The present study explored the relationship between CEO duality and the scope of CER practices in the yearly reports of Jordanian industrial firms over the period 2009-2018 shaped by the board directors’ political links. To determine the amount of environmental data included in the firms’ yearly reports, the method of content analysis checklist was applied. CEO duality was chosen as an independent variable, which was measured by attributing a score to the existence/non-existence of CEO dual role, whilst the employed moderator variable was the political links and measured by attributing a score to the existence/non-existence of political links among the board directors of the investigated firms. Furthermore, to evaluate how the relationship between CEO duality and CER practices was influenced by political links, the statistical package for the social sciences (SPSS) and Hayes’ PROCESS macro were adopted. According to the results obtained, the above-mentioned relationship was substantially adversely impacted by political links. Such results could promote better corporate-stakeholder communication, enhancing stakeholders’ awareness of environmental responsibility in the context of Jordan as a developing nation. Therefore, the results have ramifications for the practices employed by firms to report on matters unrelated to finance.

We examine the impact of the firm’s life-cycle on board composition of Vietnam's listed firms. The data is balanced and covered over the period 2012-2018 for 442 Vietnam listed firms. We use a fixed-effects regressions analysis to examine the effect of a firm's life-cycle (Lifecycle), and dummy variables of firm's life-cycle (Growth, Mature, Decline) on the board composition (board size, board independence, CEO duality). Our findings show the board composition of Vietnam’s listed firms tends to decrease with the firm's life-cycle. Therefore, the firms need to adjust board composition to a proper level promptly to improve their competitiveness, and consider the supervisory function of the board members is not enough positive in the life-cycle of the firms.

We examine the impact of CEO duality on firm performance using the life-cycle theory approach. The data is balanced and covers over the period 2012–2018 for 442 publicly listed firms in Vietnam. The findings from system generalized method of moments (GMM) method indicate that CEO duality had a positive effect on firm performance in growth stage and had a negative effect on the mature stage of the firm’s life-cycle. These results are supported by stewardship theory which argues that CEO duality may be good for firm performance in the growth stage due to the unity of presented command. In contrast, agency theory shows CEO duality is bad for firm performance in the maturing stage since it compromises the monitoring and controls the behavior of the CEO. Also, this study shows that there was a difference between state shareholders and director from outside of the company affecting the firm performance.