The Application of Corporate Governance Principles in Listed Firms in Damascus Securities Exchange An Analytical Comparative Study between Banking and Insurance Sectors

This study aims at determine the extent to which Syrians listed firms in Damascus Stock Exchange comply with the Principles of Corporate Governance, issued by Syrian Commission on Financial Markets and Securities (2008), Central Bank of Syria, (2009), Syrian Insurance Supervisory Commission (2007), and OECD (2004). To achieve this objective, the researcher conducted a field study on a sample of (20) shareholding companies working in the banking and insurance sectors (about 83% of the Syrians listed firms). A questionnaire containing six questions which cover the six principles of corporate governance was distributed to explore the sample's opinion about how much Syrians shareholding companies comply with those principles. The major findings of this study indicated that there were no significant differences between the level of the banks' commitment to the principles of corporate governance and the level of insurance companies' commitment.

The Impact of Corporate Social Responsibility on Performance: Applied Study on Syrian Shareholding Companies

This study attempts to answer the following main question, what is the impact of social responsibility and job satisfaction on performance of the Syrian Shareholding Companies? And therefore its results can help these companies to clarify the practices that lead to improve its competitiveness, by increasing their compatibility with their employees and the community in which they operate

The Role of audit committees to prevent fraud in Syrian public companies (Field study)

After the collapse of major international companies, the attention has been increased to provide appropriate mechanisms to reduce the causes of these collapses. Some of these causes were related to fraud in financial reporting. One of the used mechanisms is the audit committee which plays the role of supervisor in the companies. The objective of this research is to study the role of audit committees in reducing fraud in the Syrian public companies, and to achieve this goal, the researcher has prepared questionnaire which has been distributed to some members of audit committees in the Syrian public companies and some external auditors, the questionnaire has included audit committees’ characteristics and their tasks which would reduce fraud. The researcher has found that audit committees’ characteristics and their tasks reduce fraud according to the research samples.