Corporate Governance (CG) in India has undergone major transformation in the recent past with the enactment of Companies Act, 2013 and revision of SEBI's Listing Agreement. Though some studies were undertaken in the Indian context few conventional aspects of CG have been repetitively addressed with conflicting results. The aim of this study is to examine the impact of some prominent CG attributes such as board size, board independence, role duality, board's gender diversity, ownership concentration and audit committee independence on both market as well as accounting based measures of firm performance (FP). To this end the study uses a sample of top 100 non-financial and non-utility firms listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) for the period of 2014-2018 and employs two stage least square with instrumental variables technique of estimation which takes into account potential endogeneity in CG-FP relationship. The findings reveal a significant positive impact of board size, ownership concentration and audit committee independence on market based measure of FP while board independence is found to have a significant negative impact on accounting based measure of FP. Moreover role duality and gender diversity are not associated with FP. The outcome of this study highlights how the relationship between CG and FP works in the unique institutional setting of India and it should be of interest to regulators, practitioners and other market participants.

Purpose This study aims to examine the influence of some prominent corporate governance (CG) mechanisms such as board size (BS), board independence (BI), role duality (RD), board’s gender diversity (GD), ownership concentration (OC), audit committee independence (ACI), nomination and remuneration committee (NRC) and risk management committee (RMC) on voluntary disclosure (VD), as well as different types of VD after controlling the effect of some firm-specific factors for Indian firms. Design/methodology/approach The study selects market capitalization-based top 100 non-financial and non-utility firms listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange as on 31st March 2014. Data are drawn from the Capitaline Plus database over the period of 2014–2018. Appropriate panel data regression model is applied to examine the influence of CG on VD. Findings The study reveals a significant negative influence of BI on VD while GD and RMC exhibit a significant positive influence on the same. The remaining CG mechanisms such as BS, RD, OC, ACI and NRC appear to have no significant influence on VD. Analysis into the relationship between CG mechanisms and different types of VD reveals that BI, in particular, has a strong negative influence on corporate strategic disclosure (CSD) and forward looking disclosure (FWLD) while GD and RMC both exhibit a significant positive influence on CSD, FWLD, CG disclosure and financial and capital market disclosure. Notably, none of the CG mechanisms under consideration influence human and intellectual capital disclosure. Research limitations/implications The study considers annual reports as the only medium of making VD and ignores all other sources such as websites and press releases. Besides, it mainly emphasizes on corporate board structure, board committees and OC while other ownership structure-related variables family ownership, managerial ownership are not covered, which can be analysed in future studies. Practical implications The study offers some important theoretical, as well as practical connotations for regulators and practitioners operating in India, as well as other emerging economies having similar institutional settings. Originality/value The study is the first of its kind in India that examines the influence of various CG mechanisms on different types of VD and thereby contributes novel findings in the context of an emerging economy.

Purpose This paper studies the relationship between characteristics of firms’ and their propensity to maintain zero-leverage (ZL). Its second objective is to examine the impact of macroeconomic conditions on firms’ ZL policy. Finally, the purpose of this paper is to explore the underlying motives behind eschewing debt for constrained and unconstrained firms. Design/methodology/approach The paper uses data of 2001 non-financial and non-utility listed Indian firms over a period of 2005-2013 from Capitaline database. Size quintiles and dividend payment status have been used to differentiate between constrained and unconstrained firms. It uses t-test and logistic regression to draw inferences. Findings In general, firms pursuing ZL policy are financially constrained. However, there is a sub-section of ZL firms found unconstrained with high profitability. They appear to be “self-sufficient” to meet their financing requirements. Finally, macroeconomic conditions are counter cyclically related to firms’ ZL policy. Research limitations/implications The impact of corporate governance practices on firms’ ZL policy could not be examined due to data inadequacy. However, financial constraints and the presence of ZL firms come out as important factors to be paid special attention for future empirical works on capital structure. Practical implications The findings can be useful for financial managers in designing capital structure on the basis of their financial position. Originality/value Previous studies on ZL phenomenon are based on developed countries. The findings of previous studies conducted for developed countries get revalidated for the first time in the context of an emerging economy like India.

This article empirically investigates the impact of corporate governance attributes on companies' decision to disclose environmental information since corporate governance ensures fair, responsible, credible and transparent corporate behaviours to its stakeholders. The corporate governance attributes used in the study are board size, chief executive officer duality, domestic institutional ownership and foreign institutional ownership. Environmental disclosures are measured by a checklist of items based on Global Reporting Initiative guidelines as well as environmental regulations prevailing in India. Disclosure scores are drawn individually by using content analysis of annual reports for a sample of 177 most polluting companies in India for a period of 6 years, that is, from 2009-2010 to 2014-2015. Employing panel data regression model, the result indicates that foreign institutional ownership is the most important corporate governance attribute that engages corporates in environmental disclosure behaviour. In addition to this, firm-specific characteristics such as company size and environmental certification are more likely to influence environmental disclosures. For better environmental disclosure, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) should mandate all the companies to disclose detailed monetary and non-monetary information on environmental issues in their companies' periodic report and also more emphasis should be given to strengthen the corporate governance attributes.

Voluntary disclosure (VD) is considered potentially important for efficient functioning of the capital market as it communicates firms’ performance and governance to shareholders and potential investors, which boost their confidence. This article attempts to provide a brief conceptual framework of VD and corporate governance (CG), and also reviews the empirical literature dealing with relationship between them. To this end, the article uses systematic electronic literature search method, which takes into account 65 empirical studies published over the period 1998–2018. An investigation of empirical findings points to some factors that may have contributed toward the apparent inconsistent findings observed to date. In particular, the article focuses on two intervening factors for variation of results—such as CG system and measurement of explanatory variables. The findings suggest that studies mostly from Anglo-Saxon system (ASS) show complementary relationship between different attributes of CG with VD, whereas in case of communitarian system, studies mostly depict an insignificant impact of CG attributes on VD except for few studies showing their positive/negative impact on VD. However, in case of emerging market system (EMS), some studies show substitutive relationship between board independence (BI) and VD while other CG attributes such as board size (BS), (GD), and audit committee independence (ACI) in most of the studies complement VD supporting the resource-based perspective. Furthermore, the association of ownership structure (OS) and role duality (RD) with VD is mixed. Another factor, which is considered to be added to variation of results, is measurement of explanatory variables whereby albeit studies employed same concepts, operational definition of variables intervenes into the relationship between CG and VD. The findings of this article provide some deeper insights about the complementary and substitutive relationships between CG and VD by integrating diverse empirical findings under different research contexts. Future research can extend to analyze some other institutional factors like investors’ protection rights and legal enforcement, which might also have played some role in influencing the relationship between CG and VD. Furthermore, it is also evident from the review that BS and BI are the most commonly studied CG attributes in relation to VD, whereas attributes like GD and ACI, despite their theoretical relevance and practical importance are least studied in relation to VD, thus signaling the need to focus on these attributes in future studies.

The study aims to examine the impact of carbon emission reduction on financial performance in an emerging market context. Thirty eight Indian-listed firms were drawn from the Bombay Stock Exchange for the sample, and firms’ data were collected from sustainability reports and Capitaline Plus corporate database. Carbon productivity and market-to-book ratio were used as a proxy to measure carbon emission reduction and financial performance, respectively. Results show a positive association between carbon emission reduction and financial performance after employing the appropriate panel regression model. This study contributes to the ongoing “pays to be green” literature, and the findings of this study complement the “win–win” research by empirically showing that corporate effort to reduce carbon emission generates a positive impact on firm’s financial performance. Moreover, the findings provide crucial managerial and policy implication.

This study examines the asymmetries in capital structure adjustment speed depending on firms' affiliation to business groups. Using partial adjustment framework on a dataset of 2001 listed Indian nonfinancial firms over the period of 2005-2013, it was found that Indian firms annually adjusted about 37 percent of their deviation from target leverage. Groups firms, in general, adjust their leverage ratio slower than the stand-alone firms, suggesting lesser net benefits of adjustment for the former than the latter. The results are persistent irrespective of firms' extent of deviation from their target leverage. However, the net benefits of adjustment and consequently the adjustment speed for both the groups of firms, irrespective of their extent of deviation from target leverage, seem to be alike, when they are over-levered and lower for group firms than the stand-alone firms, when they are under-levered. These findings indicate that both group and stand-alone firms face identical threats, when they are overlevered, whereas group firms possibly have alternative arrangements to reduce the owner-manager agency conflicts and tax liability, when they are under-levered. These findings are expected to prove helpful for financial managers in designing their capital structure based on ownership structure, and the nature and extent of deviation from the target leverage.

The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of different corporate governance (CG) attributes on voluntary disclosures (VD) made by 100 companies listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) in their annual reports. To this end, the paper uses appropriate panel data regression technique, whereby the results indicate that three CG attributes—board independence, board gender diversity, and its risk management committee—have significant influence on VD. In particular, board independence is found to have weak negative influence on VD while its gender diversity and risk management committee indicate strong positive influence on VD. The other CG attributes, specifically the board size, role duality, ownership concentration, audit committee independence, and nomination and remuneration committees, do not reveal any significant influence on VD. Overall, the finding suggests that one of the conventional attributes of CG, i.e. board independence, acts with VD as an alternate control mechanism to reduce agency costs and protect investor interests. Meanwhile, VD co-exists with some of the latest CG attributes, including board gender diversity and its risk management committee, to monitor managers. The results of this paper should be relevant to regulators, practitioners, and other market participants in the Indian context, as well as other emerging markets with similar institutional settings.