Corporate Governance Reform and Organisational Accountability in Saudi Arabia: The Roles of Board Practices and Ownership Concentration

Abstract

This study examines how the post-reform corporate governance environment is associated with organisational accountability in Saudi Arabian listed firms and whether board practices represent potential pathways through which this association occurs in ownership-concentrated companies. A convergent mixed-methods design combines interviews with 28 governance actors and an unbalanced panel of 164 non-financial listed firms covering 2015 to 2024 (1476 firm-year observations). The qualitative and quantitative strands were conducted in parallel and integrated through a joint display that assessed convergence, complementarity, and tension across findings. The post-reform period is positively associated with organisational accountability, board independence, committee strength, and board gender diversity, while ownership concentration attenuates the reform-accountability association. Because the nationwide reform applied to listed firms concurrently and no untreated comparison group is available, the estimates are interpreted as conditional longitudinal associations rather than changes attributable specifically to regulation. Interview evidence indicates that stronger formal structures do not invariably correspond with behavioural independence or substantive scrutiny. The study contributes an institutional-translation account in which regulatory expectations acquire organisational meaning through board practices but remain conditioned by concentrated ownership and wider institutional change.