Two PhD students Abubakar Zayyana and Nashat Almasria presented their work at the seminar on 17th May.

Abubakar presented a paper entitled “Board effectiveness: The influence of board processes on task and corporate social responsibility performance in Nigeria”.

The Paper investigates board effectiveness beyond the demographic variables. Building on previous studies, a model was developed that aims to examine the impact of board characteristics (board size and proportion of NEDs) and board’s social-psychological process (commitment) on two main board tasks (control and service), and corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance. This paper argues that board processes variables are more determinants of board effectiveness than board characteristics, and the influence of board process (commitment) on firm-level (CSR) performance is mediated by control, not service task.

Nashat presented a pilot study of his PhD entitled “The relationship between corporate governance practice and external audit quality: Empirical evidence from Jordan”.

Audit quality (AQ) and corporate governance mechanisms (CGM) are significant aspects of today’s business practices. The corporate governance literature indicates efforts to investigate the relationship between CGM and AQ, especially after the spate of the scams in large companies around the world including Jordan. Unfortunately, prior to these scandals, auditors have portrayed a positive picture of the financial positions for these companies. Interestingly, the same companies collapsed, as a result of frauds and mismanagements in the companies. As a consequence of these unfortunate events the CGM and AQ were brought under investigation. This research contributes to the existing literature both in theoretical and practical fronts by developing a theoretical and conceptual framework that aimed to establish a relationship between CGMs and AQ. Further, this study test whether agency theory can be served as a framework for explaining which mechanisms are really important for improving AQ in Jordanian context.