This study investigates the influence of board gender diversity on the relationship between environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance and corporate cash holdings in Chinese A‐share listed companies from 2015 to 2022. Our research shows that ESG performance is positively associated with cash holdings. Drawing on critical mass theory, the study finds a moderating effect of board gender diversity in the relationship between ESG performance and the cash‐holding relationship. Specifically, the study finds a negative relation between ESG performance and cash holdings with the presence of a single female board member. However, this relationship shifts to a highly positive association when three or more female directors are on the board, underscoring the significant impact of gender diversity. Further heterogeneity analysis reveals that firms with a younger age profile and a strong commitment to green innovation exhibit a negative relationship between ESG performance and cash holdings. These findings highlight the complex and dynamic nature of the ESG performance‐cash holdings relationship, which varies according to specific firm characteristics. Overall, this study offers valuable insights into the multifaceted dynamics of ESG factors, enhancing our understanding of their impact on corporate financial strategies.

This study examines the impact of terrorism on bank stability, represented by bank risk and financial performance. We consider banks from 14 countries located in the Middle East and North Africa region for the period 2010–2018 using both the three-stage least-square and the generalised method of moments. The results provide strong evidence that banks located in countries with high exposure to terrorist attack exhibit low financial stability, due to high bank risk (i.e., high credit and insolvency risk). However, these banks show high financial performance (i.e., high profitability and cost efficiency), on average. Our results also show differential impacts on bank stability for countries marked as more (less) exposed to risk of attacks. For banks located in high-income-generating countries, we find that exposure to terrorism is associated with low financial performance and high credit risk, which is the opposite case for low-income-generating countries. Our results also indicate high systemic risk for listed banks operating under high terrorism risk exposure.

This paper investigates whether internal governance mechanisms were associated with the financial stability of Egyptian banks over the period 2010–2019. To this end, a GMM regression analysis was employed using 252 firm-year observations. The results, in general, indicate that the level of banks’ financial stability is positively associated with board size, board meetings, and board gender. In contrast, the results show that board education and the ownership of shares by directors are negatively associated with banks’ financial stability. More interestingly, our results demonstrate that higher financial stability is significantly associated with lower board independence, the presence of CEO duality, and fewer audit committee meetings. These striking results can be attributed to the argument that the presence of independent directors on the board may reduce the CEO’s willingness to share information with board members, causing a high level of uncertainty in the decision-making process, which ultimately leads to a reduction in the financial stability of their bank.