of CI. This serves as a method of value creation, which is the ultimate goal of a business. In addition to the use of CI as an indicator of financial performance, a unique measure of corporate governance level is tested.


Author(s):  
Muhammad Iqbal ◽  
Faisal Javed

The key purpose of this research paper is to explore the moderating effect of Corporate Governance on the relationship between accounting base financial performance i.e. ROA, and ROE and Capital Structure of 173 Manufacturing firms listed in KSE of Pakistan for the period of 2009 to 2014. In this study multiple regression method is used under fixed effect regression model approach on panel data. The empirical results show that the inclusion of Corporate Governance Index (CGI) as moderating variable has influenced the interaction between Capital Structure and Financial Performance which was positively significant. The result is generally found that the most of Pakistani manufacturing listed firms pursue good corporate governance mechanism and use good and optimal level of Capital Mix to get the better and high financial performance. Furthermore, the corporate governance sub-indices i.e. board structure (BOD-I) and transparency & disclosure (DISC-III) both also have positive and statistically significant association with both firms performance variables: ROA and ROE. Moreover, the ownership structure sub-index (OWS-II) has not significant influence on financial performance. In last, the capital structure also has positive relationship with financial performance, interestingly about 70 per cent of Capital is financed by Equity capital and the Debt capital signifies 30 per cent only. The core significance of this paper is to investigate the impact of Corporate Governance practices on financial decisions from the Pakistani perspective.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pankaj Kumar Gupta ◽  
Prabhat Mittal

Purpose This paper aims to develop a framework that aids in achieving the desired state of financial performance for corporate enterprises based on distinct configurations of corporate governance (CG) practices. Design/methodology/approach This study uses a fuzzy-based system to arrive at a definitive configuration of CG practices that lead to a specific level of firm’s performance. Findings This analysis of the panel data of 92 National Stock Exchange–listed companies conducted for RONW on selected CG variables shows that eight fuzzy configurations lead to a particular state of RONW. The authors compare the results with the conventional regression-based scoring models. Originality/value Corporate enterprises can use the derived bundles of CG practices leading to a specific set of financial performance (RONW) to aid the decision-making process in defining and implementing their governance structures. The regulators can modify or customize the law-mandated CG practices to reduce redundancies and promote the national agenda of economic efficiency.


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