Board Effect and the Moderating Role of CEO/CFO on Corporate Governance Disclosure: Evidence from East Africa.

This study examines the effects of board size, board independence, and the interaction effect between board independence and CEO/CFO on corporate governance disclosure practices. Using a large and hand-collected dataset comprising 1,000 firm-year observations from 2007 to 2017 in East Africa, this study develops a corporate governance disclosure index (CGDI) of East Africa consisting of 164 provisions. Adopting study three analytical approaches, namely OLS and fixed effect (FE) regressions and the two-stage system GMM, this study finds that large boards and independent directors are associated with greater disclosure of CG information. Different from environments with stronger institutions and corporate governance systems, our analysis suggests that the CEO/CFO power negatively moderates the link between board independence and corporate governance disclosure. Thus, firms whose CEO and CFO are involved in remuneration or nomination committees disclose less CG information. The combined effect of CEO and CFO on selection and remuneration committees and independent board in reducing corporate disclosure appears more pronounced for the post-financial crisis period compared to the crisis period. Our results remain the same after controlling for endogeneity concerns.