Audit committee adoption and firm value: Evidence from UK financial institutions

Purpose: This study examines the impact of audit
committee (AC) adoption on the financial value of financial institutions in the
UK and also examines the impact of the establishment of an audit committee on
firm value during the pre/post global financial crisis era.

Design/methodology/approach: The paper embarks on a theoretical and
empirical literature review on audit committee (AC) adoption and its impact on
the firm’s financial value. The paper uses data from 63 financial institutions
and covers a 12-year period.

Findings: The empirical results indicate that the
adoption of an AC by financial institutions has a positive and statistically
significant impact on firm value. The results from the precrisis period also
indicate the adoption of an AC makes a positive and significant contribution to
firm value. However, there is no impact on firm value during the post-crisis
period. Our results suggest that the entire UK economy experienced an economic
downturn after the financial crisis (2009-2011) and financial firms were no
exception.

Research limitations/implications:
Our study helps to fill research gaps
on the relationships between ACs and firm value as they exist in UK financial
institutions. These findings are important for policy-makers and regulators.

Originality/value: To the best of our knowledge, this
research is the first to conduct an empirical study of the effect of AC
adoption on UK financial institutions and firm value. Second, no single study
has been conducted on the effects of AC adoption and its impact on either the
pre- or the post-financial crisis periods. This is the first paper to provide
such empirical evidence.

Keywords: Audit committee adoption, financial
institutions, UK, pre- and post-financial crisis, firm’s value.

Paper
type: Empirical
research.

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