Corporate governance in Egypt: The landscape, the research, and future directions

Abstract

Egypt is an emerging economy that has in recent years been exposed to several severe economic, political, and social shocks, all within a relatively short period of time. This has amplified the importance of the rule of law, regulatory enforcement, and corporate governance best practices, in order to restore the investing public’s confidence in the Egyptian market. Historically, the focus on corporate governance had preceded these recent events. Building on this history, today’s corporate governance landscape in Egypt is much more robust with more effective regulators, clearer streamlined governing rules, and better corporate governance literacy. This paper identifies four main areas of corporate governance research in Egypt: firm performance, reporting quality, corporate responsibility, and auditing. While extensive research has already been conducted in these areas, the paper provides some recommendations for further enhancing its quality. These pertain mainly to the development of comprehensive corporate governance databases, the increased focus on emerging and current market-relevant aspects of corporate governance, and the release of more proprietary data by regulators.