The study aims to investigate the potential determinants that may influence the quality of financial reporting of 88 annual reports of a sample of 22 Lebanese banks for the period 2012-2015. Financial reporting quality index with 40 items was used as the dependent variable, while bank specific characteristics of leverage, size, and profitability as well as corporate governance features of board independence, ownership structure, and board size constitute the independent variables. Using multivariate OLS model, the results indicate that financial leverage, ownership structure and board size has significant and positive relationship with financial reporting quality. On the other hand, bank size, profitability and board independence were found to be not statistically significant in explaining the quality of financial reporting of banking sector in Lebanon. The results reveal that better financial reporting quality of the annual reports in banking sector can be achieved by having higher proportion of debts, higher ownership by the shareholders, and higher board size. These findings could be of interest to potential investors, management and regulators in the process of financial reporting quality enhancement.

Previous research on the relationship between investment in information and communication technology (ICT) and bank performance (BP) have been obviously disagreeing. This is because some posit a positive relationship and some argue to the contrary. Thus, this research contribute to the ongoing debate regarding the contribution of ICT to BP by looking at the impact of ICT investments on the performance of a sample of 50 Lebanese banks for the period 2009-2016. Secondary data were collected from the annual report for each bank. CAMELS model is chosen as the dependent variable, while ICT investments (adoption of automated teller machines (ATM), mobile banking (MB), internet banking (IB), telephone banking (TB), debit and credit cards (BC) and point of sale (POS) terminals) is the independent variable. Using multivariate OLS model, the results demonstrate that the application ATM, IB, TB and POS terminals does not significantly affect banks performance. However, the application of MB and offering BC to customers significantly and directly affects performance of banks in Lebanon. Thus, banks in Lebanon are recommended to find a way to increase interest of Lebanese consumers in MB applications and attract more customers by offering them a range of BC tailored to fit their preferences.

The study aims to investigate whether the discretionary narrative disclosure strategies (DNDS) of impression management (IM) adopted by different banks in the narrative section of 200 annual reports of a sample of 50 banks in five different countries of Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab of Emirates) vary according to their profitability for 2011-2014. Seven variables were employed to identify the association between profitability and the extent of existence of DNDS of IM in the chairmen’s letters of the bank’s annual reports. These variables are reading ease manipulation (REM), rhetorical manipulation (RM), thematic manipulation (TM), visual and structural implementation (VSM), performance comparisons (PC), choice of earnings number (CEN), and performance attribution (PA). By employing an independent sample t -test, it was found that three out of the seven strategies have differed significantly between banks in terms of profitability. These strategies are REM, PC, and CEN. Specifically, more profitable banks use very difficult language; selects favorable benchmark from prior years; and don’t select favorable earnings number in annual reports narrative. It is interesting to note that banks in MENA region produce narratives – especially the chairmen’s letter the discretionary disclosure section- to influence the perception of their stakeholders rather than to display the narratives in accordance with the “true and fair view” principle of accounting. Therefore, this study recommends regulators for more actively intervening to ensure that the voluntary status of the annual reports is more closely scrutinized by auditors in order to reduce the negative effects of DNDS of IM.

Most of the studies on social media usage (SMU) are based on the individual view while some are from the organizational viewpoint. Nevertheless, most of these studies were conducted in developed economies and concentrated on large organizations. However, not many studies have examined the actual impact of SMU on performance of banking sector. This research, therefore, fills this gap by looking at the SMU-specifically Facebook usagein the banking sector of twelve different countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The data is drawn from the annual reports of 102 banks as well as from Social-baker database during the period of 2012-2016. Seven simple linear regression models are applied to find the impact of SMU on each facet of bank performance. The results of the research indicated a positive significant impact of SMU on financial and non-financial performance of banks in MENA countries in terms of profitability, growth and environmental performance. Therefore, this research recommends that managers of the banking sector in MENA countries should be conscious that their banks' performance could be enhanced by developing capabilities and competences related to SMU and by having a strong intention to use these tools.

Nowadays, corporations are being held accountable for their actions that affect their surroundings. Thus, corporate social responsibility (CSR) has been integrated in their business models, which can impact their financial performances (FP). Previous researches regarding the relationship between CSR and FP have yielded mixed results. Thus, this research aims at identifying the impact of CSR practices in the environment (ENV), human resources (HR), products and consumers (PC) and community involvement (CI) on FP of 81 commercial banks operating in selected MENA countries for the year 2018. Data were gathered from CSR report and annual report for each bank. The multiple regression analysis reveals that there is a positive significant relationship between CSR practices in HR and PC and FP of MENA banks. However, there is a non-significant relationship between CSR practices in the ENV and CI and FP of these banks. Thus, MENA banks are encouraged to engage in CSR practices revolving around HR and PC in order to enhance their FP.