The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of audit committee characteristics on corporate voluntary disclosure of 146 Malaysian listed firms for the year 2009. Based on content analysis of disclosure, the empirical results of multiple regressions reveal that audit committee independence, size and multiple directorships of audit committee members are positively associated with corporate voluntary disclosure. Frequency of meetings and financial expertise of audit committee members are not significantly associated with corporate voluntary disclosure. The results offer evidence to policy makers, investors and accounting professionals on the extent to which audit committee characteristics associated with such committee effectiveness in monitoring corporate reporting processes.

Purpose -This paper aims to evaluate whether the earnings management diagnostic using changes in asset turnover and profit margin as proposed by Jansen et al., ( 2012) is informative in identifying earnings management Methodology -Two tests were employed: firstly, the association between the diagnostic and discretionary accruals using Kothari et al., (2005) model, was tested by using Pearson correlation and contingency tables. Secondly, by using future profitability re versals as an indicator of earnings management, the investigation of whether the diagnostic has incremental information in identifying earnings management as compared to Kothari et al., (2005) model was performed using multivariate regression analysis. Data wa s collected for the period from 2006 to 2017 and comprises a total of (3,108) firm-year observations from the Palestinian stock exchange. Findings-The results indicate that the diagnostic proposed by Jansen et al., ( 2012) is a useful indicator for earnings management, as well as this diagnostic, provides higher information content in identifying earnings management than the discretionary accruals model i.e. Kothari et al., (2005) model. Conclusion-This study contributes to the limited earnings management literature in emerging economies generally, and in the Palestinian context particularly. The results of the study benefit financial statement users to have diagnostics for earnings management that are informative.

The aim of this study is report on the level of audit committee (AC) independence and different types of financial expertise and to empirically examine the effect of AC independence level and different types of AC financial expertise on corporate voluntary disclosure of Malaysian listed firms. Using multiple regression analysis on data drawn from annual reports of top 146 listed firms, the findings reveal that proportion of independent directors on audit committee, and totally independent audit committee members can lead to significantly a higher level of voluntary disclosure. Further, members with accounting expertise of AC are significantly associated with corporate voluntary disclosure. The findings of this study may be of interest to policy makers, regulators, shareholders and management as they could use them to understand and assess AC effectiveness and hence enhance the monitoring role of AC.

This study investigated and compared energy conservation levels between listed companies in energy-intensive industries and non-energy-intensive industries in Thai capital markets. It also tested the impact of energy conservation on firm performance using companies in the two industries. The sample for the study was sourced from 552 companies in the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) and 169 companies in the Market for Alternative Investment (MAI). The data was collected from the companies' annual reports spanning the period from 2016 to 2020. Descriptive analysis, independent sample t-test, and unbalanced panel data analysis were used to analyze data. The findings revealed that energy conservation scores for Thai-listed companies were generally stable, averaging between 0.45 and 0.46. It was also revealed that the energy conservation of companies in energy-intensive industries was significantly greater than that of companies in non-energy-intensive industries, with average scores of 0.55 and 0.43, respectively. Additionally, the study found that energy conservation has a positive impact on the firm performance of energy-intensive industries, while no significant impact in energy-intensive industries was recorded. The findings demonstrate that stakeholder and legitimacy theories can help explain how energy conservation benefits companies in terms of increased firm performance.