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We herein use discriminant analysis (DA) to examine the extent to which differences in ownership structure may be used to distinguish between listed companies that use different degrees of transparency in corporate governance in the Middle East, with a particular focus on the case of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The presence of Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) empirically proves to be an important driver of improvements in corporate governance practices (CGPs), with particular regard to transparency and disclosure. Other factors, such as whether ownership is by government, or whether it is dispersed, are shown to have a detrimental effect on good CGPs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This research extends the investigation of the diversification performance into the Chinese market, but with a specific focus on the issue of the internal capital market building motive being behind such corporate strategy. The empirical findings here provide persuasive evidence to suggest that, like firms in the Western countries, the Chinese firms diversify in search of, among other things, a financing solution to relax the constraints from the external capital market. However, inconsistent with most of the Western literature, the study does provide statistically significant evidence to support the proposition that in China, diversification is positively related to corporate financial performance when diversification is under the internal capital market building consideration. This new evidence implies that in China's economic and institutional environment, the benefits of building such an internal capital market within the conglomerated firm seem to offset its costs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article employed multiple regression analysis to investigate the variables that significantly determine the effectiveness of the board of directors in listed companies in the Middle East with a particular focus on the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This empirical study revealed significant links between board and shareholder characteristics and company performance as measured by the price-earnings ratio. Board processes and the presence of private institutional investors proves to be the central factors for board effectiveness. The structural aspects of the board such as size and composition are shown not to be significant for shaping board output. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the performance of privatized enterprises in a single sector, namely the plantation sector in Sri Lanka. The study provides an insight into the impact of privatization in the context of a developing economy and the impact of State and private ownership on enterprise performance. The panel data enabled the comparative study of enterprise performance under State ownership and management, State ownership and private management and, private ownership and management. It was revealed that after controlling for industry effects, privatization had led to significant increases in profitability, efficiency, capital investment, and output while employment levels had declined. Results were robust when checked for deliberate underperformance. Contrary to the proponents who espouse partial privatization as a solution to nationalist opposition to divesting of State assets, evidence indicates that induction of private management under State ownership had not been able to produce significant improvement in performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines diversification and corporate performance relationship in the framework of agency theory. Contrary to most of the findings from Western developed countries and emerging markets, the study reports a statistically significant U-shape relationship. The finding is also inconsistent with the notion that managerial discretion contributes to the diversification decision and results in discount firm value. The robustness test confirms these results after controlling for other firm level variables. These conclusions suggest that the understanding in Western literature about diversification performance provided by the agency theory may not be automatically applicable to the case of China's companies, and a highly diversified corporate practice could still be beneficial in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]