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CEO duality occurs when the same individual holds both the CEO and board Chair positions. In some countries (such as Britain) CEO duality is considered to impair good corporate governance. In the United States, however, CEO duality is still a common practice. The Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) included many corporate governance reforms, but the Act did not address the issue of CEO duality. However, we suggest that the corporate governance environment surrounding the passage of SOX may have influenced corporate board decisions regarding CEO duality when appointing new CEOs. In this study, we seek to determine whether CEO duality changed in the post-Sox environment by investigating the likelihood of CEO duality when CEO changes took place before and after SOX. Using a sample of 182 CEO succession events before and after the passage of SOX, we find that the likelihood of combining the CEO and Chair positions for newly appointed CEOs significantly decreased in the post-SOX period relative to the pre-SOX period. Our results suggest the SOX environment fostered a greater focus on governance issues even beyond the specific provisions of SOX.

This study draws on agency, theory to evaluate the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) duality and earnings quality, proxied by discretionary accruals. Additionally, this study aims to examine whether board independence moderates the relationship between CEO duality and earnings quality.

This study uses a fixed-effects regression model to examine the effect of CEO duality on earnings quality and to test whether board independence moderates that relationship for a sample of non-financial listed Portuguese firms-year from 2002 to 2016.

Consistent with agency theory, this study suggests that CEO duality decreases earnings quality. Further, the results also suggest that the earnings quality reduction associated with CEO duality is attenuated when the board of directors has a higher proportion of independent directors.

The findings based on this study provide useful information to investors and regulators in evaluating the impact of CEO duality on earnings quality and the effect of board independence on the role of CEO duality, especially under concentrated ownership.

To the knowledge, this study is the first to investigate the role of board independence on the association between CEO duality and earnings quality. In addition, this paper is the first empirical study to investigate the direct and indirect effect of CEO duality on earnings quality in Portugal.

Purpose – This paper aims at re-examining the predictions of agency theory with regard to the negative association between CEO duality (i.e. the Chief Executive Officer, CEO, serves also as the board chairman) and corporate performance. It also examines the role of other corporate governance mechanisms (board size, top managerial ownership and institutional ownership) as moderating variables in the relationship between CEO duality and corporate performance.

Methodology/approach – This paper uses the financial statements for the year 2006 of most actively traded Egyptian companies to examine these predictions of agency theory. Moderated Regression Analysis is used to analyse the empirical data.

Findings – The findings indicated that the hypothesized relationships between CEO duality, the moderating variables and corporate performance have changed. For companies characterized by large boards and low top management ownership, corporate performance is negatively affected by CEO duality and positively impacted by institutional ownership.

Research limitations/implications – A limitation of this study is the use of accounting-based performance measures because of the expected earnings management behaviours by CEOs.

Practical implications – The Egyptian Capital Market Authority should adopt a reform programme to encourage Egyptian listed companies to modify their governance structures by increasing top management ownership and reducing board sizes before incorporating the new governance rules into the listing requirements.

Originality/value of paper – The paper contributes to the literature on corporate governance and corporate performance by introducing a framework for identifying and analysing moderating variables that affect the relationship between CEO duality and corporate performance.

This study aims to examine whether CEO duality affects the association between board gender composition, dividend policy and cost of debt (COD).

The S&P 1500 firms’ data for this study were collected from the Bloomberg professional service terminal for the period 2010-2015.

The results show that board gender composition positively impacts both a firm’s propensity to pay dividends and the level of payouts. However, this positive association is only present in firms with CEO duality. The authors find no significant association between board gender composition and COD, but when the authors split the sample into firms with and without CEO duality, the authors find a negative association in firms without CEO duality.

The empirical results highlight important issues for policymakers, managers and investors. The study provides positive feedback on corporate governance rejuvenation efforts that seek to engender and advocate the appointments of female directors to corporate boards. Market participants, such as financial analysts and lenders, could recognize the empirical specifics related to the influence of board gender composition on firms’ dividend policy and COD in the context of CEO duality.

This study fills an important gap in the literature on the relationship between board gender composition and its relation with dividend policy and COD.

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of the ownership structure and board governance on dividend policy in emerging markets. The authors test whether the effects of corporate governance on dividend policy change during crisis periods.

The authors use a panel regression approach on a sample of 362 non-financial listed firms from East Asian and Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

The results provide evidence that dividend payout decision increases with institutional ownership and board activity. The authors find that in emerging countries, dividend policy of firms with CEO duality and without CEO duality does not depend on the same set of factors. It is shown that the ownership concentration and board independency affect significantly the dividend policy of firms with COE duality. Finally, the results show that during the recent financial crisis, dividend decision is inversely related to CEO duality, board size and the frequency of board meetings.

Other variables of corporate governance and ownership structure can be studied more in depth. The results can be directly compared to an alternative sample of developed countries.

This study is of particular interest for managers and shareholders when adjusting their strategies of dividend payout during financial crisis.

The authors employ a specific approach to investigate the impact of CEO duality on dividend policy in East Asian countries. An important aspect of the results is that that for firms with CEO who is also the chairperson, the dividend decision is negatively related to ownership concentration and board independence. This research contributes to the understanding of dividend policy by testing whether the impact of corporate governance on dividend policy changes during crisis periods in emerging countries. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this work is the first to directly address this issue from this perspective.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between board independence and internal control quality (ICQ) in Egypt and investigate whether CEO duality moderates such an association.

A survey among external auditors is used to assess ICQ among Egyptian listed firms over the period of 2007-2010.

Findings show that board independence does not have a significant positive effect on ICQ. However, when testing for the moderating effect of CEO duality on such a relationship, the authors document that the association becomes positive and significant under combined board leadership structure, whereas it is negative under separated leadership structure.

The authors’ results demonstrate that CEO duality plays a governance role in weak legal environment like Egypt by strengthening board independence role in increasing ICQ.

This study aims to examine the moderating effect of intellectual capital (IC) in the relationship between board characteristics and firm performance of non-financial firms listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) from 2010 to 2019.

The modified value-added intellectual capital (MVAIC) was used to assess the efficiency of sample firms’ IC, which is a modified version of Pulic’s (2000) model VAIC that includes an additional component, rational capital efficiency. Board size, independence, board meetings, chief executive officier duality and board gender diversity are all measures of board characteristics. Firm performance is measured through return on assets, return on equity and earnings per share. The Hausman test was used to select the best model for the study.

Based on the regression results, the board’s gender diversity and duality have a significant inverse relationship with profitability. In terms of the impact of board characteristics on IC, it is discovered that board independence and diversity are significantly inversely related to IC. Furthermore, IC is significantly related to profitability by all means. In terms of the moderating effect of IC, the findings show that IC significantly moderates the negative relationship between duality and profitability, as well as board gender diversity and profitability.

This study made some policy recommendations to policymakers. Duality should be avoided in PSX firms because it is significantly inversely related to profitability and IC. Second, female board participation should be subjective. Third, because the findings indicate that Pakistani firms lack true board independence, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan should take additional steps to ensure that the board is truly independent.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study of its kind to study the moderating effect of IC between corporate governance and firm performance.

This study aims to reconcile some of the conflicting results in prior studies of the board structure–firm performance relationship and to evaluate the effectiveness and applicability of agency theory in the specific context of Italian corporate governance practice.

This research applies a dynamic generalised method of moments on a sample of Italian listed companies over the period 2003-2015. Proxies for corporate governance mechanisms are the board size, the level of board independence, ownership structure, shareholder agreements and CEO–chairman leadership.

While directors elected by minority shareholders are not able to impact performance, independent directors do have a non-linear effect on performance. Board size has a positive effect on firm performance for lower levels of board size. Ownership structure per se and shareholder agreements do not affect firm performance.

This paper contributes to the literature on agency theory by reconciling some of the conflicting results inherent in the board structure–performance relationship. Firm performance is not necessarily improved by having a high number of independent directors on the board. Ownership structure and composition do not affect firm performance; therefore, greater monitoring provided by concentrated ownership does not necessarily lead to stronger firm performance.

This paper suggests that Italian corporate governance law should improve the rules and effectiveness of minority directors by analysing whether they are able to impede the main shareholders to expropriate private benefits on the expenses of the minority. The legislator should not impose any restrictive regulations with regard to CEO duality, as the influence of CEO duality on performance may vary with respect to the unique characteristics of each company.

The results enrich the understanding of the applicability of agency theory in listed companies, especially in Italy. Additionally, this paper provides a comprehensive synthesis of research evidence of agency theory studies.

This paper aims to investigate the joint effect of board characteristics on financial performance. Most of the existing literature implicitly assumes that the relationship between either board composition, or board leadership structure and financial performance is direct.

The generalized least squares method was performed as a panel data analysis on a sample of 40 Egyptian listed firms during the period from 2008 to 2010.

The results demonstrated that under board leadership structure that assigns the duties of the CEO and chairman to the same person, increasing the proportion of non-executive members to the total number of directors has a negative impact on firm financial performance.

First, corporate governance structures do not operate in a vacuum, and therefore, corporate governance mechanisms must be considered and assessed altogether. Second, failure to understand the underlying interdependency among corporate governance mechanisms may result in arguments that blame some corporate governance designs for poor financial performance. Third, there is no single board governance mechanism that can be considered ideal, but there are combinations of these mechanisms that are preferred.

The paper adds to the corporate governance literature by providing empirical evidence from the emerging market of Egypt. The evidence shows that the relationship between board characteristics and financial performance is not a monotonic relationship. Consequently, these findings imply that existing evidence explaining the relationship between board characteristics and financial performance needs to be interpreted with some caution.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of corporate board characteristics on the financial performance of Nigerian quoted firms. Board characteristics studied comprise board size, board skill, board nationality, board gender, board ethnicity and CEO duality.

The study employed the random‐effects and fixed‐effects generalised least squares (GLS) regression to test the six hypotheses formulated for the study, while controlling for firm size and firm age.

Using panel data from 122 quoted firms in Nigeria between 1991 and 2008, it was found that board size, CEO duality and gender diversity were negatively linked with firm performance, whereas board nationality, board ethnicity and the number of board members with a PhD qualification were found to impact positively on firm performance. The result of the robustness test using the same board characteristics for 160 small firms showed that board duality was positively linked to firm performance, while a PhD qualification was negatively linked to firm performance.

The study contributes to the understanding of the board‐performance link by examining both the traditional variables such as board size, CEO duality and other organisational attributes such as ethnic diversity, foreign nationality and competence variables represented by women and PhD holders, respectively. The results provide an insight for practitioners and policy makers on the importance of relying on institutional specifics in the prescription of corporate governance codes.

The study adds value to the global corporate governance discourse in two ways: first, the use of Nigeria, which is claimed to have one of the weakest business cultures in the world, and secondly, using a good number of proxies that are country‐specific for corporate boards.