This study examines the relationship between the board of directors and firm performance in terms of the level of R&D investment in the French context and some corporate governance points of view. Our model seeks to show whether the level of investment in R&D acts as an intermediary variable between, on the one hand, the dominance of external directors, the double structure and size of the board of directors, and, on the other, productivity. This empirical study is based on a sample of 178 French firms for the period 2008-2012. The results of the linear regression show that the relationship between the variables associated with the composition of the board of directors and the effectiveness of the company depends on the level of investment of the company in R&D.

Purpose -This research attempts to explain the decentralization of investment decision. To do so, it highlights the role of the internal capital market in the allocation of decision rights and control as a factor explaining the effectiveness of investment management. The authors aim to apply the theory of the organizational architecture to the investment decision to understand its complexity and its efficiency.Design/methodology/approach -An empirical test was realized on a sample of 63 Tunisian firms using the methods of canonical correlation and cross tabulations.Findings -Even if organizational complexity has a linear and negative impact (opposite sign to what is expected) on the investment decision decentralization, which creates value, it appears that there is a positive association with the uncertainty of the environment, and a negative one with the scarcity and sharing of financial resources between units on the internal capital market.Originality/value -The authors show that the role played by the internal capital market in the value creating requires the setting of a centralized organizational structure.

Several studies dealing with the direct relationship between financial innovation and bank performance have reported mixed results. The risk management incurred by the bank, as a mediating variable in this relationship, has not been investigated by researchers. In this context, the present work contribution consists in highlighting the important role of risk management to explain the interaction between financial innovation characteristics and bank performance. The present work is conducted concerning a sample involving seven privately owned Tunisian banks, relevant to the period ranging from 2009 to 2018. The hierarchical multiple regressions analysis turns out to indicate the noticeable effect of risk management on the relationships binding financial innovation characteristics (the risk level, innovations' horizon and specificity) and banking performance. In fact, private Tunisian banks appear to respond positively to the banking products and service-associated technological developments, in a bid to effectively manage bank risks and promote banking performance.

Purpose This paper aims to examine the effect of the corporate ethical approach on the cost of equity capital. This study is conducted on a large international sample on behalf of the world’s most engaged firms from an ethical point of view in 2015. Design/methodology/approach The multivariate linear regression model is used to meet the purpose of this study and research hypotheses are also examined using a sample of 80 of most ethical firms in the world during the year 2015. Moreover, three variables (i.e. business ethics, corporate social responsibility and executive compensation based on the achievement of sustainable development goals) are used to reflect the corporate ethical approach and the implied cost of equity capital is used for estimating the cost of equity. In this regard, equity cost estimation is the most appropriate approach to test the effect of business ethics on the cost of financing firms. Findings Based on a sample of 80 firms emerging as the world’s most ethical firms in 2015, the results revealed that firms with better ethics scores are significantly associated with a reduced cost of equity capital. This paper also demonstrates that the executive incentive pays that are based on the objectives of sustainable development are able to explain different outcomes regarding the relation between corporate ethical behaviors and the cost of equity. These findings support arguments in the literature that firms with socially responsible practices have a higher valuation and lower risk. Originality/value This study provides implications for global regulators and policymakers when setting social reporting standards, suggesting that corporate ethical engagement reduces the cost of equity capital by decreasing the information asymmetry and thereby reducing the firms’ risk. Therefore, the findings may be informative to international managers and investors when considering the effect of business ethics on the firm’s ex-ante cost of equity. In this perspective, the voluntary disclosure of information makes it possible to mitigate the problems of asymmetry of information and conflict of interest between the firm and its main providers of capital, which could reduce the cost of equity.

The purpose of this paper was to determine the important role of Chief Executive Officer emotional intelligence to explain the interaction relationship between research and development investment and corporate social responsibility categories. This research relied on the completion of a questionnaire type inquiry structured around the table-based analysis. The questionnaire was sent out to a large sample of Tunisian firms’ Chief Executive Officer. The results of the 96 valid responses were entered for analysis by the partial least squares method. They show the significant effect of Chief Executive Officers’ emotional intelligence on the relation between corporate social responsibility categories (customer, employee, community, territory and environment) and research and development investment. In addition, the Chief Executive Officer emotional intelligence provided explanations into research and development investment for the corporate social responsibility problems in Tunisia. Firstly, this study emphasized the important role of research and development investment in the corporate social responsibility categories. Secondly, a new data analysis method “decision-tree” was applied to estimate the moderating effects of managerial emotional intelligence on the CSR – R&D relationship.