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Drawing on three theoretical frameworks, this paper aims to examine the effects of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and the interaction between SOEs and prior acquisition experience of Chinese domestic and cross-border acquirers.

Using a sample of 4,116 firms consisting of 3,939 domestic mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and 177 cross-border M&As over the period 2004–2017, this study adopts both accounting- and market-based performance measures, namely, return on assets, return on equity and buy-and-hold abnormal return to analyse the effects of SOEs and the interaction between SOEs and prior acquisition experience on acquirers’ performance.

First, this paper finds SOEs to exert a positive influence on acquirer performance, contrary to agency theory but in line with the resource-based view. However, the positive relationship between SOEs and performance appears more pronounced for domestic M&A compared to cross-border M&As. Second, this study also finds prior acquisition experience and the combined effect of SOE and prior acquisition experience to have a positive and significant bearing on performance.

The limitation of this study is the lack of cross-border M&A data with all the relevant information compared to domestic M&A. Thus, the cross-border M&A sample appears lower compared to the domestic M&A sample.

The results imply that the moderating role of prior acquisition experience on the relationship between SOEs and performance appears to be crucial for cross-border M&A performance compared to domestic M&A.

The findings of this study show SOEs increase performance, contrary to the widely held view based on agency theory that SOEs are inefficient.

The authors examine the impact of audit quality (AQ) on classification shifting (CS) among non-financial firms operating in the UK and Germany.

This paper used various audit committee variables (size, meetings, gender diversity and financial expertise) to measure AQ and its impact on CS. The authors used a total of 2,110 firm-year observations from 2010 to 2019.

The authors found that the presence of female members on the audit committee and audit committee financial expertise deter the UK and German managers from shifting core expenses and revenue items into special items to inflate core earnings. However, audit committee size is positively related to CS among German firms but has no impact on UK firms. The authors also document evidence that audit committee meetings restrain UK managers from engaging in CS. However, the authors found no impact on CS among German firms. The study results hold even after employing several tests.

Overall, the study findings provide broad support in an international setting for the board to improve its auditing practices and offer essential information to investors to assess how AQ affects the financial reporting process.

Most CS studies used market-oriented economies such as the USA and UK and ignored bank-based economies such as Germany, France and Japan. The authors provide a comparison among bank and market-oriented economies on whether the AQ has a similar impact on CS or not among them.

Prior studies suggest that corporate cash holding will reflect firms' corporate governance (CG) environment. Consistent with this prediction, this study aims to examine the impact of board characteristics on firms' cash holding in the UK, France and Germany.

Using 2,805 firm-year observations between 2009 and 2019, the authors examine the relationship between board characteristics and corporate cash holding. The authors used two measures of cash holdings as our dependent variables. As independent variables, the authors used CG characteristics relevant to effective board monitoring such as board meetings, outside directors, board size and board gender diversity.

The authors find that board characteristics influence firms' cash holdings of firms in the UK, France and Germany. However, this study documents evidence of varying impacts of board monitoring on the cash holding of the UK when compared to German and French firms, the countries that are classifiable as bank-based economies. The result of this study is robust to alternative cash-holding measures and endogeneity.

This study provides evidence supporting the board's impact in mitigating agency conflict in shareholder- and stakeholder-oriented CG environments.

This study contributes to previous works on firms’ financial orientation by showing that the impact of board characteristics on corporate cash holdings varies between bank- and market-based economies.

This study investigates the effects of elements of corporate governance along with firm specific variables on the financial leverage of listed Indian firms in the context of agency conflicts and new governance laws.

A series of panel ordinary least squares as well as fixed/random effects regression models of book and market value of financial leverage on variables of corporate governance (board size, board composition, board meeting, board attendance and board gender) along with a set of control variables (asset tangibility, firm size, growth, liquidity and profitability) were estimated by employing 113 listed Indian firms during 2010–2021. Dynamic panel generalized method of moments models were also estimated to check the robustness of empirical results. Further, the full sample of firms was divided into small and large board sized companies using the median approach to investigate differences between small and large board characteristics on financial leverage.

The evidence predominantly suggested that the governance variables have significant impact on leverage ratios of selected firms. Governance variables such as board size, composition, attendance and gender are significantly found to be reducing the financial leverage of firms indicating that in general these attributes in a way, through monitoring managers, put pressure on them to pursue lower financial leverage. Board meeting is found to be positive and significantly related with financial leverage suggesting that the frequency of meetings signals its monitoring ability that may influence lenders' risk assessment lowering borrowing cost. The results on small and large board sized companies indicate that firms with small boards relatively issue more debt compared to firms with large boards suggesting that small boards adopt high debt policy.

The main policy implication of the study is that elements of internal corporate governance is a significant governance tool that has the potential to reduce agency conflict between the managers and agents through monitoring and decision making that has tangible effects on critical corporate decisions such as capital structure choices.

This paper contributes to the existing literature by bringing new evidence relating to agency conflicts and capital structure decisions in an emerging market like India post adoption of new regulations related to corporate governance specified in Clause 49 of Securities and Exchange Board of India and Companies Act, 2013 as there is significant dearth of such empirical work.

This study aims to examine the impact of corporate governance on the speed of adjustment (SOA) of capital structure in a developing market, Pakistan.

The study's sample includes 173 non-financial enterprises that were listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) between 2011 and 2020. The capital structure of the sample companies is determined by the ratio of total debt to total debt plus the market value of equity. Corporate governance is measured by board size, independence, CEO duality, management ownership, blockholders ownership and institutional ownership. A two-step difference GMM model was used to achieve the study's objectives.

Through applying the reduced form model approach, we discovered that corporate governance variables have a considerable negative impact on the speed of targeted leverage adjustment in sample firms. Additionally, to check the robustness of results, the two-stage technique used to examine this corporate governance-SOA relationship. Furthermore, we discovered that smaller enterprises modify their capital structure more than larger firms. Furthermore, corporations prioritize short-term debt adjustment above long-term debt adjustment.

The study's findings provide further information to company managers and investors on the relationship between corporate governance quality and the pace of adjustment towards targeted leverage across Pakistani enterprises. Furthermore, this study adds new information from growing countries such as Pakistan to the existing literature, which can help regulatory authorities and policymakers improve the quality of corporate governance. It is commonly known that improving the quality of corporate governance practices improves the firm's capital structure, which benefits all stakeholders.

In the context of developing economies, the academic literature lacks research that examine the impact of corporate governance on dynamic capital structure decisions. This study intends to fill this gap.

With growing evidence of financial misconduct spreading through director networks, research on financial fraud contagion has garnered significant attention. This study incorporates the regulatory enforcement perspective into existing literature to examine how regulatory penalties mitigate financial fraud contagion within director networks.

This study uses a panel dataset of A-share listed Chinese firms covering 2007–2022. Based on the nature of the dataset, we construct ordinary least squares regression models with firm- and year-fixed effects. Data are collected from the China Stock Market and Accounting Research, Wind Information Co., Ltd and China Research Data Services. We use Python to scrape the coordinates of regulators and firms and retrieve travel distances from the Baidu Maps API.

This study verifies the existence of financial fraud contagion in director networks. Our findings indicate that regulatory penalties can mitigate the contagion between director-interlocked firms, improving accounting quality. Moreover, the mitigation effects are mediated by independent directors’ dissent and auditors’ efforts at director-interlocked firms and are more pronounced when these firms have superior network centrality and internal control quality.

This study enriches the literature on financial fraud contagion by examining director networks and regulatory penalties. We propose mediating effects of auditor effort and director dissents on the relationship between regulatory penalties and financial fraud contagion. Our findings provide insights for regulators to alleviate pressures and highlight the importance for directors to consider financial risks within their networks.