New issue of the Corporate Board: Role, Duties and Composition journal
The editorial team of Virtus Interpress is glad to publish a new issue of the journal Corporate Board: Role, Duties and Composition (volume 21, issue 4). Several relevant topics are being brought into the light. Main themes in this issue include corporate governance challenges in emerging markets, CEO succession, the use of industry experts as independent directors, auditing committees, and a perspective on what corporate governance can do for ESG challenges.
The issue also covers topics such as real earnings management, company secretaries’ commercial attributes, board membership duality, CEO duality, general counsel duality, corporate board composition, audit committee, financial reporting quality, Islamic religiosity, top management team, earnings management, board gender diversity, carbon emissions, and others. Taken together, the papers in this issue constitute a great starting point to reflect on corporate governance and a potential need to reframe it across diverse regions.
The full issue of the journal is available at the following link .
In the first paper, Mohd Azuwan Khalidi and Nur Ashikin Mohd Saat develop a conceptual corporate governance framework to address the persistent challenge of real earnings management (REM) in emerging markets, focusing on Malaysia. The authors advance the conceptualisation of company secretaries as both governance resources and internal control agents. Their framework contributes to theory by clarifying the moderating role of CSCOMM on CEO succession and REM, and to practice by offering guidance for boards, regulators, and professional accountancy bodies. It also outlines an agenda for empirical research on Malaysian public-listed companies, thereby informing governance reforms in emerging markets.
Alexander Maune systematically analyzes corporate board composition with a focus on the critical role of industry-expert independent directors (IEIDs). The author’s findings confirm that Zimbabwean corporate governance is narrowly focused, with a critical lack of scholarly attention on the specific expertise of independent directors. Zimbabwean governance codes remain vague on this dimension, leading to boards that formally meet independence requirements but lack the critical industrial foresight. The study provides evidence-based recommendations for policymakers and regulators.
Mohammed Khalaf Alshammari noted that an audit committee is crucial for corporate governance as it enhances the financial reporting environment and helps prevent corporate and stock market collapses. The author aims to determine the influence of audit committee compositions on the quality of financial reporting. This study finds empirical evidence of a significant and positive effect of an audit committee’s financial expertise and inclusion of independent members on the quality of financial reporting. It provides useful insights into regulatory bodies, investors, and moneylenders regarding the factors, especially from a qualitative perspective of financial reporting, that affect financial reporting quality.
Sarlina Sari, Dodik Siswantoro, Hilda Rossieta, and Nureni Wijayati systematically review and synthesize empirical evidence on the role of corporate governance in moderating the relationship between Islamic religiosity of the top management teams (TMT) and earnings management. The authors examine how Islamic religiosity of the TMT affects earnings management practices, how corporate governance mechanisms help constrain such practices, and to what extent corporate governance strengthens or weakens the effect of Islamic religiosity on earnings management. Their findings show that the Islamic religiosity of TMTs generally reduces earnings management, as moral and ethical values foster honesty and accountability. The study highlights that effective governance combined with religious integrity enhances transparency and accountability.
The final research by Nadya Elmaliya Putri, Ahmad Juanda, and Agung Prasetyo Nugroho Wicaksono examines the relationship between corporate carbon emissions and ESG performance while evaluating the moderating influence of board gender diversity within Indonesia’s regulatory environment. The authors’ findings show a positive association between carbon emissions and subsequent ESG performance, indicating that firms with higher environmental exposure tend to strengthen their sustainability disclosures. This study highlights limitations within Indonesia’s compliance-oriented ESG framework and underscores the need for governance-focused reforms to improve the credibility and effectiveness of sustainability reporting.
We hope that researchers will find the articles in this issue particularly interesting and useful for their research activities.
