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This study examines how board characteristics—board size, independence, gender diversity, audit committee size, and CEO-Chairman separation—affect the systematic risk (beta) of firms listed on the Tunis Stock Exchange. Using panel data from 81 Tunisian companies over 2011–2018, we apply Generalized Least Squares (GLS), Generalized Method of Moments (GMM), and Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) to address endogeneity concerns. The results show that larger boards, greater female representation, and larger audit committees are significantly associated with lower systematic risk, whereas board independence and CEO-Chairman separation have no significant effect. Ownership concentration moderates the board size–risk relationship, weakening the risk-reducing effect of larger boards. These findings underscore the critical role of board composition in shaping corporate risk profiles, particularly in emerging markets marked by concentrated ownership and institutional fragility. The study contributes to the literature in three ways: it provides novel evidence from the underexplored Tunisian context, thereby extending the geographical scope of governance research; it adopts an integrated framework that jointly examines multiple board attributes alongside ownership concentration as a moderator; and it strengthens robustness through GLS, GMM, and 2SLS estimations, offering a more nuanced understanding of governance–risk dynamics in emerging markets.
Fathallah et al. (Tue,) studied this question.