This study aims to investigate the impact of financial instrument disclosures under the International Financial Reporting Standard (IFRS) 7 on the cost of equity capital (COEC). The sample consists of 56 banks listed in the Gulf cooperation council (GCC) stock markets over 7 years from 2011 to 2017. A self-constructed index is used to measure the compliance level in addition to quantitative methods and panel data regression adopted to test the research hypotheses. The authors find that the compliance level with IFRS 7 does not improve from 2011 until 2017 in the GCC banks. The authors also find that compliance with IFRS 7 disclosures reduces the COEC. The authors also provide new empirical evidence that the level of mandatory financial instruments disclosures under IFRS 7 reduces the COEC. The findings offer policy implications. It shows that compliance with IFRS 7 disclosure requirements leads to desirable economic consequences.

Although there has been considerable research on the impact of corporate governance on corporate voluntary disclosure, empirical evidence on how governance affects compliance with mandatory disclosure requirements is limited. We contribute to governance and disclosure literature by examining the impact of corporate governance on compliance with IFRS 7 for the banking sector in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). We use a self-constructed disclosure index to measure compliance with IFRS 7. We use regression analyses to examine the impact of board characteristics, audit committee characteristics and ownership structure on compliance with IFRS 7. Using a sample of 335 bank-year observations for GCC listed banks over the period 2011–2017, we report evidence that corporate governance variables affect compliance with IFRS 7. However, the significance of these variables depends on the type of the regression model used. Our findings suggest that governance matters for mandatory disclosure requirements. So to improve the level of compliance, regulators, official authorities, and policymakers should intensify their efforts toward improving corporate governance codes, following up their implementation and enhancing the enforcement mechanisms.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting is vital for organizations striving to balance financial success with social and environmental commitments. This study addresses the research problem of quantifying how the quality of such reporting impacts firm value. Specifically, its purpose is to examine the influence of high-quality CSR reporting on both financial performance and sustainable business strategies, focusing on return on equity (ROE), return on assets (ROA), net profit margin (NPM), and earnings per share (EPS). It further explores connections between innovative sustainable products, employee satisfaction, and CSR quality. Using secondary data from publicly listed firms, the study employs quantitative methodological approaches, including descriptive statistics, reliability tests, and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression, to assess the studied relationships. Our findings reveal a strong, positive, and statistically significant correlation between the quality of CSR reporting and enhanced financial performance, particularly in ROA and ROE. The results also affirm that robust CSR reporting is associated with greater innovation and higher employee satisfaction, supporting the former’s role in fostering sustainable practices. As such, the present work provides empirical evidence supporting recent academic discourse (Antorine et al., 2024; Mohammad, 2025) by demonstrating that CSR reporting is a strategic asset that bolsters financial growth, organizational resilience, and long-term value.

This study investigates the relationship between corporate governance mechanisms, CSR sustainability reporting, and emission performance in BRICS countries. Based on a panel dataset of 862 firms covering the period from 2018 to 2023, this study investigates the impact of audit committee presence, audit committee expertise, board gender diversity, and board members’ sustainability-related skills on firms’ emission performance. We employ fixed effects models and, to address potential endogeneity concerns, two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression models. The results show that audit committee expertise (β = 2.254, p < 0.01) and board-specific sustainability skills (β = 0.129, p < 0.01) significantly enhance emission performance. Moreover, CSR sustainability reporting positively moderates these relationships, with interaction effects showing stronger environmental outcomes for audit expertise (β = 0.083, p < 0.01) and board sustainability skills (β = 0.001, p < 0.1). In contrast, board gender diversity shows an insignificant or diminishing marginal effect when interacted with CSR reporting. Robustness checks using 2SLS confirm the stability of these findings. The study provides novel evidence on how internal governance structures and sustainability disclosure jointly shape environmental responsibility in emerging economies. Policy recommendations are offered to encourage transparent reporting and strengthen governance mechanisms to support climate-related goals.

This research presents a new look at the relationship between CEO compensation structures and earnings management practices within publicly listed companies in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) economies between 2015 and 2024. With a quantitative approach, this study differentiates between fixed and performance-based components of compensation and utilizes the Modified Jones Model to estimate discretionary accruals as a proxy for earnings management. Using a multivariate regression analysis, the study found a significant positive relationship between the equity-linked (i.e., performance-based) component of CEO pay, and earnings manipulation, while fixed salaries were positively associated or had no relation at all. These findings suggest that performance-based compensation motivates opportunistic financial reporting to meet performance standards. The study answers major implications for policy makers and boards of directors in the GCC, which may require reforms in the design of executive pay structures with a long-term emphasis on value added for shareholders, accountability, and governance. This research is important as it adds new evidence to the literature from the less studied GCC area of the world and pushes forward global conversations about executive accountability and the quality of financial reporting in emerging market contexts. In addition, it discusses an aspect that has not been much addressed in the literature: the focus on the voluntary or “optional” aspects of board committees in companies.