Title: Bank ownership concentration, board of directors and loan portfolios' quality: evidence from the Tunisian banking sector

Authors: Nadia Ben Sedrine Goucha; Faical Belaid; Abdelwahed Omri

Addresses: Business Division, Higher College of Technology, Abu Dhabi Men's Campus, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; Higher Institute of Management (ISG), Tunis University, Tunisia ' College of Business, University of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia ' Higher Institute of Management of Tunis (ISG), Tunis University, Tunisia; GEF2A-Lab, Tunis University, Tunisia

Abstract: This paper examines the impact of banks' corporate governance mechanisms in terms of ownership structure, board size and composition on the loan quality in the Tunisian banking sector. To do so we use panel data method and a sample that contains the ten largest banks in Tunisia over the period 2001-2012. Our main findings show that ownership concentration worsens loan quality in the Tunisian banking sector. However, the presence of independent members in the board of directors improves loan quality through better monitoring actions. Our findings also suggest that Tunisian banks with CEO duality manage better their loans.

Keywords: bank ownership concentration; bank board; loan quality.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBPM.2020.108321

International Journal of Business Performance Management, 2020 Vol.21 No.3, pp.329 - 345

Received: 25 May 2019
Accepted: 21 Oct 2019
Published online: 08 Jul 2020 *

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