Board quality, audit quality and economic firm value: The case of manufactured saudi's listed companies

This study aims to investigate the relationship of board quality, audit quality and audit report lag on firm performance of manufactured Saudi's listed companies. The framework of the study is developed based on the predictions of agency theory and resource dependence theory that board quality, audit quality and audit report lag are associated with the firm performance. This study used 180 observations for the periods ranging from 2015 to 2017. The board quality is measured by two independent variables; board size and board meetings, audit quality is measured by the auditor brand name, the audit report lag is measured by the year-end to the date of the auditor’s report, and firm performance is measured by the ROA and ROE. Using the pooled OLS Regression, the results show that out of four hypothesized independent variables, only audit quality has a significant and positive association with firm performance and audit report lag has a negative and significant association with firm performance. Importantly, the study suggests that regulators, especially Saudi stock exchange, should mandate companies to disclose all relevant information related to board and audit in a transparent and timely manner, and increase law enforcement to enhance good corporate governance practices. For companies, this study proposes that they should emphasize more on enhancing the role and the quality of their board of directors and the audit quality issues, as this enhancement may positively influence their performance.