Investigating How Corporate Governance Affects Performance of Firm in Small Emerging Markets: An Empirical Analysis for Jordanian Manufacturing Firms

Abstract

This paper aims at exploring how the mechanisms of corporate governance (audit committee size, CEO duality, board size, female board members and board composition) affect the firm performance. Based on data from 66 out of 69 firms, which represents (95.6%) of Jordanian publicly quoted manufacturing firms covering a five-year period (2008–2012), the use of multiple regression analysis was done for assessing how each of the mechanisms of corporate governance relates to firm performance. The empirical findings of this study suggest that size of firm and Tobin's Q and ROA shows a significant positive correlation, while leverage and ROA show significant correlations. Results indicate that CEO duality and size of board have negative correlation with ROA, while non-executive directors' proportion shows a positive correlation with ROA. No relationship was recognized between the female board members' proportion and audit committee size and ROA. Conversely, the variables of corporate governance do not show a relation with measure of market performance, which supports the argument that market-based performance measures are impartial when economic circumstances are normal in context of emerging markets. The paper provides insight into better understanding how the various mechanisms of corporate governance are related to the performance of firm given the scenario of a small emerging market of non-oil-producing country.