Governance Matters Research Articles

The Strength Within: CSR Governance as an Environmental Performance Driver in Weak Institutional Contexts

This study investigates how the relationship between firm-level corporate social responsibility (CSR) governance and corporate environmental performance (CEP) varies across diverse national contexts. Drawing on institutional theory, organizational adaptation theory, and the concept of institutional voids, we analyze an extensive dataset of 5326 firms from 26 OECD countries over a seven-year period (2013–2019). Employing panel data analysis, we examine the moderating effects of country-level factors on the CSR governance–CEP relationship. Our findings reveal a significant positive association between a firm’s CSR governance quality and environmental performance, which is notably stronger in countries characterized by weaker environmental governance, less prominent societal environmental values, and fewer climate mitigation laws and policies. These results suggest that firms with strong CSR governance effectively fill institutional voids in environmental governance, going beyond mere compliance to drive environmental performance improvements where external pressures are weak. Our study contributes to the literature by advancing the current understanding of the contextual nature of CSR, extending the application of institutional void theory to environmental governance landscapes in developed economies, and providing a more nuanced perspective on when and where CSR governance matters most for environmental outcomes. These insights offer valuable implications for managers in diverse institutional contexts and for policymakers seeking to enhance corporate environmental performance through complementary governance mechanisms.

Monitoring female directors and earnings management, does corporate governance matter?

Monitoring female directors and earnings management, does corporate governance matter?

Nexus between board characteristics and financial performance: Evidence from developing economy

Corporate performance is the key indicator of availing the economic performances in all economies. Especially for the emerging economy, it is the oxygen for smooth economic operations. The study aims to investigate the influence of board characteristics on the corporate performance of the listed pharmaceuticals and chemicals sector from a developing country, namely Bangladesh. This empirical study examines eight attributes of the board and four financial performance indicators of the businesses. Here, the annual reports of the DSE-listed pharmaceutical and chemicals companies are considered to examine the impact of board attributes on corporate performance. Based on panel data analysis, this empirical study concludes that the fixed effect regression model is suitable for all four models. Except board size, the results demonstrate that all board attributes are generally statistically significant. Furthermore, it confirms that all the significant characteristics of the board are positively associated with corporate performance, except for board independence. The research offers valuable insights for policymakers, investors, organizations, and scholars, promoting optimal board structures, innovative solutions, and an enhanced understanding of corporate governance matters. This research explores the challenges in board attributes, which enhances our understanding of corporate governance matters and their impact over the last decade in the listed pharmaceutical and chemicals sectors in Bangladesh.

Brief Considerations Regarding the Competence of the Central Authorities in Matters of Filiation, in the Context of the Proposal for a Council Regulation on the Creation of a European Certificate of Parenthood

The study aims to present and analyse the competence of the central authorities in the matter of filiation according to the Proposal for a Council Regulation on jurisdiction, applicable law, recognition of decisions and acceptance of authentic instruments in matters of parenthood and on the creation of a European Certificate of Parenthood and according to the regulations in Romanian law such as: Civil Code, Law no. 119/1996 regarding civil status documents, Government Ordinance no. 84/2001 regarding the establishment and operation of community public services for the registration of persons. The authors present due clarifications regarding the dichotomy of the provisions of Romanian law (Romanian private international law, civil law and the regulations from the normative acts stipulated in the paragraph above) and the correspondence with the Council's Proposal for a regulation on filiation, noting the competence, the applicable law, respectively the recognition. Next, the paper will present the competent authorities from the perspective of the proposed Regulation and Romanian law. In conclusion, the authors will present de lege ferenda what changes would be made to the provisions of Romanian law by adopting the Proposal for a Regulation of the Council regarding jurisdiction, the applicable law, the recognition of court decisions and the acceptance of authentic documents in matters of filiation and regarding the creation of a European certificate of filiation considering that there will be rules of immediate application. Keywords: Central authorities; Child; Filiation; Parents; Private international law; Romanian law.

Re-election incentives and the adoption of early childhood development programmes: The case of the "Happy Child" Programme in Brazil

What incentives matter for governments to adopt pro-poor early childhood development (ECD) policies? This paper addresses this question by employing a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to study the effect of mayoral re-election incentives on the adoption of the “Happy Child” ECD Programme in Brazil. The analysis finds that municipalities with first-term mayors (those that were eligible for re-election for another consecutive mandate) had a higher probability of programme adoption by 2018 of over 10 percentage points. These results confirm theoretical expectations about the role of re-election incentives and provide a significant contribution on the institutional determinants of the expansion of ECD programmes in developing countries.

Human Rights in Scottish Foreign Policy: Constructing Scotland as Good Global Citizen

Abstract While foreign policy is a reserved matter for the British government in Westminster, it is clear that the Scottish government aspires to, and indeed has implemented, an expanding programme of independent external relations. It is not the first sub-state political actor to do so. Whether as a part of the UK, or as potentially an independent country, Scotland has put considerable effort into developing an identity as a good global citizen. One area in particular where this has occurred is in human rights, where it has demonstrated leadership on a number of issues and sought to connect its domestic commitments to human rights to its external persona. This article will examine the dynamics of this development, looking at both the constraints and the possibilities for Scotland as an international human rights actor.

Governance matters: Exploring the impact of governance on routine immunization performance in 54 African countries: A 10-year (2012−2021) analysis using linear mixed models

BackgroundImmunization coverage across numerous African nations has, unfortunately, shown little improvement and, in some cases, has even decreased over the past decade, leaving millions of children vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases. While efforts to improve immunization performance have primarily focused on the health system, effective delivery of immunization services is intricately linked to a country's governance, which, in this context, reflects a government's ability to provide comprehensive services to its citizens. This study investigated the relationship between governance, measured using the Mo Ibrahim Index for African Governance, and the trajectory of immunization coverage for three vaccines in 54 African countries from 2012 to 2021. MethodsWe conducted an ecological study utilizing publicly available datasets, the WHO/UNICEF estimates of National Immunization Coverage and the Ibrahim Index of African Governance score (IIAG). We described the trends in routine immunization performance, evaluated and assessed the impact of governance on immunization coverage across 54 African countries for the period 2012 to 2021, using linear mixed models and focusing on three vaccines provided through the Expanded Program on Immunization (DTPCV1, DTPCV3, and MCV1). ResultsAmong the 54 African countries studied, 32 (59.3 %) witnessed an overall decrease (slope of change in immunization coverage over time < 0) in immunization coverage, with 16 (29.6 %) experiencing a significant decline (slope of change significantly different from zero (P < 0.05)) in coverage. For DTPCV3, 31 countries (57.4 %) demonstrated a decline in coverage, with 12 (22.2 %) being significant declines. Thirty-two countries (59.2 %) reported a decrease in MCV1 coverage over the analysis period, with 17 (31.5 %) significant. Across all three antigens, the IIAG overall score was positively associated with immunization coverage over time. One unit increase in the IIAG score correlated with an average annual increase of 0.64 (95 % CI: 0.35–0.93) percentage points in DTPCV1 coverage, 0.74 percentage points (95 % CI: 0.42–1.07) in DTPCV3 coverage, and 0.60 (95 % CI: 0.30–0.91) percentage points in MCV1 coverage. These findings suggest that an African country with an average IIAG score just one unit higher than their observed average value over the study period, would have achieved a 6.4 %, 7.4 %, and 6.0 % coverage for DTPCV1, DTPCV3, and MCV1, respectively, above its 2021 coverage levels. ConclusionThe Expanded Program on Immunization aspires to reach all eligible populations with life-saving vaccines, regardless of the context. We found that country governance may be an important determinant of immunization performance, potentially explaining the observed stagnation or decline in immunization performance and the heightened vulnerability of immunization programs to external shocks. Understanding the nexus between governance and service delivery suggests that immunization actors, funders, and other stakeholders may need to adjust their expectations of countries' immunization performance accordingly.

The Impact of Principal Leadership on School Governance: A Parent Involvement Perspective in China

This research investigates the complex dynamics of the relationship between school managers and parents in School M context by exploring how the school principal employs his leadership practices to promote collaboration and understanding. Using in-depth interviews, the study is concerned with how head teachers effectively use their professional status and personal charisma to create a cultural tie that links home and school as a matter of common values and responsibilities. The research sheds light on the nuanced strategies employed by the principal, emphasizing the cultivation of a normative framework for parental involvement in non-instructional governance matters while delineating clear boundaries. Additionally, the study elucidates the continual communication efforts undertaken to seek consensus, ultimately garnering support and affirmation from the parental community. Moreover, the analysis also describes continuous communication efforts that are aimed at finding consensus within a parental community thereby receiving support from it. This underscores the necessity for principals to navigate diverse and conflicting expectations within the competitive educational landscape, requiring discernment to establish a prioritized developmental sequence. Overall, the findings contribute to understanding the multifaceted role of principals in building collaborative partnerships with parents and adapting to evolving market-oriented educational landscapes.

Earnings quality and firm value: Does corporate governance matter?

Earnings quality and firm value: Does corporate governance matter?

Is it a matter of governance or judicial favoritism? Legal expertise at an executive level and its use in cases of corporate financial fraud

This study examines how executives’ legal expertise affects corporate financial fraud and the mechanism behind this using data from A-listed companies between 2011 and 2021. Findings show a positive correlation between executives’ legal backgrounds and corporate financial fraud, which is mainly driven by external audit quality and corporate social responsibility. This finding provides evidence of how the law affects small-scale corporate governance. This study emphasizes the value of firms leveraging their executives’ legal background, which helps regulators identify potential hazards in corporations.

‘Pirates’, Potentates, and Merchant Petitioning in the Early Nineteenth Century Straits Settlements

Abstract In the nineteenth century Straits of Malacca, one of the globe’s most significant trading crossroads, merchants were integral to imperial stability and growth. Indeed, historians of the British empire have long sought to understand how colonial governments turned to merchants, both British and Asian, to extend commercial networks, establish local hierarchies and extend processes of state-building. Yet, merchants’ conceptions of their relationship to, and place within, colonial governance are less well understood. This article examines the emergence of colonial merchant politics in the British controlled Straits Settlements in the early nineteenth century. It concentrates on petitions produced by Asian merchants who demanded greater intervention by East India Company authorities in matters of maritime security and diplomacy. Petitions enabled the merchants of Singapore and Penang to inject their political and commercial visions into processes of colonial state-building. Moreover, these cases demonstrate that imperial margins — geographic, bureaucratic, linguistic and political — were productive spaces in which colonial power dynamics between state and society were contested and took on new meanings.

The Role of Village Government in the Orderly Land Administration in Dayeuhluhur Village, Tempuran District, Karawang Regency as an Implementation of Agrarian Reform

Order of village land is the process of managing and regulating land at the village government level. According to Law Number 6 Year 2014, villages are authorized to manage local governance matters, including those related to land issues. This research aims to understand the implementation of land administration systems in Dayeuhluhur Village, Tempuran Subdistrict, Karawang Regency, West Java Province. The method used is juridical-empirical, incorporating interviews and direct observations in Dayeuhluhur Village, along with data analysis from literature as supporting evidence. Data collected is qualitatively analyzed to explain findings derived from observations and journal records. Data was gathered from primary sources such as interviews and observations, as well as secondary sources like documents. The study's findings indicate that the land administration system in Dayeuhluhur Village functions effectively. However, it also reveals that the role of the Dayeuhluhur Village government in land administration is not yet ideal due to several reasons, including weaknesses in human resources, lack of coordination with relevant agencies, deficiencies in village land administration systems and procedures, and inadequate community awareness of the importance of orderly land administration. Therefore, due to these inhibiting factors, the village government is less effective in ensuring orderly land administration, both internally and externally. By addressing these barriers, it is hoped that the village government's role in ensuring orderly land administration can be maximized to benefit the community and the village as a whole.

The financial development and renewable energy consumption nexus in Africa: Does the quality of governance matter?

AbstractThe impact of financial development (FD) on renewable energy consumption has been extensively examined in recent years. Nevertheless, studies on the moderation of quality of governance in the financial development and renewable energy consumption nexus are sparse. By filling the gap in the literature relating to energy economicsc, this study investigates the moderating effect of the quality of governance on the relationship between financial development and consumption of renewable energy for a panel of 33 African countries over the period between 2000 and 2020. The fully modified ordinary least squares (FMOLS) estimation technique is used to account for cointegration and cross‐sectional dependence. The results unveil that the impact of governance quality and financial development on renewable energy consumption is negative and statistically significant. Moreover, the results reveal that the FD‐governance quality interactions are significant and negative. Governance quality thresholds at which the negative incidence of financial development on renewable energy consumption is completely nullified are provided.

“Every Cord that Binds together the People to the Government”: Local Magistracy and the Making of an Adjudicatory State in Early New York

Abstract: Focusing on early New York, this essay suggests that local magistracy was a contentious but foundational site of state formation in early America. Throughout an extended period of legal reform and partisan state-building spanning the mid-eighteenth to early-nineteenth centuries, state authorities struggled to grapple with the autonomy of on-the-ground local governance centered on justices of the peace. By the early nineteenth century, however, it became increasingly clear that controlling the appointment of justices and directly disciplining them were ineffectual and politically unfeasible means of curbing local autonomy. Ultimately it was the state supreme court that provided the cornerstone for central authority’s influence on local governance, by gradually shaping a stable jurisprudence of local governance through careful and selective exercise of its appellate power. The resulting formulation was what may be described as an adjudicatory state, in which state power expressed itself less through direct coercion than by inducing officials and inhabitants to conduct matters of local governance within the bounds of a statewide judicial framework.

Financial worry and government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in 88 Countries: Did public confidence in National Governments matter?

During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments implemented various measures to control the spread of the virus, enhance healthcare systems, and mitigate the economic impact of these actions. In this study, we investigate how government responses to COVID-19, in terms of stringency and economic support, affected individuals' financial worries in 88 economies. We also investigate how the relationship between these variables was affected by the public’s confidence in the government. Our results suggest that greater stringency was associated with increased financial worry, irrespective of public trust in the government. Meanwhile, the impact of economic support policies varied with the level of public trust in the government. In countries where citizens reported high levels of confidence in their government, economic support to households helped to alleviate financial worry. In countries with low confidence levels, the support policies had no statistically significant impact.

“A Conscience Rightly Informed”: Puritan Casuistry and the Theological Justifications for Religious Establishment

Abstract In the early modern debates over religious liberty and toleration, religious dissenters often raised the issue of an individual’s conscience as a primary support for disestablishment. Dissenters like Roger Williams contended that establishmentarian policies persecuted tender consciences. God, according to dissenters, had not granted authority over the conscience to civil rulers; thus, religious establishment was both theologically specious as well as politically perilous. Much attention has been given to how religious dissenters discussed the human conscience and its place within the civil society. This essay, however, focuses on how magisterial Protestants developed their theological system of religious establishment in concert with their own understanding of the human conscience. Proponents of establishment utilized their own theology of the conscience as grounds for religious establishment, and this essay seeks to understand how they reconciled their soteriological convictions and their conception of the human conscience with their belief in the magistrate’s authority in matters of doctrine and religion.

Evaluation of Critical Corporate Governance Issues within Nigeria's Top State-Owned Enterprises

Objective: The objective of the article was to examine and analyze significant corporate governance issues prevalent in Nigeria's leading state-owned enterprises by identifying the key corporate governance issues that exist within State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), importance of addressing these critical corporate governance issues in relation to SOEs in Nigeria, explore the various factors that hinder the evaluation of these critical corporate governance issues in Nigerian SOEs and put forth recommendations and strategies for effectively managing these critical corporate governance issues within SOEs in Nigeria. Theoretical Framework: Agency Model Principals (Shareholders) Agents (Management) Performs Hires and Delegates Self Interest Self Interest 257 Talat Afza and Mian Sajid Nazir On the whole, agency theory laid emphasis on the opportunistic behavior of managers; managers try to put their interest first by forgoing shareholders’ interests. Method: The study employed a descriptive survey design, wherein 300 employees were selected through a random sampling process from a pool of over 100,000 employees belonging to various organizations such as Power Holding Company of Nigeria, Nigeria Postal Services, Nigerian Railway Cooperation, Nigeria Water Board Cooperation, and Nigeria Television Authority. The selected employees were representative of the six geopolitical zones in Nigeria. A questionnaire consisting of 20 items was utilized as the primary instrument for data collection. To ensure the reliability and validity of the instrument, the validation process involved the application of Lawshe's content validity template, resulting in a content validity ratio (CVR) of 1. The psychometric properties of the instrument were assessed using Cronbach's alpha. A coefficient alpha of .85 was obtained, surpassing the threshold of .70. This indicates that the instrument demonstrates satisfactory reliability. The data was collected in real-time and subsequently analyzed utilizing frequency count and percentage calculations. Findings: The results indicate that employees possess a comprehensive understanding of crucial corporate governance matters within their respective state-owned enterprises in Nigeria. Assessing these critical corporate governance issues has the potential to yield outstanding returns on investment (ROI) and enhance stakeholder satisfaction. Hence, it is of utmost importance to conduct a comprehensive assessment of critical issues pertaining to corporate governance. Conclusion: This evaluation is essential in order to protect the interests of stakeholders, attain anticipated levels of performance, promote fairness and transparency, optimize return on investment, and ultimately enhance the provision of services to citizens.

SMEs fintech financing: does board governance matter?

The purpose of this study is to examine the board governance factors that influence a small and medium enterprise’s (SME’s) decision toward fintech financing. A structured questionnaire survey of 90 Malaysian SMEs was used and the data analyzed using the Heckman selection model and the marginal effect model. The results demonstrate that SMEs’ female board members, family board members, and the duality of their CEOs have a significant influence on their decision to obtain financing from fintech platforms. Professional services provided by experts have a negative influence on their decisions to engage in fintech financing. The SMEs’ board size, the length of their chairmen’s service, and non-family board members are negatively related to their decisions to apply for financing. The more male members that were on the board, the more likely the SME was to choose to apply for external financing during the survey year.

Territorial heritage gentrification in Abdali in Amman, Jordan

Having established itself as a heritage discourse, planetary gentrification is being studied in terms of how it operates in the Global South. This study focuses on the case of Abdali Amman, a significant mixed-use neighbourhood in Jordan that has experienced numerous mega-gentrification initiatives. According to Bourdieu’s theories of the state and dispositional practices, this study critically evaluates urban gentrification practices. In terms of gentrification governance, which takes place in two adjacent ‘state’ and ‘civic’ zones inside the Abdali district, this study analyses the interactions between transnational and state actors and the intragovernmental (state-municipality) governance system. Gentrification in Amman is connected to the revitalisation of historic sites, is a matter of urban governance, and operates from the transnational sphere along national and local lines. Furthermore, gentrification is caught in a desire/resistance paradox with calls for legitimacy and recognition. As a country in the Global South, Jordan has welcomed capitalist urbanisation. Gentrification is articulated within a flux between deterritorialisation/reterritorialisation, producing a form of ‘heritage gentrification’ in which history and national heritage are sacrificed through a process of satellite gentrification that is rooted in generative cultural transformation and governed by decentralised power structures. Introducing a Western blueprint of planetary gentrification through narrow gates into non-Western environments is a prevailing challenge.

Quality of financial reporting in the Indian insurance industry: Does corporate governance matter?

Quality of financial reporting in the Indian insurance industry: Does corporate governance matter?