Author(s): Shouq Abdelqadir Aqeel Abdelrahman Al Ali, Soha Salem El Mokdad, Ahmad Faisal Hayek
This paper studies the effect of the audit committee characteristics on Etisalat Group's financial performance over the period 2015-2017. The objective of the study is to evaluate the impact of the audit committee characteristics (Independence of the audit committee, Expertise of the audit committee, Size of the audit committee, and frequent meetings of the audit committee) on the financial performance (Return on Assets (ROA), Return on Equity (ROE), and Profit) of Etisalat Group. This study employs a quantitative research method by implementing a correlation research design. Panel regression techniques of data analysis and Correlation coefficient were used in the analysis of data collected. The findings of this study should be of interest for managers to make appropriate decisions about audit committee characteristics and corporate governance to improve the performance of the company, and to help them understand the relationship and the effect of the audit committee characteristics on the financial performance. First, this is a cross-sectional study, where it used data from 2015-2017 only from secondary resources, this short-term study may not represent the way a company operates a business, therefore, future research could extend the study to include the data for many years. Second, this study uses only one population in the United Arab Emirates, which is Etisalat Group, part of the telecommunication sector. Third, as this study used only secondary data, future research should focus on obtaining a response from the company itself to validate the findings of the current study. Lastly, data collected in this study were divided into three categories, independent variables (Independence of audit committee, size of audit committee, expertise of audit committee, and the frequent meetings of the audit committee), dependent variables (Return on assets (ROA), Return on equity (ROE), and profit), and control variables (Firm size, Firm age, and Firm leverage), these three variables were studied and analysed using statistical methods (Correlation matrix, regression analysis, and the Multi-collinearity/Variance Inflation Factor test (VIF test)). Based on the analysis and the results, the frequent meetings of the audit committee have a positive impact on the financial performance of Etisalat Group.