TITLE:
The Corporate Governance Practices: Evidence from MENA Countries
AUTHORS:
Aws AlHares, Gerard Dominic, Ruba Al Abed
KEYWORDS:
Corporate Governance, MENA Countries, Neo-Institutional Theory, Disclosure, Ownership Structure, Board Characteristics
JOURNAL NAME:
Theoretical Economics Letters,
Vol.9 No.4,
April
24,
2019
ABSTRACT: This study investigates the level of compliance and
disclosure of corporate governance mechanisms in Middle East and North Africa countries.
The study uses a panel data of 250 companies from MENA countries between 2009
and 2016. The ordinary least square multiple regression analysis technique is
used to examine the relationships. Additionally, to alleviate the concern of
potential endogeneity, we use fixed effect regression, two-stage least squares
using instrumental variables. The results show that the level of voluntary
compliance with and disclosure of corporate governance mechanisms among MENA
countries varies substantially across countries and is low. The result is
consistent with the neo-institutional theory. Future research could investigate
more sets of firm-level internal CG mechanisms and country-level variables and
use of weighted index. This study extends, as well as contributes to the extant
CG literature by offering new evidence on the effect of corporate governance
mechanisms among listed firms in ten different MENA countries within a
neo-institutional theoretical perspective. The findings will help regulators
and policy makers in their countries to pursue reforms to improve national
governance quality.