This paper examines the impact of the government and its agencies’ ownership on the effectiveness of one the main internal governance mechanisms, namely; board of directors, for a sample of 140 energy and petrochemical Saudi listed firms over 2012-2019. The Saudi Arabia provides an interesting context due to the domination of government-linked corporations’ ownership. This setting arranges for the impact of such ownership on the board of directors’ monitoring and advisory roles. The board of directors’ effectiveness is measured as an interaction term of the board size and meetings of the board of directors. The study finds that government-linked energy and petrochemical corporations’ ownerships are inversely related to the board of directors’ effectiveness. This result is sensitive to the measurement of the board of directors’ effectiveness as each variable consisting of the board of directors’ effectiveness was examined individually. The study also finds that government-linked corporations’ ownership had a strong negative impact on the board size. In contrast, the proposed model does not provide any evidence supporting the relationship of the government-linked corporations’ ownerships with board meetings. Overall, the evidence supports the substitution hypothesis on the relationship of government-linked corporations and board of directors’ effectiveness.

This study investigates whether Corporate Social Disclosure (CSD) is affected by IFRS convergence and social value in a country that has strict societal norms (Saudi Arabia). Using a sample of 292 Saudi manufacturing and utilities firms listed on the Saudi Capital Market during the period of 2015-2019, the study finds that IFRS convergence is not related to the CSD of the Saudi manufacturing and utilities firms. On the other hand, social values (as modeled by adopting CSD as a strategic objective) are significantly related to CSD. These results provide evidence supporting the view that CSD is influenced by social values rather than the change in the corporate disclosure environment in countries that exhibit strong conformity to societal values, such as Saudi Arabia. Overall, the current study adds to an understanding of the factors that determine CSD outside the shareholder-stakeholder orientation model.

This study examines the connection of major family shareholders with management’s effective attributes, namely; board size and board meetings as an interaction term among 464 manufacturing listed companies in the setting of Saudi Arabia for the period 2012-2019. The pooled OLS regression result indicated that the major family shareholders were associated negatively with management’s effectiveness. The main result documented by this study is of utmost importance to policy makers, regulators, companies, and auditors in Saudi Arabia on understanding the extent to which the major shareholders influence the degree of management’s effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of some demographic characteristics of the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) on Financial Reporting Timeliness (FRT) in Saudi Arabia. More particularly, this study aims to test whether or not CEO characteristics, namely, tenure, accounting financial expertise, and sociability are associated with FRT. The sample of this study consists of 119 non-financial firms listed on Tadawul Stock Exchange for a period of four years (2014-2017). We use panel regressions and two proxies of FRT. Our findings report that a long-tenured CEO is associated with timely financial reports when the IFRS transition is simultaneously considered. This result implies that companies with a long-tenured CEO reduce the period taken to prepare and disclose their financial reports in the period of IFRS transition. Our findings show that CEO accounting financial expertise is significantly associated with timely financial reporting. This result implies that companies with a CEO who is an accounting financial expert reduce the period taken to prepare and disclose their financial reports on the capital market website. Our findings also report that CEO sociability is significantly associated with timely financial reporting in all instances. This result suggests that companies with a more sociable CEO reduce the period taken to prepare and disclose their financial reports on the capital market website. This result implies that when the CEO is more sociable via social media, firms tend to be more active in disclosing their annual reports timely. Overall, findings report that CEO characteristics do matter regarding the timeliness of financial reporting. Results are robust to an alternative measure of financial reporting timeliness. Our findings should be of interest to policymakers and regulators in Saudi Arabia in formulating new policies as they need to play a role in ensuring the shorter gap of financial report delay. The findings of this research have also a practical implication for shareholders and boards of directors in selecting a new CEO by taking into consideration their accounting financial expertise and their sociability on social media. Findings of this research contribute to the growing literature by examining the effect of CEO characteristics on timely reporting in Saudi Arabia, an understudied and unique context. The present study also complements the recent literature on the determinants of financial reporting timeliness by providing evidence that the sociability and accounting financial expertise of top leaders improve the financial reporting timeliness.

The study examines the effect of leverage and capital on the profitability of selected Saudi Arabian Banks during the period 2014 and 2019. The banks have been selected based upon their size in terms of total assets. The profitability elements, such as Earnings per Share (EPS), Return on Assets (ROA), and Return on Equity (ROE) are the dependent variables; Total Debt Ratio (TDR), Tier 1 Capital Ratio (Tier 1 CAP), and Debt to Equity Ratio (DE) are the independent variables, and firm size is the control variable. The study estimates a pooled regression analysis to analyze the effect of these variables. The results of the study show that there is a positive relationship between the different profitability variables and Debt to Equity Ratio. The Total Debt Ratio is having positive association with ROA and ROE, and has an insignificant negative relationship with the EPS, and the Tier 1 capital ratio is having positive association with ROA and ROE, and has an insignificant relationship with the EPS.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the perception of auditors regarding their responsibilities and potential liabilities to third parties in the case of failure to detect fraud/material misstatements and report the findings to the appropriate party. The study proposes that auditors’ perception of their own responsibilities will depend on the level of litigation threat expected by the auditor based on his or her position in the audit firm. The questionnaire was sent to the big 4 audit firms, the global audit firms other than the big 4, and to 189 different sized local audit firms registered with the Saudi Organization of Certified Public Accountants (SOCPA). The findings of this study revealed significant variations among auditors with regards to their perceptions of their own responsibilities and liabilities to financial statements’ users affected by their expected level of exposure to litigation risk.

The Indian automobile sector is the biggest market and emerging by displacing some advanced countries. The Indian automobile sector contributes positively and progressively to the growth and development of the Indian economy. The study is based on secondary data and considers the financial statements available on concerned websites. Ratio analysis, ANOVA (Analysis of Variance), CV (Coefficient of Variation), and rank correlation applied to analyze the data extracted from the financial statements of leading Indian automobile companies. The study reveals that there is a significant difference in the profitability of the Leading Indian automobile companies for the period 2011 to 2020. There is a moderate positive relational relationship between PBDIT(Profit Before Depreciation, Interest, and Tax) ratio and PBIT(Profit Before Interest and Tax) ratio and their variability while PBT ( Profit Before Tax) ratio and PAT ( Profit After Tax) ratio and their variability positively and highly correlated. This reveals that manufacturing expenses and depreciation do not affect profitability while profitability governs the interest and taxes of the leading Indian automobile companies. The study suggests a possible reduction in all direct and indirect costs, optimum cost of capital, or low cost of capital structure can be considered to avoid excessive burden against the profits of the negative performing leading Indian automobile sector companies.

The study aims to find out the relationship between Supply Chain Performance (SCP), profitability, and liquidity of selected leading Indian pharmaceutical companies. The study is based upon the secondary data available on the website of the concerned Indian pharmaceutical companies. The SCP defines the operational velocity and is measured by the manufacturing efficiency (inventory days), ability of recovery from the debtors (accounts receivables days), and payment to creditors (account payables days). Profitability is the relative measurement of the earning capacity of the business organization and facilitates the comparison among the business organization of similar industries. The liquidity in a business organization refers to the state of pay ability of the short term liabilities in ordinary business activities. Profitability and liquidity are the bi-polar concepts in the business organization. There is an optimum balance between liquidity and profitability is expected for the growth and development of the business organization. Ratio analysis is to be used to analyze the SCP, profitability, and liquidity while Karl Pearson’s correlation and Spearman’s rank correlation applied to get the correlation between SCP, profitability, and liquidity of the companies, and relative relationship between a correlation of profitability and profitability to liquidity ratio of all selected companies. It is observed that there is moderate relationship gross profitability, profitability on the owner’s fund, and liquidity. But there is a negligible relationship between liquidity and return on total resources or profitability on total assets. The Indian pharmaceutical companies with higher profitability are much sensitive about the co-movement of profitability and liquidity. The SCP of the Indian pharmaceutical companies negatively and positively but negligibly affects the profitability and liquidity of the Indian pharmaceutical companies.

This paper examines the association of the presence of royal family members on the board of directors with audit committee effectiveness. The sample of this study consists of 444 listed manufactured firms in Saudi Arabia for the period 2012-2019. Using the Pooled OLS regression, the result of the study shows that royal family ownership is associated with audit committee effectiveness, giving support to the substitution hypothesis. The result indicates that members from the royal families are good monitors imposed into the companies' managements as both taking the role of decision makers and owners who may substitute the effectiveness of the audit committee. The presence of royal family members on the board has an alternative for the effectiveness of the audit committee. The marginal effect of audit committee effectiveness as an internal corporate governance mechanism is substituted by the presence of royal family members on the board. This study provides insightful evidence to regulators and policy makers at the company and country levels on the relationship of royal family ownership and audit committee effectiveness.

Continuous improvement of accounting policies coincides with the increase and development of earnings management. Several studies focus on this topic, and it became subject to many investigations. This paper deals with current literature focused on several axes of earnings management like motives for practicing earnings management, earnings management types, developed models to discover earnings management, factors affecting earnings management, and the consequences of earnings management practices. Besides, this research focuses on earnings management in Saudi Arabia in particular. In the recent period, Saudi Arabia is going through changes in the Saudi economy and changes in accounting systems, such as adopting the IFRS standards, which provides opportunities for expanding research into earnings management in the Saudi Arabia context. Several studies conclude that Saudi companies' earnings management practices are done in several ways and affected by many factors.