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Purpose: Building upon institutional pressures on firms to deal with corruption, this study aims to investigate the association between a firm's engagement with anti-corruption disclosure quality (ACD_Q) and earnings management (EM). Also, this study examines the moderating role of audit quality in the association between ACD_Q and EM. Design/methodology/approach: The authors constructed an ACD_Q index based on the 2010 UK Bribery Act and taking into account a wide range of rules on corruption and bribery, including those of the OECD, World Bank, UNCTAD, UNGC, UNCAC and GRI. Generalized method of moments and panel regression were used to examine the association between ACD_Q and EM. Findings: Using a sample of 2,695 firm‐year observations of the UK's FTSE-350 from 2008 to 2018, this study finds ACD_Q is negatively associated with EM. In addition, this negative relationship is contingent on audit committee independence and audit committee expertise. This finding is supported by additional robustness and sensitivity analysis. Practical implications: The empirical evidence reiterates the crucial need for more concerted efforts to ensure corporate engagement in anti-corruption practices with a view to reducing earnings manipulations. Originality/value: This study contributes to the limited evidence that investigates how ACD Q influences EM in the UK after the introduction of the UK Bribery Act in 2010. Furthermore, by considering the period from 2008 to 2019, this study investigates the potential moderating role of UK corporate governance reforms in EM reduction. In particular, to the best of the authors' knowledge, this study assesses for the first time the moderating effect of audit committee mechanisms on the ACD Q and EM nexus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Corporate Environmental Responsibility places an obligation on companies to consider the environment when making executive decisions. However, with consumer demands for environmentally friendly products increasing, companies are not being honest about their environmental claims. A company's environmental performance and reputation has become a key factor for a consumer's purchasing decision. However, some companies are unable to meet consumer demands for environmentally friendly products. In response, companies are using false green claims. Such claims are used by companies to mislead consumers into believing a product or service has environmentally beneficial qualities or characteristics. This is also known as greenwashing. There is no specific legislation that prohibits greenwashing. Therefore, this article will analyse current UK legislation and regulating authorities that help prevent corporate greenwashing and evaluates if the current enforcement measures are satisfactory. The article then identifies developing enforcement measures and suggested reform for corporate greenwashing in the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Directors of listed entities in the UK are about to face greater demands from recent discussions on corporate governance reforms, in particular, compliance with the obligations in s.172 of the Companies Act 2006. This article argues that leadership in a multi-stakeholder regime has become more important than ever. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We examine the link between the monitoring capacity of the board and corporate performance of UK listed firms. We also investigate how firms use the flexibility offered by the voluntary governance regime to make governance choices. We find a strong positive association between the board governance index we construct and firm operating performance. Our results imply that adherence to the board‐related recommendations of the UK Corporate Governance Code strengthens the board's monitoring capacity, potentially helping mitigate agency problems, but that investors do not value it correspondingly. Moreover, in contrast to prior UK findings suggesting efficient adoption of Code recommendations, we find that firms at times use the Code flexibility opportunistically, aiming to decrease the monitoring capacity of the board, which is followed by subsequent underperformance. This finding questions the effectiveness of the voluntary approach to governance regulation followed in the UK and in many countries around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Almost a decade has passed since the global financial crisis emerged; a crisis that has made companies, regulators and society more conscious of the possible failings in regulation, board function and shareholder behaviour. This article discusses three interrelated corporate governance weaknesses linked to the latest financial crisis, and considers ways to reduce their impact in the future. The first part discusses the role of regulatory and supervisory deficiencies as a primary cause of the crisis. It provides a concise overview of the flaws of the UK regulatory authority, and examines the reasons why UK regulation fell short of the high professional standards in the execution of its supervisory obligations. Ways to improve the regulatory and supervisory authorities are also considered. In the next part, the article examines the role played by the two primary internal organs of the company: the directors and the shareholders. It considers issues of directors' training, accountability and shareholder engagement and deliberates upon the improvements that can be introduced to enhance the role of directors and shareholders within the corporate governance arena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article I seek to demonstrate that, as drafted, the UK Stewardship Code (SC) is trivial, absent of meaning and incapable of achieving its goals. I will begin by demonstrating how little it has achieved to date and can expect to achieve in the future. In doing so, I will reconsider arguments, advanced elsewhere, concerning the conceptual problems with the SC, specifically: how it is drafted and upon what it focuses. I will then advance new concerns about the practical issues of the SC that make it a blunt tool of corporate governance but go on to show that there are a number of potential ways to change this. In doing so, I hope to provide the impetus to divert the SC from its current path, travelling along the road to nowhere, and instead seek a journey that not only has a destination but a much more promising one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]