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This study aims to examine the impact of corporate governance (CG) effectiveness measured by board and audit committee index on firm performance of nonfinancial listed firms in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, pre- and during the global crisis of COVID-19.

The analysis used 2,238 observations from nonfinancial firms listed on GCC countries' stock exchange, covering the period from 2017 to 2022, using a fixed effect panel regression model. The data for this study were manually collected from the annual reports of 373 GCC-listed firms.

The results demonstrate that the board's effectiveness index has a positive influence solely on accounting-based performance (return on assets) pre- and during the COVID-19 crisis. However, in terms of audit committee effectiveness, the results show a positive impact on market-based performance (Tobin’s Q) both pre- and during the COVID-19 crisis. Additional analysis indicates that the effectiveness of both the board and audit committee is more notable in larger firms compared to smaller firms.

This study is crucial for investors, regulators, managers and governments tackling the financial impacts of global crises like COVID-19. Its comprehensive evaluation of board and audit committee effectiveness guides policymakers and practitioners in enhancing CG for profit and wealth maximization.

This study offers novel evidence detailing the impact of CG effectiveness on firm performance over an extended period, encompassing the COVID-19 period and using a comprehensive index. In addition, this study was conducted in a unique CG setting, focusing on six emerging GCC countries.

This study aims to investigate the monitoring role of ownership structure (OWS) on real earnings management (REM) practices; previous studies primarily examined the effect of OWS on accrual-based earnings management.

The sample of this study is 490 companies listed on the Malaysian Stock Exchange during the period 2013–2016 (1,960 company-year observations). The regression of a feasible generalized least square was used for data analysis. The authors use three regression models ordinary least squares, panel-corrected standard errors and Driscoll–Kraay standard errors to corroborate the findings and also examine alternative REM measures.

Analysis of the data shows that family, foreign and institutional ownership has a positive link with the quality of financial reporting and, to a large extent, is capable of alleviating REM. The findings also indicate that some form of OWS significantly affects REM, corroborating existing theories on corporate governance (CG) and the perspectives of practitioners.

The evidence concerns the significant role played by the OWS in reducing REM activities. The findings are useful in support of regulatory activities, particularly in the design of policies to regulate the OWS. The results may also provide useful insights to inform other policymakers, investors, shareholders and researchers about the active role of family, foreign and institutional investors in monitoring Malaysia's public listed companies (PLCs) to strengthen CG practices. This also leads to less REM and enhances the quality of financial reporting.

To the authors' knowledge, this work is pioneering research from a developing country, specifically from Malaysia, to investigate the manner in which all possible OWSs influence REM. More importantly, the study recommends that regulators and researchers do not envisage OWS as a holistic phenomenon.

This study aims to see the moderating effect of board diversity on the relationship between ownership structure and real earnings management.

This study uses unbalanced panel data of 75 listed energy firms (346 firm-year observations) from three South Asian emerging economies (Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan) from 2015 to 2019. The two-step system GMM estimation is used for data analysis. This study also uses fixed effect regression to obtain robust findings.

The findings show that firms with a greater ownership concentration and managerial ownership significantly reduce real earnings management. In contrast, the data refute the idea that institutional and foreign ownership affect real earnings management. We also find that board diversity interacts significantly with ownership concentration and managerial ownership, meaning that board diversity moderates the negative link of the primary relationship that reduces real earnings management. On the other hand, board diversity has no interaction with institutional and foreign ownership, implying no moderating effect exists on the primary relationship.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is unique research investigating how different ownership structures affect real earnings management in the emerging nations’ energy sector, which the earlier studies overlook. More specifically, this research focuses on how board diversity moderates the relationships between ownership structure and real earnings management, which could be helpful for future investors.

This study aims to investigate whether organizational complexity (hereafter firm complexity) increases audit report lag (ARL) in a unique environment of GCC countries.

The research study uses a panel data set of 6,084 firm-year observations of nonfinancial firms from GCC economies from 2009 to 2022. First, the study uses an ordinary least square estimator to examine the association of firm complexity with ARL. Second, for robustness purposes, the study applies the propensity score matching technique.

This research study finds that the firms’ complexity increases ARL. Supporting the argument that auditors respond to firm complexity with increased effort, the authors find a positive relation of firm complexity with ARL. This relationship is augmented by auditor change, auditors’ tenure, auditor-qualified opinion and adoption of IFRS. In addition, the authors also find that Big-4 and audit firm industry specialization curtail the positive impact of firm complexity on ARL.

Firms in the GCC have less time to complete their audit and complex firms are likelier to have bigger ARLs. This study provided evidence regarding the curtailing effect of audit quality in GCC. Our findings suggest policymakers and reformers choose improved audit quality to reduce the possibility of larger ARL.

This study enriches the scholarship by presenting a mechanism for reducing the ARL of complex firms through higher audit quality. This study contributes to agency theory by emphasizing audit quality’s important role in emerging markets.

Purpose – Women are more susceptible to specific health risks such as breast cancer, cervical cancer, and risk during pregnancy and childbirth. These can affect women’s well-being and also need to be managed to avoid financial loss. Takaful operators in Malaysia have been offering special takaful products for women. Women can mitigate exposure to these risks through insurance. This study examines the risks faced by Malaysian women and the coverage they are offered by Islamic insurance.

Methodology/approach – The study used a qualitative methodology involving documentary evidence and interviews with four Islamic insurance agents and four product development officers from four Islamic insurance providers in Malaysia.

Findings – Among the risks faced by women are female-specific illnesses, the cost of expensive treatments, crime-related accidents or loss, social or career risks and privatisation policy. Due to these risks, women are in need of female-specific takaful products to reduce risk and protect themselves.

Originality/value – Specific takaful products for women are crucial to protect them from risks, improving their well-being and increasing their participation in the nation’s economic and social development.

In recent years, there have been many concerns about issues surrounding building maintenance, which are continually increasing. However, there is a lack of comprehensive studies on building maintenance issues, their effects and the way forward. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to carry out a comprehensive review of building maintenance issues, their effects and the way forward. It also aims to develop a conceptual model that can support future research.

A systematic review of the literature published from 2009 to 2019 was carried out. Five relevant databases were searched, based on this study's search terms, and a narrative synthesis of the results from the included studies was carried out. Studies were eligible for inclusion if they fulfilled the inclusion criteria of this systematic review.

This study has identified and classified building maintenance issues, their effects and the way forward, and also developed a conceptual model that demonstrates the association between issues, their effects and the way forward. The way forward of the conceptual model focuses on effective management, technical capability, development of human resources and cost optimisation.

This paper addresses an important topic: the aspect in which it differs from existing studies is that, in the latter, the researchers studied a single sub-issue, whereas this systematic review includes a comprehensive study of building maintenance issues. Furthermore, this review has demonstrated how the way forward can moderate issues and their effects.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the anti-wear (AW) and extreme pressure (EP) performances of CuO and graphite nanoparticles as a palm oil additive.

In this study, the AW and EP performances of CuO and graphite nanoparticles as additives in palm oil were evaluated using four ball tribotester in accordance to ASTM D4172 and ASTM D2783, respectively. The wear worn surfaces of the steel balls were analysed using high resolution microscope.

The results obtained demonstrate that CuO and graphite nanoparticles improved the AW and EP performances of the palm oil up to 2.77 and 12 per cent, respectively. The graphite nanoparticles provide better AW and EP performance than that of CuO nanoparticles.

This demonstrates the potential of CuO and graphite nanoparticles for improving AW and EP performances of palm oil base lubricant. Different morphology of nanoparticles will affect the AW and EP performances of nanolubricants.

The Malaysian economy is expected to face another tumultuous year in 2019. It has been reported more than 21,000 people lost their jobs in 2018, half of whom were in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur. This rising unemployment gravely affects a person’s source of income, particularly when he/she is the sole breadwinner of the family. It further leads to the inability to pay one’s monthly commitments such as home, personal and car financing. Notwithstanding the above situation, Sharīʿah encourages leniency on the part of the creditor, that is, when the debtor is in a difficulty, to grant him/her time until it is easy for him/her to pay. Nonetheless, in Malaysia, the inability to pay debt or non-performing loan/financing entitles the financial institutions (both conventional banks and Islamic financial institutions) to proceed with legal proceedings in civil court It is trite that Islamic financing in Malaysia is governed by Sharīʿah principles and legislations, which are conventional in nature; and contractual rights and duties involving Islamic finance are enforceable in the civil court of law. This chapter examines procedural laws governing the event of default of Islamic financing in Malaysia. The methodology adopted in this chapter is doctrinal legal analysis whereby the relevant laws, namely, Rules of Court 2012, Insolvency Act 1967, Limitation Act 1953, Evidence Act 1950, Court of Judicature Act 1964 and the National Land Code 1965 are analysed in addition to the relevant case law. The study reveals that while some of the provisions are sufficient to regulate the event of default of Islamic financing, the laws are largely inadequate. The chapter also finds a significant number of legal issues and challenges relating to event of default in Islamic financing, which require legal reform.

Within a few days, the National Disaster Management Agency’s COVID-19 Fund (NADMA) has collected RM 5.5 m in donations from individuals and companies. These data shows that voluminous Malaysians are willing to help although they are in a difficult situation. Grounded in the Social Responsibility theory, this paper aims to examine the factors that motivate infaq (donation) behaviour in Malaysia during Movement Control Order (MCO).

The quantitative questionnaire survey method was used to obtain the data. This research’s unit analysis was of individuals who had done any help during COVID-19 MCO in Malaysia. The respondents were from all states in Malaysia, 20 years old and above and constituted of all races.

Although the religiosity factor did not play a significant role as a moderator, the results of the study found that all factors from the social responsibility theory had a significant positive relationship to Infaq behaviour during an emergency.

Identifying the vital driving factors that determine the infaq offer makes it possible for fundraisers to entirely focus on developing better approaches that can increase the role that these driving factors can play and possibly improve the impact on those previously unaffected factors.

From the authors’ knowledge, the research paper on helping effort during an emergency is minimal, let alone the research on infaq behaviour. This paper’s originality lies in the relationship between infaq behaviour, emergency and social responsibility theory which has never been explored before by other researchers.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between tax evasion and certain demographic factors such as location, engagement of tax agent, size and type of small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) industry in Malaysia.

In this study, using proprietary tax audit data from the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia (IRBM) on the 2011 tax returns of SMEs, the authors run a multiple regression analysis to examine the impact of location, agent, type of industry, size of enterprise and type of tax evasion on SMEs’ tax evasion in Malaysia.

The authors find that tax evasion among SMEs in Malaysia is the highest when the business is located in a suburban environment and has no tax agent. Tax evasion is also influenced by the size of the SME (micro or medium).

This study gives insight that the IRBM can use to aid its collection department in profiling SMEs that have a higher tendency to evade paying tax.