CORPORATE GOVERNANCE AND ITS IMPACT ON PERFORMANCE (SOCIAL AND FINANCIAL): EVIDENCE FROM MFIs IN ETHIOPIA

Abstract

The study was aimed to look at the effect of corporate governance attributes on the social and financial performance of in MFIs Ethiopia. Explanatory research design with quantitative research approach was employed to carry out the study. From 35 legally registered microfinance institutions at NBE and AEMFIs, 16MFIs were selected based on the availability of data to investigate the effect of corporate governance variables such as board size, board educational qualification, board experience in the financial sector, meeting frequency of the board, board audit committee size and CEO with dual responsibility on social (breath of outreach and depth of outreach) and financial performance of MFIs measured by Number of Active Borrowers, Gross Loan Portfolio and Return on Assetrespectively. In addition to main explanatory variables, control variables MFIs Size were also included within the study variables. Both primary and secondary data were used in which primary data regarding board characteristics was collected through questionnaire and secondary data was obtained from MFIs, NBE and AEMFIs. Panel data covering six year from 2014-2019 was analyzed for sixteen microfinance institutions. The regression results revealed that board size, board educational qualification, meeting frequency and CEO with dual responsibility have positive relationship with financial performance of MFIs while board experience in the financial sector, board audit committee size and firm size has statistically negative relationship. Board educational qualification, meeting frequency, audit committee size and firm size have positive relationship with social (breath of outreach) while board size,board experience in the financial sector, and CEO with dual responsibility have negative relationship. Board size, Board educational qualification, audit committee size and firm size have positive relationship with social (depth of outreach) while board experience in the financial sector, meeting frequency and CEO with dual responsibility have negative relationship. Based on empirical result of the study, it is recommended that CEO with dual responsibility should be separate for better performance. Furthermore, in order to reduce the problem of management failures which put at risk the money obtained from the public and other sources, the governance mechanisms of MFIs have to be effective (i.e. creating and maintaining a business environment that motivates managers and entrepreneurs to maximize firm’s operational efficiency, returns on investment and or on equity and long term productivity).