Complicated Relationships among Audit Committee Independence, Nonfinancial and Financial Performance

The relationships among the audit committee independence, nonfinancial performance and financial performance are quite complicated. They are not simply bivariate correlations. Rather, there may be mediating effects or moderating influences on these casual associations. Nonetheless, previous research has not investigated these complicated relationships. This paper seeks to examine the mediating impact of nonfinancial performance on the association between the audit committee independence and financial performance. Further, it also explores the moderating role of the audit committee independence in the influence of nonfinancial performance on financial performance. The findings imply that nonfinancial performance interferes with the effect of the audit committee independence on financial performance, in which it lessens this effect. The empirical results also suggest that the audit committee independence plays the moderating role in the relationship between nonfinancial performance and financial performance, in which the independence of the audit committee is positively related to this relationship.