Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the characteristics of audit committee chairman (ACC) (tenure, age, gender, ethnicity, accounting expertise and directorship) on earnings management (EM) practices. Design/methodology/approach The Jones model and modified Jones model by Dechow et al. (1995) were used to determine the discretionary accruals (DA) of 288 Malaysian listed firms with lowest positive earnings for the years 2013‒2015. Findings The results of the ordinary least squares regression indicate that only tenure, gender and ethnicity of the ACC are associated with DA. A further test was conducted by dividing firms into two groups: firms whose boards are chaired by a family member and firms whose boards are chaired by a non-family member. The results reveal that it is possible for firms whose boards are chaired by family members to cause the corporate governance (CG) mechanisms, particularly the audit committee, to lose their effectiveness in overcoming the EM problem. In addition, robustness tests were conducted by using panel data regression, where the results were found to be similar to the original regression results. Originality/value This study alerts policymakers, firms and their stakeholders, as well as researchers, regarding the importance of having an independent board chairman, who has no relationship with any directors or major shareholders, as this may hinder the effectiveness of CG mechanisms in curbing EM, especially in emerging countries, such as Malaysia, where it is very difficult to stop members of the family from becoming board directors.

This study illustrates how control-ownership wedge impacts the monitoring role of the corporate board through the quality of audit services in Turkey. Turkey has made essential amendments in the field of external audit in order to enhance the quality of the financial report and integrate its own capital market with that of the EU. It would be of interest to examine the influence of these changes on clients' demand for high quality audit. The agency theory is integrated with the resource dependence theory to show that boards possess distinct incentives and ability to demand high quality audit to monitor management activities. Logistic regression and feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) were used for regression estimations. The results indicate that board demographics, cognitive and structural diversity of board of directors, audit committee characteristics and audit quality are complementary and control-ownership wedge weakens the relationship between them which is an unfavorable outcome for minority shareholders. Thus, this study proposes that regulators should increase law enforcement to enhance good corporate governance in Turkey to accommodate the unique features of wedge firms and provide a protected environment for minority shareholders.

This study examines the Malaysian accretive share buybacks firms from year 2001 to 2008 to determine the relationship between the corporate governance mechanisms and accretive share buybacks, the earnings management device to meet or beat earnings per share (EPS) forecast. The regression results of this study reports the significant effect on the relationship between corporate governance and accretive share buyback. Basically, there is positive effect on the relationship between the board independence, CEO duality and board size with the accretive share buyback to meet or beat EPS forecast (MBEF). Multiple directorships and managerial ownership documents a negative relationship with accretive share buyback to MBEF. However, this study identified insignificant relationship between board meetings and accretive share buyback. Using the accretive share buyback as an earnings management proxy is a new contribution to determine the roles of corporate governance on accretive share buyback to MBEF rather a common study on accruals manipulations and corporate governance mechanisms. Keywords: Accretive Share Buyback; Corporate Governance; Earnings Management; Earnings per Share.

A board chairman is a very influential figure in a firm which may be dominated by an insider director, who, in some cases, is a family member. Consequently, the board chairmen (BC) may play a vital role in the firm's output, especially when they sit on the board committees. Therefore, the current study aims to examine the influence of the BC who are also: the chairmen of the nomination committee (BCNDUAL); ordinary members of the nomination committee (BCNMEM); the chairmen of the remuneration committee (BCRDUAL); and ordinary members of the remuneration committee (BCRMEM), on the level of accrual earnings management (AEM) and real earnings management (REM). This study also tests the overall influence of the BC's involvement in the nomination committee (BCNINV) by combining the terms of BCNDUAL and BCNMEM into BCNINV and the overall influence of BC's involvement in the remuneration committee (BCRINV) by combining the terms of BCRDUAL and BCRMEM into BCRINV, on the level of AEM and REM. This study selected 300 firms listed on the Bursa Malaysia Main Market with the lowest positive performance (based on return on assets (ROA)) for the years 2013 to 2015. The random-effects feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) regression shows that BCNDUAL, BCNMEM and BCNINV have a significant positive relationship with AEM and REM. However, BCRDUAL and BCRINV have a significant negative relationship with AEM but not with REM. This study aims to alert policy makers, firms and their stakeholders, as well as researchers of the need to strengthen their board committees' effectiveness (especially the nomination committee), and to make them more independent.

Prior theoretical and empirical studies have suggested that political influence affects the application of corporate governance and firm performance enormously. However, several fundamental questions remain to be answered. To fill this knowledge gap,the study's main objectives are examining the direct impact of political connection on firm financial performance in Pakistani non-financial listed companies and the moderating effect of director's financial expertise on political connections and firm financial performance. The study utilised panel data of 220 firms from 2008 to 2017 and used panel corrected standard error regression analysis. The results show that political connection negatively impacted firm financial performance, and director financial expertise as a moderator strengthened the relationship between political connections and firm financial performance. This study's results supported political economy theory in that weak judicial systems and unstable political systems have immense effects on investor’s rights. The study contributes to extending the existing literature on political connection by providing evidence of the impact of politically connected firms on firm performance in an emerging market. The study also deliberates on how the director’s financial expertise contributes towards the relationship. The findings could be generalised to other countries with similar degrees of development and culture.