Abdelmohsen Desoky

This empirical study aims mainly to investigate the effect of both dividend payments (DP) and five firm's attributes (firm size, firm leverage, firm performance, legal form and audit quality) on earnings quality (EQ) of the most active listed firms in Egypt. A sample of 552 firm-year observations during four years from 2014 to 2017 was used. Hierarchical Multiple Regression (HMR) was used to regress the six independent variables on firms’ EQ through the absence of firms’ earnings management (EM), which was estimated through discretionary accruals (DAC). Main results show that there is some divergence in EM practices over the four years and might suggest that EM by listed firms in Egypt exists especially in the first two years (2014 and 2015); how¬ever, relatively lower EM practices are found in the last two years (2016 and 2017). Correlation results show a number of significant relationships between the EM and three independent variables (firm leverage, legal form and audit quality). HMR results are in line with the results obtained via Pearson correlation.

This study examines the extent of environmental and community disclosures and evaluates how audit committee features influence such disclosures among listed firms in Bahrain and Kuwait, Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries of emerging markets. The research employs an unweighted disclosure index comprising 18 items related to environmental and community disclosures, analyzing 432 firm-year observations across Bahrain and Kuwait covering a nine-year period (2015–2023). Three audit committee features (independence, number of meetings, and size) along with the number of other board committees are examined in this empirical investigation. Descriptive analysis indicates that the sampled firms offer 44.25% and 60.60% of environmental and community information, respectively, signaling a satisfactory disclosure level in Bahrain and Kuwait. This demonstrates progress compared to prior studies in GCC countries. Hierarchical Multiple Regression models demonstrate that all four models significantly describe the dependent variables. Regression model four exhibits the highest explanatory power in explaining community information. Audit committee independence and size emerge as determinants of community information, while only audit committee independence is associated with environmental information. The results of this study bear significant implications for governmental bodies and regulatory authorities aiming to strengthen disclosure regulations and promote corporate governance frameworks within GCC nations.