Audit committee characteristics and corporate philanthropic donations before and during COVID-19

Purpose: This study aims to examine the effects of audit committee attributes on corporate philanthropic donations before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach: The study targets Nigeria's listed firms between 2019 and 2020. We hand-collected the data from the available published annual reports of 141 and 128 firms for 2019 and 2020, respectively. Therefore, the authors used a total of 269 firm-year observations for the study. The authors used ordinary least square regression to analyze the data and Tobit regression to establish the robustness of the results. Findings: The results indicate that the frequency of audit committee meetings has a significant positive relationship with corporate philanthropic donations before and during COVID-19. In the case of audit committee independence, it has only a significant positive relationship with corporate philanthropic donations during the pandemic. However, the findings reveal that audit committee size and foreign directors on the audit committee do not influence corporate philanthropic donations before and during COVID-19. Research limitations/implications: The study considers audit committee characteristics out of the corporate governance mechanisms that can influence the philanthropic donations of the listed firms in Nigeria over two years from 2019 and 2020. Practical implications: The findings have practical implications for encouraging the audit committee to support philanthropic donations for the welfare of the poor and the needy, particularly in difficult times like the COVID-19 period. The results could also help regulators and policymakers to provide regulations and policies that can encourage firms to participate actively in philanthropic activities to their best ability. Social implications: Motivating firms to provide philanthropic donations for the welfare of underprivileged persons could strongly support the government's effort to minimize the socioeconomic problems caused by COVID-19. Originality/value: The study contributes to the scant literature that establishes the impact of audit committee attributes on firm philanthropic donations toward helping the poor and the needy in difficult periods. © 2022, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Audit committee characteristics and corporate philanthropic donations before and during COVID-19

Purpose This study aims to examine the effects of audit committee attributes on corporate philanthropic donations before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Design/methodology/approach The study targets Nigeria's listed firms between 2019 and 2020. We hand-collected the data from the available published annual reports of 141 and 128 firms for 2019 and 2020, respectively. Therefore, the authors used a total of 269 firm-year observations for the study. The authors used ordinary least square regression to analyze the data and Tobit regression to establish the robustness of the results. Findings The results indicate that the frequency of audit committee meetings has a significant positive relationship with corporate philanthropic donations before and during COVID-19. In the case of audit committee independence, it has only a significant positive relationship with corporate philanthropic donations during the pandemic. However, the findings reveal that audit committee size and foreign directors on the audit committee do not influence corporate philanthropic donations before and during COVID-19. Research limitations/implications The study considers audit committee characteristics out of the corporate governance mechanisms that can influence the philanthropic donations of the listed firms in Nigeria over two years from 2019 and 2020. Practical implications The findings have practical implications for encouraging the audit committee to support philanthropic donations for the welfare of the poor and the needy, particularly in difficult times like the COVID-19 period. The results could also help regulators and policymakers to provide regulations and policies that can encourage firms to participate actively in philanthropic activities to their best ability. Social implications Motivating firms to provide philanthropic donations for the welfare of underprivileged persons could strongly support the government's effort to minimize the socioeconomic problems caused by COVID-19. Originality/value The study contributes to the scant literature that establishes the impact of audit committee attributes on firm philanthropic donations toward helping the poor and the needy in difficult periods.

Determinants Affecting Internal Audit Effectiveness

This study tries to identify the determinants that affect the effectiveness of internal auditing for listed firms in India. A sample of 300 listed companies was drawn. Questionnaires were mailed to the head of audit department, internal audit managers, internal auditor and head of accounts of each company. The overall response rate was 28.3%. The results were derived by applying multiple regression method and the three determinants turned out to be significant. The three determinants are risk-based planning, usage of Big Data and Analytics, and frequency of meetings of internal auditor (IA) with audit committee (AC) respectively. The model explains 42.8% of variations in the dependent variable (IA effectiveness). The study indeed encourages internal auditors to develop their core skills and competencies in the area of risk assessment and Big Data and Analytics for delivering better services to the auditees, the board of directors and the AC members. The implications of these findings may be of importance to internal audit professionals, accounting professional bodies and the regulators. Direction for future research is also provided.

The impact of audit committee characteristics on ESG performance in the European Union member states: Empirical evidence before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

The purpose of this research is to investigate the impact of audit committee characteristics on environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance for European listed companies. This paper aims to understand how audit committee characteristics, namely, independence, expertise and tenure, influence ESG scores. The reported ESG scores and audit committee characteristics are collected from a sample of companies included in the Refinitiv Eikon database and analysed using a panel data analysis at both the country and industry levels. The sample is composed of 13 member states of the European Union and covers the period from 2018-2020. The results show a significant positive effect of audit committee independence and expertise on ESG performance. Moreover, audit committee tenure is found to be negatively associated with the ESG performance. These results are even statistically stronger during the pandemic period. This paper partially validates the significance of audit committee characteristics in improving ESG performance. Our analysis has implications from different perspectives, adding further information and considerations to the ongoing debate that tests the impact of the audit committee quality on ESG performance before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

CORPORATE GOVERNANCE MECHANISM AND FINANCIAL STATEMENT FRAUD: THE COMPLIANCE TO MCCG 2017 DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC

Business governance is definitely a worrying issue within the worldwide level, since the incidences associated with business problems plus insolvencies are usually upsurging quickly, particularly in the building nations such as Malaysia. Even though rules in addition to rules are usually created in order to motivate clear monetary confirming amongst businesses, the particular effectiveness from the execution is nevertheless something, given that the particular opportunistic behavior regarding professionals plus administration continue to be within the increase. With regards to the particular scams triangular design, the problem in the Covid-19 outbreak offers an additional chance for companies to do deceptive confirming in order to hide their own company deficits, therefore showing up a lot more lucrative with regard to traders. Consequently, the purpose of this particular research would be to evaluate the result associated with inner company governance system around the event of economic declaration scam throughout Covid-19 outbreak. The particular factors involving corporate and business governance are usually from the particular Malaysian Program code upon Business Governance 2017. Typically the supplementary information were extracted from the particular 2020 Yearly Reviews associated with 265 businesses which are on the Primary Marketplace regarding Bursa Malaysia. The program associated with SPSS has been utilized to carry out information evaluation with this examine. The outcomes uncover that this factors involving table self-reliance, panel sex plus review panel self-reliance possess an unfavorable organization along with economic declaration fraudulence. On the other hand, the particular factors associated with table age group, plank racial and even examine panel experience had been discovered to indicate an optimistic partnership together with deceitful confirming. Apart from, the outcomes furthermore highlighted that will panel period failed to possess any kind of partnership along with economical declaration scams, that was contrary to a lot of literatures previously. In addition, underneath the evaluation associated with mediating parameters, review panel dimension has been discovered to possess a mediating impact on typically the organization among taxation panel self-reliance together with monetary assertion scams. Nevertheless, the particular adjustable associated with aboard sizing had not been capable to mediate the connection in between mother board period plus fiscal declaration scam. Lastly, within the facet of assessment among possible in addition to non-potential bogus companies, it had been identified of which each forms of businesses experienced various conformity towards the business governance factors. Therefore, in line with the results, this specific analyze has furnished a few suggestions plus recommendations for long term research to improve typically the books this place.

Impact of audit committee characteristics and external audit quality on firm performance: evidence from India

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of audit committee characteristics and external audit quality on the performance of non-financial public limited companies listed on the National Stock Exchange 100.Design/methodology/approachOne-way random effect panel data regression was applied to 74 non-financial firms in the Nifty 100 from 2014 until 2019. The overall audit committee index and external audit index were built based on the new Indian Companies Act, 2013 and on a review of the literature to capture the impact of the new Act on firm financial performance.FindingsThe outcome of the study revealed that there is lack of evidence to show that audit committee characteristics improve the performance of top Indian non-financial listed firms. However, external audit quality was found to have a significant positive impact on the financial performance of firms as measured by Tobin’s Q, while firm size and leverage were found to have a significant impact on the financial performance of firms as measured by return on assets and return on equity.Practical implicationsThis paper will be greatly beneficial for financial practitioners and policymakers because it provides practical suggestions and recommendations about the types of external audit that are indispensable for the overall effectiveness and performance of firms. The study findings may also aid strategic policy formulation and execution for better corporate governance practices for the purpose of profit and wealth maximisation.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, to date, no previous research has evaluated the effects of audit committee features and external audit quality on the financial performance of firms in India after the implementation of the new Companies Act, 2013. Hence, this study fills this void in the present literature by examining the overall features of the audit committee and external audit and their impact on firm performance in the setting of India.