Foreign ownership structure, Sustainable Finance, and firm value Nexus: Evidence from Egyptian Banking Sector

Published in: Journal of Statistics Applications & Probability

Dec 01, 2023

The impact of digital assets disclosure on stock prices: A mediating effect of key audit matters, evidence from Egyptian listed companies

Published in: Boletin De Literatura Oral

Oct 26, 2023

Does corporate governance constrain earnings management in an unstable economic and political environment?

Published in: Asian Economic and Financial Review

Dec 15, 2022

Behavioral biases in trade credit policy: does it matter for financial performance?

Published in: Asian Journal of Accounting Research

Oct 05, 2022

Purpose: Corporate firms often follow their peer firms to articulate multiple financial decisions. Among the others, trade credit policy is a vital financial decision that can impart its dynamic role in achieving financial efficiency. Therefore, the current analysis aims to assess the role of herding behavior in determining the trade credit policies of corporate firms and its relevant effect on corporate financial performance. Design/methodology/approach: For this purpose, the financial data of 13089nonfinancial sector firms from 50 countries are employed and the dynamic generalized method of moments (GMM) model to estimate the regression is applied. Findings: The empirical findings first reveal that corporate firms actively mimic their peer firms regarding trade credit policies. However, this mimicking behavior hampers the financial performance due to non-compatibility with peers’ trade credit policies. Peer firms often develop such trade credit policies that are not applicable to corporate firms. Practical implications: Mainly, the findings of the study suggest two implications. First, it highlights the peer effect in terms of trade credit patterns. Second, it elaborates an adverse effect regarding financial performance due to herding of peers’ trade credit policies. Originality/value: This study adds new thoughts regarding herding behavior in terms of trade credit policy and its possible consequences for corporate financial performance.

Corporate Governance and Financial Performance of Quoted Deposit Money Banks in Nigeria: An empirical investigation

Published in: African Journal of Business and Economic Research

Oct 21, 2021

Mosab Tabash Ahmed Abou Samak

This paper studied how firm governance affects the performance of quoted deposit money banks in Nigeria. The paper aimed to ascertain the effects of board size, board composition, and gender diversity after controlling for firm age and firm size on financial performance. The study was predicated on stewardship theory, agency theory, and resource dependency theory. Data was fetched from the financial statements of all quoted deposit money banks. The study utilized a panel regression method to examine the relationship between the predictive and explanatory variables from 2015 to 2019. The study population comprised the 14 banks listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange as of 31 December 2019. The individual outcomes showed that board size and gender diversity in conjunction with firm age have significant impacts in both directions on the financial performance proxied by return on assets. As can be inferred from the panel random effect test results, it was concluded that corporate governance mechanisms were collectively discovered to have significant relationships with the financial performance in the study, which was confirmed by the p-value (0.01695<0.05). The study recommended, among others, that deposit money banks in Nigeria should ensure that the employment of autonomous executives should not only be based on the supervisory ability of these members, but also on liberated proficient business competence and skills.

Accrued Forecasting On Tourist’s Arrival In Bangladesh For Sustainable Development

Published in: Geojournal Of Tourism And Geosites

Sep 20, 2021

Mosab Tabash Ahmed Abou Samak

Forecasting of potential tourists' appearance could assume a critical role in the tourism industry, arranging at all levels in both the private and public sectors. In this study our aim to build an econometric model to forecast worldwide visitor streams to Bangladesh. For this purpose, the present investigation focuses on univariate Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) modeling. Model choice criteria were Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), Mean Absolute Error (MAE), and Mean Squared Error (RMSE). As per descriptive statistics, the mean appearances were 207012 and will be 656522 (application) every year. Mean Absolute Deviation and Mean Squared Deviation likewise concurred with MAPE, MAE, and MSE. The result reveals that for sustainable development the SARIMA model is the reasonable model for forecasting universal visitor appearances in Bangladesh.

The influence of the development of accounting standards to preserve sustainability: Literature Review” In Arabic

Published in: Journal

Sep 30, 2019

Ahmed Abou Samak

Abstract: Purpose: The study aims to investigate the relationship between the impact of the development of accounting pronouncements and the extent to which accounting can or should contribute to the pursuit of economic & social developments, and the sustainable development of an organization, and the contradiction between sustainability and accounting practices based on traditional financial reporting standards. It has been argued that the current accounting standards represent an attempt to present a ‘true and fair’ view. Design/methodology/approach: The study is essentially a literature review study that seeks to discuss a number of implicit assumptions within traditional accounting by IASB. Findings: Regulatory reports on the social and environmental dimension, particularly sustainability reports, demonstrate that accounting pronouncements, while trying to report on the environmental and social dimensions, suffer from some imbalance that has omitted environmental destruction and eroded any realistic concept of social justice. Practical implications: In this sense, this study seeks to demonstrate this contradiction and the strong and fundamental implications that this implies for traditional financial reporting and insignificant adjustments to these reports through "new models of regulatory reporting. Originality/value: The study highlights the disregard of external factors as a major obstacle to the sustainability report and proposes accounting and tax designs to identify costs associated with external factors as a basis for fair reporting, pricing and sustainable business practices.

Governance mechanisms and earnings management practices: evidence from Egypt

Published in: Journal

Dec 23, 2018

Ahmed Abou Samak

This study develops an aggregate corporate governance index (ACGINX) composed of four individual corporate governance (CG) indices – disclosure and transparency index, board of directors index (BoDINX), shareholders’ rights and investor relations index and ownership and control structure index – to investigate the assumed effect of each sub-index and the ACGINX on mitigating the practices of earnings management in the Egyptian context during 2008–2016. In addition to the effect of board size, institutional ownership, and ownership concentration, the current study executes panel data analysis to regress the practices of earnings management on the abovementioned CG mechanisms. It does so after controlling for seven variables that may affect this relationship, i.e., firm size, leverage, state ownership, losses, book-market ratio, type of audit report, and year effect. The results are inconclusive, showing traded-off significant relationships among control variables and earnings management practices assessed via different earnings management measures.

The Effect of Earning Persistence and Components of Earning on the Predictability of Earning: Evidence from an Emerging Market

Published in: Journal

Oct 10, 2018

Ahmed Abou Samak

This study investigates the relationship between persistence of earning and the components of earning on the predictability of earning in an emerging market after the adoption of International Financial Reporting Standards IFRS during 2008-2015. The sample firms consist of 143 nonfinancial firms listed on the Egyptian stock exchange for the period 2008-2015 as extracted from Gale Business Insights: Global by Thomson Reuters and from financial statements published on the company’s websites. The current study uses three models. In the first model, future earning has been regressed on current earning to investigate the persistence of aggregate earning. The second model measured total accrual in terms of operating accrual using information from the balance sheet and income statement. Then, the third model was disaggregated accrual into working capital accrual, noncurrent operating accrual and financial accrual to examine the differential persistence of accrual components. The results of the study confirm the persistence of earning for the sample firms. However, the accrual component has more persistence than the cash flow component. This could be interpreted by the accrual anomalies, supported by the weakness of the institutional and legal environments, which seem to be encouraged by firms presenting their financial statements under IFRS. Moreover, the enhancement of professional judgment in the accounting environment after the adoption of IFRS, which is principles based standards, may provide another justification for the aforementioned result. The results also imply that the persistence of accrual is affected by their faithful representation as less faithful representational accrual components have lower persistence than more faithful representational accrual components. This paper evaluates the predictability of earning attributed to persistence of earning components in an emerging market. Most prior studies have tested the phenomenon in developed markets. The paper extends the literature that addresses the second fundamental quality of qualitative characteristics of accounting information, (i.e., faithful representation and its effect on accounting numbers). This study also considers the effect of IFRS on the predictability of earnings in an emerging market as it is assumed to increase the level of judgment available to firms as they develop principles-based standards.

The Quality of the Audit Process In The Light of Professional Pronouncements of Standards’ Setting Bodies

Published in: Journal

Dec 13, 2017

Ahmed Abou Samak

The audit firms seek to gain new clients and to retain their existing ones in order to expand and increase the size of their share in the market. However, the aforementioned sought may often interfere with the quality of the audit process, once attached by absence of an efficient system for control the performance of the audit. The absence of system of audit quality control negatively influences client acceptance procedures, follow-up audit procedures, and stress on the efficiency and integrity of the audit staff, which ultimately affects the reputation of audit firms. In this sense, a number of professional bodies have initiated the issuance of some criteria to develop guidance on the concept and elements of the quality control system to be applied within the auditing firms to ensure the quality of the audit process. Meanwhile, Public Companies Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) issued the Quality Control (QC Section 20), which included a definition of the quality control system in the audit companies, explaining the various incentives. The Board also issued both the (QC Section 30) and the (QC Section 40) to provide information of the key elements of the quality control system, namely, “oversight” and “personnel management”, and under the “Clarity Project”, which started in 2004 with the aim of improving the quality of the audit by establishment of an objective for each auditing standard to reflect a principles-based approach to standard-setting and Quality control to make it easier to read, understand, and develop. In 2008, the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) issued both the International Standard on Quality Control (ISQC 1) entitled “Quality Control for Firms that Perform Audits and Reviews of Financial Statements, and Other Assurance and Related Services Engagements” and International Standard on Auditing (ISA 220) entitled “Quality Control for an Audit of Financial Statements”, and in November, 2010 (AICPA) has issued the Firm’s System of Quality Control (SQCS 8). This step is taken by AICPA as part of an attempt to achieve convergence with International Auditing Standards (ISAs). At the same time, an attempt is made to reduce unnecessary differences with the standards issued by the (PCAOB).

Feasibility study of a private school in the United Arab Emirates

Published in: Journal

Mar 21, 2017

Ahmed Abou Samak

The paper investigates the setting up of a private school in the emerging market of Al Ain, United Arab Emirates. The study adopts common criteria for conducting a feasibility study, and develops pro forma financial statements. The findings show that the project has a positive net present value, while the internal rate of return is about 13%, which is almost double the weighted average of the cost of capital. The discounted payback period is around 10 years. The recommendation is to invest in this proposal, since all the analysis techniques suggest it will be successful.

Principal-Principal Internal Governance Mechanisms and the Firms’ Performance: Evidence from an Emerging Market

Published in: Journal

Apr 11, 2016

Ahmed Abou Samak

It has been argued that companies with more comprehensive corporate governance mechanisms have value premium over their counterparts with less comprehensive ones. In this regards, the current study aims to investigate the effect of internal governance mechanisms to protect investors, adopted by the most actively traded companies on the Egyptian Stock Market in 2008-2009, and the performance of these firms. Based upon the best practices of corporate governance to protect investors and those proposed by the guidelines and standards of the Egyptian Code of Corporate Governance 2005, the current study develops two indices to investigate the assumed effect on a firm’s performance, namely: SRIRI (shareholders’ rights and investor relations) and OCSI (ownership and control structure). The current study regresses the firms’ performance measured by market, accounting, and hybrid type methods of valuation on the above mentioned internal governance mechanisms to protect investors after controlling for the variables that may affect this relationship, i.e. firm Size, leverage, state ownership, losses, and year effect. The results are inconclusive; significant positive association between (SRIRI) and the firm performance measured by market measures is found. (OCSI) provides significant positive associations with all measures of firm performance except those of hybrid methods. When the two indices are used in conjunction with each other in same model, the results refer to the non-complementariness of the two corporate governance indices used in the current study. The results also show mixed impacts of firm size and leverage on firm performance. The loss partially provides consistent influences on different measures of firm performance. The notable finding is that no link is found between state ownership and firm performance. The results should be interpreted in the light of the need to improve the familiarity of the Egyptian market to the corporate governance mechanisms. Other concerns are that time investigated by the study is recommended to be extended and the sample size is relatively small, some caution would be considered in generalizing the results to the entire population. As such, this study contributes to the existing literature by investigating and operationalizing the independent and joint effect of two principal-principal corporate governance mechanisms on firms’ performance in an emerging market such as Egypt.

Academic Risk Measures and Audit Qualifications: Evidence from Egypt

Published in: Journal

Nov 02, 2015

Ahmed Abou Samak

This paper aims to empirically investigate the ability of five academic risk measures, i.e., Working Capital Accruals (WC_ACC), Beneish's MSCORE, Dechow et al.'s FSCORE, the Modified Jones Model (DSS) and Pustylnik's Combined Algorithm Score, to detect and predict audit report qualifications within the Egyptian context. In addition, seven firm characteristics used as control variables are evaluated in the strength of the association between the academic risk measures and such phenomena. To the best of our knowledge, the current study is one of the first attempts to address such a relationship in the Egyptian context. The findings indicate that none of the academic risk measures has an incremental explanatory power to detect and predict audit qualifications. However, the control variables including the audit firm type, firm’s ownership type, the consecutive year losses of the firm and the size of the company can be used as a cheap forecasting alternative in detecting and predicting the audit qualification in the context of Egypt. Furthermore, receiving a qualified audit report is not a reliable signal of earning management.

Is there a Shift in the Accounting Values in Egypt Towards Optimism, Transparency and Professionalism?

Published in: Journal

Jun 29, 2015

Ahmed Abou Samak

This paper aims to examine the persistence of the historically assumed accounting values of the Egyptian environment in terms of conservatism, secrecy and statutory control after the adoption of the latest versions of the Egyptian Accounting Standards (EASs). Using information provided in the annual reports of 87 Egyptian listed companies in the year 2009, the results indicate that Egyptian accountants do not require a higher degree of verification to recognise good news than bad news in financial statements. Therefore, it can be argued that Egyptian accounting practices have departed from the accounting value of conservatism and moved towards its opposite value, optimism. In addition, the results demonstrate that there has been a noticeable improvement in the level of transparency in the Egyptian accounting environment and this level is much better than that reported in many other emerging economies. Unexpectedly, however, the documented level of transparency was found to have a negative impact on the shareholders’ wealth. Finally, our results illustrate that there has been a statistically significant improvement in the level of professionalism in recent years and this level is significantly positively associated with the companies’ share returns performance.

The Value Relevance of the Financial Statements’ Bottom Lines in the Emerging Egyptian Capital Market

Published in: Journal

Apr 28, 2015

Ahmed Abou Samak

This study aims to examine the value relevance of the bottom lines of the financial statements in the Egyptian context after the inception of the new version of Egyptian Accounting Standards of 2006. Considering the tradition accounting value of conservatism and the firm size, the price and return models are operationalized using a sample of the most actively traded companies on the Egyptian Stock Market in the period from 2007 to 2009. Three important conclusions captured from the results; first, the bottom lines of the financial statements are value relevant and the accrual components are upper handed over the cash flow in estimating the market value of those firms. Second, a conservatism practice is still alive in the Egyptian context; however, it does not prevent the accounting information from being value relevant. Third, the promulgation of the new version of EASs shifts the value relevance towards book value over the other accounting information. These results should be interpreted in the light of the rapid shift towards capitalism and the deregulation program followed by the Egyptian government in the recent years. Also, these results might possibly be attributed to a significant improvement in the familiarity of the preparers of accounting information with the new accounting practices and the needs of financial reporting users in Egypt. As such, this study contributes to the existing literature by investigating and operationalizing the value relevance of accounting information in an emerging market such as Egypt after the introduction of the new version of EASs of 2006.