Mohammed Mehadi Masud Mazumder

Intellectual capital reporting practices in an Islamic bank: A case study

Given the nature and importance of Islamic banks in recent times, we can expect them to have significant intellectual capital anchored in their Sharia-based knowledge and expertise. However, we know very little or nothing about how and why intellectual capital-related information is provided in their corporate reports. We fill this gap in our existing knowledge of the field with a view to enhance relevant literature. As far as we know, this article is one of the earliest exploratory attempts to examine intellectual capital reporting practices of an Islamic bank. We have undertaken a longitudinal (2001–2015) case study related to the intellectual capital reporting practices of an Islamic bank. Key results include significant rise of intellectual capital reporting over time, dominance of internal capital-related items in intellectual capital reporting profile and the dynamics of changes in intellectual capital reporting practices over time. Through an institutional theory lens, we explain that this is due to the changes in the external institutional environment and various intra-organisational factors such as strong ethical culture, unique knowledge base (Sharia), and corporate governance regime.

Top-executives Compensation: The Role of Corporate Ownership Structure in Japan

This paper explores the impact of corporate control, measured by ownership structure, on top-executives’ compensation in Japan. According to agency theory, the pay-performance link is expected to be affected by the firm’s ownership structure. Using a sample of 4,411 firm-year observations (401 firms for the 11-years period from 2001 to 2011) for Japanese non-financial firms publicly traded on the first section and second section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE), this study demonstrates that institutional ownership (both financial and corporate) is negatively related to the level of executives’ compensation. Such finding is in line with efficient monitoring hypothesis which claims that the presence of institutional shareholders provides direct monitoring over managers, limits managerial self-dealing and curves the increase in top-executives pay. On the other hand, the results also show that managerial ownership is positively related to their compensation which supports managerial power theory hypothesis, i.e. management-controlled firms are more likely to extract more compensation from the business than other firms. Overall, this study confirms that corporate control has significant impact on cash compensation paid to Japanese top-executives after controlling the conventional pay-performance relationship.

Exploring the Impact of Ownership Structure on Earnings Predictability: Insights from Japan:

Abstract Using a very recent data over the period from 2007 to 2012 (sample period 2001–2012), this study estimates the relationship between ownership structure and earnings predictability in Japanese listed companies. In particular, this study investigates how three important categories of ownership (i.e., domestic institutional, foreign and insider ownership) are associated with earnings predictability in Japanese listed firms. The results show that higher domestic institutional (financial) ownership is associated with greater earnings predictability. The findings support the argument that institutional shareholders especially financial institutions ensure effective monitoring over corporate reporting practices which lead to better earnings quality. In sharp contrast, this study finds that incremental foreign institutional ownership in Japanese listed firms is associated with lower earnings predictability. Such finding is contrary to the oversimplifying assumption that increasing cross-border shareholdings is always associated with better earnings quality. This study demonstrates interesting insights regarding the impact of ownership structure on earnings predictability which surely carry significance for Japanese corporate policymakers and future researchers.