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The term “Insider CEO” refers to actor in the top management at corporate level who has the advantage of having better information regarding a company’s resources to make investment decisions. This study aims to examine the relationship between insider chief executive officers (CEOs) and investment efficiency in emerging economies.

The authors comprises sample of nonfinancial companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange during the period of 2011–2021, using an archival approach through regression analysis.

This study demonstrates a significant negative relationship between insider CEOs and investment efficiency. In addition, audit quality as the firm audited by BIG4 accounting firm changes the direction of previously negative findings, turning them into significant positive relationships, and audit quality acts as a moderating factor on the insider CEOs and investment efficiency nexus. Furthermore, the authors conducted a series of endogeneity and robustness tests to strengthen the results of this study.

This study offers new ideas in the investment literature and its practice in companies, where it highlights the role of the existence of an insider CEO in practice on investment efficiency. The authors provide recommendations to companies, potential investors and policymakers regarding the potential for insider CEOs to influence investment returns that tend to be less efficient. Therefore, this study proves that the presence of an insider CEO has a higher risk-taking preference, which has the potential to influence less efficient investment practices.

Several previous studies have focused more on the role of CEOs who come from outside the company and their impact on investment practices. However, it is not clear whether insider CEOs will influence the company’s investment efficiency practices driven by the perspective of “risk preferences and investment returns”. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to substantiate the role of CEOs based on their origin and their impact on less efficient investment practices.

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between military connections and tax avoidance in Indonesia. Further, the paper examines whether the relationship between military connections and tax avoidance is impacted by three corporate governance variables: auditor size or Big 4, board size and audit committee independence. Indonesia's settings allow for a unique investigation, as military involvement has been documented.

This paper uses Indonesia as the research setting because its military forces have a long history of business involvement. The sample includes 1,986 firm-year observations on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2018. The period signifies the time of significant change post-Suharto to illustrate changes in military reform.

Military-connected firms recorded a negative relationship with effective tax rates, indicating higher tax avoidance. The authors extend this test by considering three corporate governance variables: Big 4, board size and audit committee independence. They find the corporate governance variables are ineffective in mitigating the positive impact of military-connected firms and corporate tax avoidance. The results remain consistent when performing endogeneity tests.

This paper adds to the extant literature by examining the impact of military connections on tax avoidance. The findings reflect Indonesia's institutional settings depicting military and political connections.

This study examines the relationship between the characteristics of militarily experienced directors and financial statement footnote readability. The second research question considers whether CEO busyness impacts the relationship between military-experienced directors and financial statement footnotes readability.

We use nonfinancial listed firms on the Indonesian Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2018, which amounted to 1,002 firm-year observations. We test the hypotheses and use fixed effects and Heckman's two-stage regression.

This study documents a negative relationship between military directors and financial statement footnote readability. We extend this relationship by factoring board busyness into the equation. We find that the presence of military-connected and busy CEOs negatively impacts the readability of financial statement footnotes. The results remain robust after additional analyses.

Future research should consider a more robust measure of military-experienced directors. A broader context of directors' busyness should be considered, such as including multiple directorships.

We revisit the literature on military-experienced directors by considering political connections as one of the proxies for military connections in Indonesia. The findings largely support the convergence of the political connections literature in which rent-seeking activities are prevalent and prevent sound financial reporting.

Without a doubt, COVID-19 is a disruptive event that one may not consider before it becomes a global pandemic. This study aims to examine the firm’s risk preference, represented as board characteristics towards COVID-19 exposure in Indonesia.

This study uses the boardroom’s average value of board age and female proportion to represent board characteristics. Fixed-effect regression based on industry (Industry FE) and year (Year FE) analyses 861 firm-year observations of all firms listed on the Indonesian Stock Exchange in 2019–2020.

The result shows a positive relationship between the female board and COVID-19 exposure disclosure. Meanwhile, the age proportion does not offer a significant result. The additional analysis document that the directors mainly drove the result and were only relevant during 2020. These results are robust due to coarsened exact matching tests and Heckman’s two-stage regression. This study enriches COVID-19 literature, especially from a quantitative perspective.

The rise of global crises makes the outputs of this study important for non-financial listed firms in Indonesia.

This study aims to explore the relation between CEO’s early-life extreme experiences and firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) taking while also examining the moderating influence of CEO power.

Using a sample of public listed companies in China over 2010–2020 (with 6,008 firm-year observations), this study examines the context of multiple early-life extreme experiences by dividing CEO’s early-life extreme experiences into two distinct types: environment-based and individual-based experiences. The environment based early-life experiences include that of World War II and the Great Famine era (1959–1961), while the individual based early-life experiences cover individual experiences from poor families and military services.

This study finds that firm with CEOs poses all these early-life experiences tends to have higher CSR taking. Moreover, this study also finds that CEO power enhances the effect of CEO’s early-life extreme experiences on CSR.

This study provides a new perspective on the role of individual traits in driving altruistic CSR motivations by considering the impact of various events on the CEO’s values, perceptions and decision-making processes. In addition, this study also constructs a multiple-event measure of the early-life extreme experiences of CEOs that combines both external environmental and individual factors.

This paper examines the relationship between heterogeneous political connections and corporate overinvestment.

Based on a comprehensive Malaysian dataset of 834 publicly listed companies from 2000 to 2022, the authors employed multivariate ordinary least squares regression to test the relationship.

Despite different types of political connections, the findings demonstrate a positive relationship between political connections and corporate overinvestment. In particular, the association is more profound in government-linked companies (GLCs) but weaker in firms that developed political ties through family members of ruling elites. Further analysis reveals that the “helping hand” effect is only observed in GLCs and firms with politically connected directors and businessmen, whereas the “grabbing hand” effect is observed among firms connected through board, businessmen, and family ties. Moreover, the relationship is more persistent among firms with politically connected directors and businessmen around the regime change.

Regardless of the types of political connections, the findings show that politically connected firms tend to engage in rent-seeking through political patronage networks and high levels of government interference in resource allocation. Therefore, a more sophisticated monitoring system should be developed within the political patronage networks to reduce the likelihood of different types of political-business collusion. In terms of research limitations, the research design does not consider the influence of financial constraints and management efficiency. Future research could explore these facets to comprehensively understand the dynamics between political connections and corporate investment decisions.

The evidence informs market participants about the relationship between heterogeneous political connections and corporate overinvestment, reinforcing previous findings that crony capitalism, political patronage, agency problems, and weak governance are well-entrenched in Malaysia’s emerging economy. The government should acknowledge these concerns by enacting anti-corruption campaigns and promoting a fair business environment. In the meantime, policymakers might redesign regulations and revise corporate governance frameworks to substantially reduce the value of political connections, thereby diminishing the bargaining power of politicians.

As corporate investment efficiency has a considerable impact on firm value, investment decisions that enhance firm value will increase share price and maximise shareholder value. Conversely, firms may damage shareholder value if they overinvest or undertake projects that do not yield sufficient. Hence, the findings of this study may assist investors in making more informed judgements, particularly by understanding different types of business-government relations, as political connections are one of the determinants of corporate overinvestment.

This study reveals that the degree to which overinvestment issues manifest within firms is influenced by the nature of the political connections those firms possess. This indicates that politically connected firms should not be regarded as a homogenous group of firms.

This study aims to examine the impact of board gender diversity on sustainable growth by considering the mediating role of investment efficiency (INVEFF) in this relationship and the threshold effect between board gender diversity and INVEFF. This investigation focuses on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region, which is characterized by rapid socio-economic transformations and a recent emphasis on gender diversity.

Panel data regressions are applied to estimate the impact of board gender diversity on INVEFF using companies listed in the GCC in 2013–2022 as a sample. The estimations consider subsamples of underinvestment and overinvestment, as well as the pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic periods.

The empirical results show a nonlinear impact of board gender diversity on INVEFF, a relationship that is more pronounced in the underinvestment subsample. The results indicate that INVEFF mediates the relationship between board gender diversity and corporate sustainable growth, which helps companies optimize their board composition to enhance their sustainable growth strategies.

These findings could inform GCC regulators in mandating further increases in women’s presence on boards of directors to improve INVEFF. This study examined only GCC-listed companies. Future research should investigate other factors influencing INVEFF and conduct comparative studies across Middle Eastern and North African countries to consider different regulatory and economic contexts and to examine compliance with international standards.

This study reveals the significant nonlinear impact of board gender diversity on INVEFF and the mediation of INVEFF in the relationship between board gender diversity and sustainable growth. These findings will help companies optimize their board of directors’ composition by increasing the presence of women on boards to improve their INVEFF and sustainable growth. This study aims to develop knowledge that will not only benefit companies regarding the potential impact of board gender diversity but also help international communities create better gender equality within companies.

To the best of the author’s knowledge, this study is the first to explore the relationship between board gender diversity and INVEFF in the emerging economies of the GCC region. It is also the first to examine the nonlinear relationship between board gender diversity and INVEFF and the mediating role of INVEFF in the relationship between board diversity and sustainable growth. This study contributes to the understanding of the financial impact of board gender diversity in improving corporate INVEFF and sustainable growth.

This study aims to examine the association between institutional investors’ ownership (IOW), politically connected firms (POCF) and audit report lag (AUDRL).

This study employs a feasible generalised least squares (FGLS) model for panel data to examine the association between IOW, POCF and AUDRL for Malaysian publicly listed companies.

The findings reveal a statistically significant negative relationship between IOW and AUDRL, with this negative relationship being more pronounced amongst POCF. Additionally, the results demonstrate that the relationship between IOW and AUDRL varies depending on the domicile of IIs (local vs. foreign). Specifically, local institutional investors exhibit a negative and statistically significant relationship with AUDRL, whilst foreign institutional investors show a positive and statistically significant relationship with AUDRL.

The results of this study provide a new understanding of auditor responses to institutional investor monitoring and political connections (PCs) in an emerging economy.

This study examines whether the risk management committee (RMC) mitigates earnings management (EM) in Nigeria.

The study used a sample of 365 firm-year observations of Nigerian-listed nonfinancial companies from 2018 to 2022. Driscoll and Kraay’s fixed-effect standard error regression model is used to test the hypotheses.

The study finds that RMC size, expertise, meeting frequency and membership overlapping with the audit committee have a negative effect on both accrual earnings management (AEM) and real earnings management (REM). While RMC independence is found to have a negative effect on REM. Moreover, additional tests reveal that RMC effectiveness is significantly associated with lower EM practices. Further analysis using the industry level finds that RMC attributes mitigate EM practices in some industries. The results remain after rigorous, robust analysis for endogeneity and alternative regressions.

This study is limited to a sample of Nigerian-listed nonfinancial service companies for a period of five years, resulting in the non-generalizability of the findings to different contexts as the countries’ internal policies and regulations varied.

The findings have important implications for regulators, policymakers and investors that a stand-alone RMC can effectively help to evaluate potential risk activities and implement a proper risk management system, thereby mitigating EM practices. The result can help investors, analysts and other stakeholders across the international community in considering RMC information to evaluate potential risk and earnings management practices.

Following the NCCG 2018 reform in Nigeria that requires listed firms to create a standalone RMC, this study is among the earliest that examines the effect of RMC attributes on EM practices and emerging markets. As such, the findings may draw the attention of regulators and policymakers across the African market and the international community to the monitoring role of RMC attributes in mitigating EM practices.