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This paper aims to examine the impact of a board-level governance bundle (i.e. size, independence, expertise, meetings, gender diversity and multiple directorships) on the non-financial performance of National Health Service (NHS) hospitals – and, separately, by hospital type (i.e. trusts hospitals and foundation trusts hospitals).

A logit regression for panel data is used for a sample of 128 NHS trusts and foundation trusts across England from 2014 to 2018. The data was hand-collected from NHS hospitals’ annual reports and Care Quality Commission reports. The cancer waiting time target (i.e. 62-day cancer referral and treatment target) is used to measure non-financial performance.

The main findings for NHS hospitals indicate that multiple directorships positively and significantly affect non-financial performance. However, board expertise and gender diversity have a negative and significant influence. When the sample is partitioned, the results remain the same for the NHS foundation trusts hospitals. For NHS trust hospitals, except for multiple directorships having a positive and significant effect, all remaining governance attributes have an insignificant impact.

The findings have implications for policymakers and practitioners as they move to implement measures to improve hospital performance against the cancer waiting time targets in the English NHS.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine the impact of corporate governance on cancer waiting time targets in public hospitals. Overall, this paper contributes to the corporate governance literature, especially in the context of public hospitals, and has significant practical and theoretical implications.

Drawing on signalling and impression management theories, this study aims to examine a bidirectional association between managerial tone in earnings conference calls and financial performance.

The sample includes non-financial firms listed in the FTSE 350 index during the period 2010–2015. Managerial tone was measured using positive and negative keywords based on the Loughran-McDonald Sentiment Word Lists, while return on assets was used as a proxy for firms’ financial performance.

The findings indicate that current financial performance positively affects the managerial tone in earnings conference calls. Likewise, the results also show that there is a positive relationship between managerial tone in earnings conference calls and firms’ future financial performance.

The results have important implications for top management to use more virtual communication media (i.e. earnings conference calls) to continue managing their relationships with financial stakeholders and helping them better understand financial performance, especially in countries where holding such calls is not yet part of firms’ policy.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies that explore the relationship between managerial tone in earnings conference calls and financial performance. Overall, this study contributes to managerial tone literature and holds significant theoretical and practical implications.

Hospitals’ corporate governance (CG) mechanisms oversee critical operational issues and evaluate the outcomes. This paper investigates the impact of CG (i.e. board size, board independence, board expertise, board meetings, board gender diversity, CEO gender, and academic directors) on the financial performance of English National Health Service (NHS) hospitals and separately by hospital type (i.e. trusts and foundation trusts).

The sample includes 128 NHS hospitals. The data were collected through document analysis and archival work from annual hospital reports from 2014 to 2018.

The findings indicate that board expertise, board meetings, board diversity, CEO gender, and academic directors significantly and negatively affect NHS hospitals’ financial performance. For NHS trusts, the results reveal that board expertise, board diversity, and CEO gender have a significant negative effect, while for NHS foundation trusts, only CEO gender has a significant negative impact.

Overall, this study contributes to the literature on the healthcare system. It holds significant practical implications for hospital governance and has important implications for theories.

This study aims to explore the effects of internal financial technology (FinTech) integration within Jordanian banks on their performance metrics, specifically focusing on profitability, risk-taking and stock returns.

Using panel data analysis, this study investigates the financial performance of 13 listed commercial banks in Jordan over a decade, from 2010 to 2019, to examine the hypothesized impacts of bank FinTech developments. In addition, several robustness tests addressing potential issues of endogeneity and autocorrelation are conducted to enhance the reliability of the results.

The results reveal that the bank FinTech development significantly enhances bank profitability and inversely affects risk-taking levels, indicating a substantial and positive impact on financial performance and stability. However, the results suggest no significant evidence of the effect of bank FinTech development on stock return.

The findings advocate for Jordanian commercial banks to continue and expand their investment in FinTech innovations, highlighting the crucial role these technologies play in enhancing financial performance and reducing bank risks. Additionally, these findings suggest that regulatory bodies and policymakers should develop and enhance institutional and regulatory environments to support and guide the FinTech evolution within the banking sector.

This study sheds light on the relatively under-researched area of internal bank FinTech. It provides critical insights into how FinTech integration within banks contributes to their profitability and stability, offering another perspective that enriches the FinTech literature. This contribution is essential for devising future strategies, developing theoretical frameworks and informing policy decisions in the FinTech domain.

This study aims to investigate four internal (organisational structure, quality of information technology, business strategy and market orientation) and two external (competition intensity and perceived environmental uncertainty) contextual factors affecting the use of production planning and control accounting techniques (PPC), as well as the impact of PPC usage on organisational competitiveness.

Seven major PPC techniques were investigated, namely: attribute costing, lifecycle costing, quality costing, target costing, value-chain costing, activity-based costing and activity-based management. By deploying a multi-informant strategy, a structured questionnaire was used to gather survey data from 129 senior accounting, finance and production personnel of publicly quoted manufacturing companies in Nigeria.

The results, using structural equation modelling, show that market orientation is the strongest determinant of PPC usage. The inability of competition intensity and perceived environmental uncertainty to notably affect PPC usage suggests that external environmental pressure to use PPC is weak. Although PPC can engender organisational competitiveness, their interactive usage yields optimal results.

The study contributes to knowledge by: (i) presenting evidence that although PPC techniques can engender organisational competitiveness, it is their interactive usage that yields optimal results; (ii) empirically demonstrating that contextual factors influence PPC usage in line with the contingency theory; and (iii) validating the diffusion of innovation theory that organisations will typically deploy PPC techniques because of their relative advantage of improving organisational competitiveness.

This paper aims to document international evidence of the impact of a board-level governance bundle [size, independence, CEO duality, gender diversity and sustainability committee (SC)] on sustainability reporting (SR) and, separately, on its three dimensions (economic, environmental and social).

The sample includes 370 listed firms from 50 countries. A GRI standards-based disclosure index was constructed to quantify SR across various reporting media.

The baseline findings show that SC positively affects SR and its three dimensions. Board size also has a significant and positive impact on SR and two of its dimensions (economic and social). Similarly, board independence and CEO duality have a significant but negative association with SR and the same two dimensions. Finally, board gender diversity has no significant impact on SR and all its three dimensions.

The findings that only SC significantly influences SR, and its three dimensions, have important implications for corporate governance reforms internationally to improve SR in countries where such committees are not yet part of the board of directors’ sub-committees.

Overall, this study contributes to board characteristics–SR literature and holds significant theoretical and practical implications.

This study aims to investigate contextual factors affecting the deployment of strategy-driven manufacturing accounting techniques (SMAT), as well as the impact of SMAT usage on organisational competitiveness. Seven major SMAT were investigated, namely, benchmarking, integrated performance measurement, environmental management accounting, strategic costing, strategic pricing, strategic investment and life cycle costing.

By using multi-informant strategy, structured questionnaire was used to gather survey data from 129 senior accounting, finance and production personnel of publicly quoted manufacturing companies in Nigeria. Data was analysed using structural equation modelling and propensity score matching.

Result shows that the usage rate of the SMAT is generally moderate. Market orientation and deliberate strategy formulation are notable determinants of SMAT usage. The inability of competition intensity and perceived environmental uncertainty to notably affect SMAT usage suggests that external environmental pressure to use SMAT is weak.

Although the impact of SMAT usage on organisational competitiveness is positive and statistically significant, it is conceivable that the impact of SMAT could have been more assuming SMAT recorded extensive usage. Thus, the lack of competitiveness of manufacturing companies in Nigeria may not be unconnected to the superficial usage of SMAT.

The study contributes to knowledge in three ways. First, it extends studies on the contingency theory that contextual factors influence the adoption of management accounting innovations. Second, it exposes the contextual factors affecting the adoption of SMAT in a developing country. Third, it provides evidence on the value relevance of management accounting innovation in enhancing organisational competitiveness.

Sustainable development goals (SDGs) have been attracting ever considerable attention from practice and academia, but the relationship between board characteristics and SDGs reporting remains unclear, especially in emerging countries. This paper empirically aims to the impact of board characteristics on SDGs reporting.

Based on stakeholder-agency theory, this study used data from 572 firm-year observations between 2017 and 2023 from top Malaysian-listed companies.

The result of feasible generalized least squares regression indicates that larger, more independent boards are associated with increased SDG disclosure. This suggests that well-structured boards can positively influence decision-making by reducing information asymmetries and agency conflicts. On the other hand, the results reveal that board activity insignificantly impacts the disclosure of SDGs. The findings are robust to robustness analyses and endogeneity checks.

This research offers significant implications for companies, practitioners and stakeholders, seeking to enhance their commitment to SDG implementation. In addition, the findings provide valuable insights for policymakers to encourage companies to diversify their composition boards and to promote strong, complementary governance mechanisms that align management behavior with sustainable business objectives.

The findings can enhance SDG reporting quality by improving materiality assessment disclosures. This increased transparency and accountability will empower corporate stakeholders to better evaluate the reporting entity’s underlying processes. Enhanced corporate SDG reporting aligns with Malaysia’s commitment to implementing the UN SDGs and transitioning to a sustainable future.

The findings offer fresh insights into a previously unexplored topic and highlight the important role of the corporate board in addressing and improving the corporate SDGs reporting of listed firms in Malaysia.