Financially Qualified Members in an Upper Echelon and Their Relationship with Corporate Sustainability: Evidence from an Emerging Economy

Ashfaque Banbhan, Xinsheng Cheng and Nizam Ud Din
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Ashfaque Banbhan: Department of Accounting, Nankai Business School, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
Xinsheng Cheng: Department of Accounting, Nankai Business School, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China
Nizam Ud Din: Department of Accounting, Nankai Business School, Nankai University, Tianjin 300071, China

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 12, 1-19

Abstract: Non-observable board diversity is an important organizational strategy for improving the long-term growth and survivability of firms. The involvement of corporate sustainability (CS) in top management teams has led to effective boards. By using agency theory, we stress how financially qualified directors (FQD) in audit committees (ACs) may positively or negatively affect the practice of earnings management (EM). We also use various theories to explain how a powerful chief executive officer (CEO) complicates the effectiveness of AC and reduces their ability to detect EM practices. Using a sample of 1020 firm-year observations representing 204 non-financial listed Pakistani firms during 2013–2017, we find that the presence of FQD on the AC is associated with lower levels of EM. Our analysis shows that this effect is driven by the level of FQDs’ accounting knowledge.

Keywords: corporate sustainability; audit committee; financial expertise; abnormal accruals; CEO power (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:12:p:4697-:d:189389

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