Manuscript Type: EmpiricalResearch Question/Issue: This study investigates whether the existence of a separate risk committee and risk committee characteristics are associated with market risk disclosures. It also tests whether the role of a risk committee in affecting market risk disclosures varies for different firm life cycle stages. Research Findings/Insights: Using 677 firm-year observations of financial firms from Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries during the years 2007-2011, we find that firms with a separate risk committee are associated with greater market risk disclosures, an effect that is more pronounced for mature-stage firms. Furthermore, findings suggest that risk committee qualifications and size have a significant positive impact on market risk disclosures. Theoretical/Academic Implications: This study complements the corporate governance literature by incorporating agency theory, legitimacy theory, stakeholder theory, and the resource-based theory to provide more robust evidence of the impact of a separate risk committee and the firm life cycle on market risk disclosures. Our results support the monitoring effect of a separate risk committee and suggest that a separate risk committee can improve "firm-level corporate governance" in the GCC countries characterized by a poor informational environment. Practitioner/Policy Implications: Findings from this study provide evidence that the existence, qualifications, and size of risk committees may be used as a channel to improve the disclosure level, suggesting a policy prescription for regulators and policymakers. Investors may also find these results useful in forming their own expectations about firm-level risk disclosures.

This study examines the association between corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and financial distress and additionally the moderating impact of firm life cycle stages on that association. Based on a sample of 651 publicly listed Australian firm‐years’ data covering the 2007–2013 period, our regression results show that positive CSR activity significantly reduces financial distress of the firm. In addition, the negative association between positive CSR performance and financial distress is more pronounced for firms in mature life cycle stages. Our results are robust to alternative proxy measures of financial distress, CSR performance and life cycle stages.

This study examines whether a firm's life cycle explains its propensity to engage in corporate tax avoidance. Based on the Dickinson (2011) model of firm life cycle stages and a large dataset of U.S. publicly listed firms over the 1987-2013 period, we find that tax avoidance is significantly positively associated with the introduction and decline stages and significantly negatively associated with the growth and mature stages using the shakeout stage as a benchmark. We observe a U-shaped pattern in tax avoidance outcomes across the various life cycle stages in line with the predictions of dynamic resource-based theory. Our findings are consistent using several robustness checks. Overall, our results show that a firm's life cycle stage is a significant determinant of tax avoidance.

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In this paper, we investigate the association between outside board directorships and family ownership concentration. Using a sample of 1091 firm-year observations of non-financial publicly listed firms from Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) during the 2005 to 2013 period, we find a positive association between family ownership and the number of outside directorships held by board members. This finding is consistent with the notion that family ownership reduces a board's monitoring capabilities. We also test whether the recent corporate governance reforms in GCC, which were designed to protect investors and minority shareholders, affect firms' incentives to establish a board nomination committee (NC). We find the existence of a board NC and the quality and characteristics of NC membership act to suppress the positive association between outside directorships and family ownership. Our results are robust to the use of alternative measures of outside directorships and family ownership and models that test for endogeneity. Overall, our results suggest that the institutional specificities of emerging economies such as those in the GCC can sustain high levels of multiple directorships, which could impair the quality of corporate governance.

This study examines whether financial analysts consider or incorporate the environmental, social and governance disclosures (thereafter ESG) in their recommendations. We then test whether royal family directors affect this relation. Using a dataset from six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, we find evidence that analysts’ recommendations are influenced by ESG information. Further, we find the political connection negatively moderates the relationship between sell-side analysts’ recommendations and ESG. This suggests that financial analysts may assess the ESG disclosure in those firms with the political connection of royalty, in GCC countries, as superficial compliance rather than a genuine commitment. Our results are robust when subjected to endogeneity tests.