This paper examines the influence of investment opportunities on firm performance and evaluates corporate governance practices in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to determine whether corporate governance quality moderates that influence.,A fixed-effects regression was employed to examine the influence of investment opportunities on firm performance and the role of corporate governance quality as a moderator for all listed firms on the Abu Dhabi Stock Exchange (ADX) and the Dubai Financial Market (DFM). We examined 501 firm-year observations for the period when the corporate governance code in the UAE was coming into force, from 2008 to 2012.,The regression results indicate that investment opportunities have a negative influence on firm performance. The corporate governance index used here shows that the level of corporate governance practiced in the UAE is weak. We also find that strong corporate governance ameliorates the negative influence of investment opportunities, which supports our hypotheses. The sub-indices of corporate governance that matter the most for moderating investment opportunities are board functioning and ethics.,The results of this paper reflect the need to examine corporate governance in the context of the external environment represented by investment opportunities in our study. The findings could raise awareness of the importance of strong corporate governance practices, not only to directly improve firm performance but also through its influence on external variables. Legislators, regulators and other interested parties could use these results to examine practices in the UAE following the implementation of the corporate governance code.,This study contributes to the literature by evaluating the role that corporate governance quality and its components could play in firm performance and indirectly moderating other external factors (such as investment opportunities).

中文翻译：

---

阿联酋的投资机会，公司治理质量和公司绩效

本文研究了投资机会对公司绩效的影响，并评估了阿拉伯联合酋长国（UAE）的公司治理实践，以确定公司治理质量是否缓和了这种影响。采用固定效应回归来研究投资机会对公司绩效的影响。公司业绩以及公司治理质量作为阿布扎比证券交易所（ADX）和迪拜金融市场（DFM）上所有上市公司的主持人的作用。我们研究了从2008年到2012年阿联酋公司治理守则生效期间的501个公司年观察结果。回归结果表明，投资机会对公司绩效产生负面影响。此处使用的公司治理指数表明，阿联酋的公司治理水平很弱。我们还发现，强有力的公司治理可以减轻投资机会的负面影响，这支持了我们的假设。公司治理的次要指标对于调节投资机会最重要的是董事会的职能和道德。本文的结果反映了在我们的研究中，需要在以投资机会为代表的外部环境的背景下研究公司治理。研究结果可以提高人们对强有力的公司治理实践的重要性的认识，不仅可以直接提高公司绩效，还可以通过其对外部变量的影响来实现。立法者，