Audit committee and factors that affect its characteristics: the case of Greece

George Drogalas, Michail Nerantzidis (), Margaritis Samaras and Michail Pazarskis
Additional contact information
George Drogalas: University of Macedonia
Michail Nerantzidis: University of Thessaly
Margaritis Samaras: University of Macedonia
Michail Pazarskis: International Hellenic University

International Journal of Disclosure and Governance, 2020, vol. 17, issue 4, No 1, 194 pages

Abstract: Abstract Policy-makers currently place great emphasis on strengthening the audit committees’ structure. Underlying this is a belief that strengthening the audit committees’ structure may enhance the effectiveness as well as the quality of financial information. In this research, we examine the relationship between audit committee characteristics (number of AC members, percentage of independent audit committee members and percentage of board directors) and structure, accounting and corporate governance-related measures. Using a sample of 126 listed companies on the Athens Stock Exchange, we show that audit committee size has a positive relationship with the number of the firm’s employees and negative relationship with operating cash flows and the presence of an executive chairman. Moreover, we find that audit committee effectiveness has a positive relationship with the percentage of independent directors. On that basis, our findings are important since they highlight the usefulness of audit committees and offers insights to academics, practitioners and policy-makers.

Keywords: Corporate governance; Internal audit; Athens stock exchange (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41310-020-00081-2 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:ijodag:v:17:y:2020:i:4:d:10.1057_s41310-020-00081-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.palgrave.com/gp/journal/41310

DOI: 10.1057/s41310-020-00081-2

Access Statistics for this article

International Journal of Disclosure and Governance is currently edited by Michael Alles

More articles in International Journal of Disclosure and Governance from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().