Effects of board characteristics, audit committee and risk management on corporate performance: evidence from Palestinian listed companies

Purpose - This paper aims to investigate the effects of board characteristics, audit committee and risk management on corporate performance. Design/methodology/approach - Using a sample of 31 Palestinian non-financial listed companies from 2010 to 2016, this study uses a generalized least square method. Findings - The results show that the effects of board ownership, board independence, audit committee meeting, audit committee size, audit committee financial expertise and risk management are positive and significant on corporate performance while the effects of chief executive officer duality and audit committee size are negative and significant on corporate performance. Practical implications - The results of this paper are important to policymakers, shareholders and directors of companies to make appropriate choices about the board, audit committee characteristics and risk management to protect the interest of different stakeholders, increase the flow of capital and foreign investment into non-financial companies. Social implications - This paper fills a gap in the corporate governance literature by investigating the effects of board characteristics, audit committee and risk management on corporate performance in Palestine as one of the youngest stock exchanges in a region that assists in testing the validity of agency theory in a young and small emerging market context. Originality/value - This paper is the first to investigate the effects of board characteristics, audit committee and risk management collectively on corporate performance in Palestine as prior research on these topics has been investigated separately.