Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the demise of Enron, one of the most curious aspects of which was that on the surface it appeared to be thriving, giving no one any cause to question the company's governance structures. Design/methodology/approach – The paper provides a...

Between October and November 2001 the world witnessed the collapse of Enron, a major US publicly traded corporation with global operations. The Enron case highlights the impact corporate failure has on American society and capital markets and underscores the need for better enforcement of...

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the impact of women on the board of directors on corporate tax avoidance in Australia. Design/methodology/approach The authors use multivariate regression analysis to test the association between the presence of female directors on the board and tax...

Purpose – Recent changes in corporate governance require firms to maintain boards with a majority of outside independent directors. The belief seems to be that outside independent directors will strengthen corporate boards by monitoring the actions of management and ensuring that management...

Purpose – Throughout the world, reform initiatives have been set up to fix perceived and actual corporate governance shortcomings. One of the proposed remedies has been to improve the independence of the board of directors. The main purpose of this paper is to examine the issue of independence...

Purpose – As corporations continue to face substantial information asymmetries between managers and shareholders, they must decide how to mitigate this agency problem using various mechanisms of corporate governance. Two of these mechanisms include the board of directors and takeover defenses....

Purpose – This paper seeks to examine the relationship between chief executive officer (CEO) duality and firm performance and the moderating effects of the family control factor on this relationship with respect to public companies in Hong Kong. Design/methodology/approach – This study...

Purpose – This paper aims to contribute to research studies on boards of directors in the Chinese transition economy that are by far, few and limited. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses basic data compilation method to investigate the board characteristics of large and medium...

Purpose – This exploratory study aims to provide preliminary evidence regarding the non-audit committee corporate governance determinants of audit committee functionality. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on archival accounting, corporate governance data, and interviews of...

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the relationship between internal governance structure and financial performance of listed Spanish companies. The effectiveness of the board of directors is analyzed through the use of different variables: size, composition, duality, number of annual...