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This study is guided by the upper echelon theory and argues that the role of females on boards of directors may differ between cultures. In a culture where the community has a significant humane orientation, female directors may pay much more attention to the social issues of corporate sustainability rather than environmental issues. Therefore, this study aims to differentiate between the social and environmental performances of companies to examine whether the presence of females on the boards of directors of Malaysian firms could affect social and environmental performances differently.

This study uses a sample of firms listed in Bursa Malaysia and develops two disclosure indices to measure social and environmental performances. Three proxies of female directors are used in the empirical models. The ordinary least square model is used to test the hypothesis.

The empirical results suggest a positive association between social performance and the presence of female directors on the board of directors of Malaysian firms. However, no association was found between environmental performance and the presence of female directors on those boards. These results confirm the prediction of this study that the female directors of Malaysian firms pay more attention to social issues than to environmental ones.

This is the first study to examine the effects of the presence of female directors on Malaysian firms’ boards of directors on social and environmental performance. It also contributes to the upper echelon theory by illuminating the importance of gender diversity in influencing the social and environmental behaviors of corporate leaders. The results provide the important implication that the association between a firm’s social and environmental performance and gender diversity depends on the culture within which the company operates.

This study aims to examine the association between chief executive officers’ (CEOs) characteristics and sell-side analysts’ recommendations.

This study uses a sample of firms listed on the London Stock Exchange and uses two databases, Capital IQ and BoardEx to study the above relationship. A variety of regression analyses are used in the empirical models, including ordinary least squares, fixed effect, random effect, Tobit, Logit and generalized method of moments.

The authors find that firms with CEOs who had a wider network size and firms with foreign CEOs receive favorable investment recommendations. Further, firms with CEOs who have more time to retire are more likely to receive favorable investment recommendations. However, the authors find that firms with CEOs with more qualifications receive unfavorable recommendations and female CEOs are not affecting investment recommendations.

Ultimately, this study demonstrates the importance of CEO characteristics for sell-side analysts who play an important role in the stock markets.

Drawing on servant leadership theory, this study aims to investigate whether the presence of royal family members on boards of directors impacts corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting.

CSR scores from a Bloomberg database are used and royal family data are collected from annual reports. The required analyses to test the hypotheses of this study have been performed.

The findings demonstrate a positive relationship between the presence of royal family directors and CSR reporting.

This study seeks to contribute to the literature on servant leadership theory and CSR by highlighting the impact of royal family directors on CSR reporting. This study may also contribute to an understanding of royal family leadership as a predictor of CSR reporting.

Very limited research has been devoted to answering the question of whether the religious beliefs of the upper echelons of management and gender diversity have any impacts on the communication of corporate social responsibility (CSR) information in the marketplace. This study aims to fill the void in the literature by posing the two research questions: first, does the CEO religion affect a firm’s CSR behaviour?; second, do the women on the boards influence CSR reporting?

The authors performed the tests on a sample of 133 firms listed in Bursa Malaysia that have analysts following using a self-constructed CSR disclosure index based on information in annual reports in 2009. A total of 23 per cent of the sample firms have Muslim CEOs, and women made up only 8 per cent of board members.

The authors find that Muslim CEOs are significantly associated with greater disclosure of CSR information. The authors also find a moderate relationship between board gender diversity and CSR disclosure. This is probably because of insufficient number of women on boards.

The disclosure index is based on unsubstantiated CSR information provided in annual reports, and the authors examine only two aspects of board diversity, namely, Muslim religiosity and gender mix.

This study advances the research on upper echelons theory by illuminating the importance of religious value in influencing the CSR behaviour of corporate leaders. This has been largely overlooked because of lack of data.

This paper aims to examine the moderating effect of government ownership (GO) on the association between corporate governance (CG) and voluntary disclosure (VD).

This study used multivariate analysis to examine the moderating variable.

GO has a moderating negative effect on the association between CG factors [e.g. board size, non-executive directors (NEDs)] and VD, which indicates that GO plays a negative role in the effectiveness of CG. The study also found that audit quality is not affected by the influence of GO, indicating that companies without GO are better than companies with GO in terms of applying the best practices of CG to provide sufficient and high-quality disclosure.

This study has important implications for governments to be more effective in implementing the best practices of CG. Additionally, the findings could have implications for authority regulators, policy makers and shareholders to require effective implications for CG to reduce the effects of GO the implementation of best CG practices and the disclosure of quality information.