Purpose: Previous studies that dealt with corporate governance have witnessed gradually significant growth that created some new trends. The purpose of this paper is to be involved in such trends through examining the link between ownership structure as one of the important corporate governance mechanisms and firm performance in Jordan as one of emerging economies.Design/methodology/approach: The current study used the multiple regression method to analyze available data for non-financial firms listed in the Amman Stock Exchange for the fiscal year 2012.Findings: The findings revealed that managerial ownership has a positive impact on performance. On the other hand, the findings surprisingly showed no evidence to support the impact of foreign ownership on performance. Moreover, there is a significant evidence to support the fact that company size has no impact on firm performance. The findings also revealed that industry type has no impact on firm performance.Practical implications: The practical implications of the current study demonstrated that good corporate governance is imperative to all organizations and must be encouraged for the interest of all stakeholders. Unlike the majority of the previous studies, the current study unexpectedly found that foreign ownership is not significantly contributing to the firm performance. Thus, Jordanian Government and other related/responsible parties should formulate policies for the foreign investors.Originality/value: Interestingly, from developed and developing countries perspective, the study is the first of its kind that exclusively chose the mechanisms of ownership structure in its relationship with firm performance represented by market share, where no previous study has tested foreign ownership in such relationship. In that, this study is the first study in emerging economies to investigate such a link. Such new insights on this relationship by current study provide helpful information that is of great value to the government, academics, policy makers, and other stakeholders.

Since forensic accounting arose in America, it has become a very important issue by the researchers and scholarsin several countries in the whole world. Financial corruption is the most dangerous factor on the present andfuture of Iraq. Perhaps it's no less dangerous than the terrorist operations accompanied the Iraqi political changestarted in 2003. Thus, such corruption slows down the economic development process and prevents the welfareand the prosperity of the community, which may lead to lose confidence in both the political class and stateinstitutions. While this corruption requires sophisticated ways to fathom, there is a modern method, among others, that couldbe used for this purpose which is the forensic accounting. This study therefore attempts to determine the impactof using forensic accounting on financial corruption. It contributes to the limited existing literature on theforensic accounting where no previous study has been down in Iraq dealing with such a serious issue.Specifically there is a failure of accounting and control methods that lies in the methodology taught in Iraqiuniversities to discover financial corruption cases. This study adopted a correlation research design. Data wascollected by using interviews and questionnaires. The main findings of the study revealed that there is asignificant relationship between the forensic accounting methods and effectiveness of the control and auditingbodies to detect financial corruption cases.On the other hand, the majority of the audit and accounting personnelin Iraq are suffering from poor perception and information of the forensic accounting methods. Therefore, asuggestion was made by the current study that forensic accounting methods should add to the curricula ofaccounting departments in Iraqi universities at both levels of preliminary and higher studies through theoreticaland practical classes.

Previous studies in the literature review that dealt with corporate governance have recently witnessed significant growth that led to some new trends. The purpose of the current paper is to significantly contribute to such trends through investigating and analyzing the effect of corporate governance mechanisms on firm’s financial performance for a sample consisting of industrial and service companies in Jordan. The current study examined cross sectional data through 109 companies (industrial and service companies). The study uses the annual reports for the fiscal year 2011 of the most active Jordanian companies in order to examine the predictions of corporate governance effects on financial performance. This cross sectional study tested all hypotheses of the study and used statistical software, SPSS 20, to analyze data. The findings indicated that board size has a negative association with firm financial performance. Furthermore, the empirical investigations for the current study revealed that the presence of independent directors in the board is not associated with financial performance. Likewise, the result showed that CEO duality has no impact on firm financial performance. From developed and developing countries’ perspective, the current paper uniquely contributes to the literature that dealt with corporate governance and firm performance throughout introducing a market share variable as a measurement to represent firm’s financial performance. In doing so, the paper is the first of its kind to provide new insights on the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance. It therefore provides a new indicator considered as extending for prior research in this discipline as, to the best of researcher’s knowledge; no prior work has been done in both developed and developing economies including Jordan. The study provides empirical evidence to the academic, policy makers and all beneficiary parties of stakeholders in the Middle East, specifically Jordan.

From a management accounting perspective, this study aims at examining the relations of entrepreneurial and market orientations and SMEs satisfaction in terms of financial and non-financial performance. SEM was conducted on 107 responses including management accountants from the manufacturing SMEs in Malaysia. The results reveal a null relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and financial-performance satisfaction, while it shows a positive impact on non-financial performance. In contrast, market orientation affects financial and non-financial performance positively. However, to understand the null impacts, interviews were conducted with owner-managers of manufacturing SMEs in Penang. Based on the interviews and the analysis, practical implications are provided to entrepreneurs of SMEs, the Malaysian government, and researchers.

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are considered to be the world’s largest. They play a vital role as they create jobs and improve the living conditions of their local communities as they contribute to the country’s GDP growth. Due to their contributions to the nation’s economy, they have been given much attention in entrepreneurship. This paper aims to study the impact of entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial competencies on small and medium enterprises’ performance. Entrepreneurship is a vital component of any successful business strategy. It can be used to overcome the uncertainties of today’s business environment. The roles of these two independent factors in the business environment are also more relevant to small businesses. The goal of this paper is to develop a framework that explores the performance of firms from the perspective of their entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial competencies. The proposed framework aims to provide a comprehensive view of the factors that influence the performance of businesses. It shows that entrepreneurial education is the antecedent of competencies that can affect firm performance, where entrepreneurial competencies is treated as a mediating variable. In addition, this study explores the role of entrepreneurial education and entrepreneurial competencies in developing financial and non-financial business performance. The framework is based on the resource-based view, a constantly applied approach to the small business context to utilize strengths and weaknesses to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. The paper provides valuable insights into the entrepreneurial factors that businesses can consider when enhancing their performance. It also helps entrepreneurs in developing their entrepreneurial education and competencies to increase their chances of achieving better results in their businesses which in return can help to reduce the number of business failures and thus, boost the country’s economy.

Organizations use management accounting information in a variety of ways, and specifically management accounting information that plays a significant role in the effective management process. In addition, management accounting information contributes to the organization’s performance by giving feedback on carrying out the strategic plans and completing the work, and consequently enhancing the economy of the country. However, new management accounting systems, due to its externally and future-oriented strategic characteristics, (that may avoid many of the weaknesses of conventional management accounting systems) still lack a solid base in empirical studies. The main goal of this research is to determine the effect of Strategic Management Accounting (SMA) on the Jordanian service sector’s performance as one of the emerging economies. This is especially important as service sectors in several countries in the Middle East, including Jordan, have faced a notable decline in their performance. This research uses a quantitative method; the quantitative data was collected via a questionnaire. The total selected sample size for the quantitative approach was 127 companies belonging to the Jordania service sector for the fiscal year 2017. The research found that the Strategic Management Accounting influences the service sector’s performance and therefore that could be used to help the service sector’s managers understand the importance of accounting information for strategic decision making.