Characteristics of audit committee and banking sector performance in Oman

Abstract

PURPOSE: Oman is the first country among the GCC countries to implement corporate governance (CG) principles. Corporate governance regulates the fundamental principles that govern the activities of businesses, like the responsibilities and roles of the Board of Directors (BoD), financial reporting and auditing, remunerations, and internal control system. Banks play a vital role in the economic development of a country. Adopting CG practices and the audit function in banks paves the way for transparent financial reporting. Furthermore, the audit committee has an impact on the financial performance of a firm as they undertake the task of preventing fraudulent financial reporting. From the above discussion, the purpose of this study is to understand and examine the characteristics of the audit committee by exploring its association with its performance.

METHODOLOGY: All the eight listed banks on the Muscat Stock Exchange (MSX) have been selected for the study, and data has been collected from the banks' annual reports for five years (2016-2020). The study has been conducted based on three CG characteristics such as the number of members in the committee, number of committee meetings and number of non-executive members in the committee. Measuring firm performance has been done by calculating Return on Asset (ROA) and Return on Equity (ROE). Correlation and regression analysis has been used to study the relationship between CG factors and bank performance. ROA and ROE are dependent variables. The three CG factors are independent variables, and bank size has been used as a control variable.

RESULTS/FINDINGS: This study shows a positive relationship between the banks' performance and the number of committee meetings and non-executive members and a negative impact between the number of members in the committee and bank performance.

ORIGINALITY AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: Further research on this study area can be conducted after 2021, considering the impact of audit committee characteristics on bank performance before and during COVID – 19.