Thesis (Ph.D.) - Cairo University - Faculty of Commerce - Department of Business Administration

This study aims to explore the relation between board characteristics, and ownership structure on the corporate financial leverage in listed companies in Egypt using a sample of 36 Egyptian firms selected from the most actively traded 50 firms listed in the Egyptian Stock Exchange, over a period of five years from 2007 to 2011, after excluding the financial firms due to the different nature of their accounting and governance. Based on the extant literature, we develop a conceptual framework and a set of hypotheses to investigate the relationship between board characteristics, and ownership structure on the corporate financial leverage. Board characteristics of this research include board size, board composition, CEO Duality and board female, while ownership structure include managerial ownership, institutional ownership, governmental ownership, and block holder{u2019}s ownership. The impact of controlled variables like firm size, profitability, growth and tangibility on firms' financing decision was also investigated. Corporate leverage has been measured by three variables total debt to assets ratio, long term-debt ratio, and short term-debt ratio. Three models are constructed and a set of hypotheses is developed. These hypotheses are tested using Multiple Regression Analysis (OLS) techniques in order to explore the effect of board characteristics, and ownership structure on the corporate financial leverage

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