Accounting irregularities in financial statements: an analysis of public reprimand announcement / Emie Famieza Zainudin and Hafiza Aishah Hashim.

The issue of accounting irregularities in corporate reporting in Malaysia has caused a great deal of concern with respect to financial statement reliability. Bursa Malaysia Securities Berhad has publicly reprimanded companies that failed to comply with the Listing Requirements of Bursa Malaysia. The main objective of this study is to document the nature and extent of accounting irregularities involving public reprimand announcements. This study focuses on Malaysian public listed companies from 2007 to 2013. This study uses the classification system and documents five categories of violation under public reprimand announcements (i.e. (1) failure to make an immediate announcement on material facts on a timely basis; (2) failure to submit annual reports or late submission of annual or quarterly reports; (3) failure to take into account the adjustments/inconsistent amount of reported profit or loss with audited amount; (4) market manipulation or insider trading, and (5) questionable corporate exercises)

Ethical Practice Disclosure of Malaysian Public Listed Companies

The Malaysian business world has seen a series of scandals amongst government-related companies in recent years, including 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), Lembaga Tabung Haji (LTH), Felda Global Ventures (FGV) and Khazanah Nasional Berhad (KHAZANAH). Despite having strong corporate governance policies, in addition to the Malaysia Code of Corporate Governance (MCCG), unethical practices and a lack of transparency remain a problem. This paper examines the level of disclosure of ethical practices by Malaysian public listed companies. Ethical practice disclosure is measured using the modified Ethical Commitment Index (ECI) with six themes derived from the literature: corporate ethical values; action to promote ethics; whistle-blowing policy; code of ethics; sustainability practices; and ethics committee. Conducting analysis of the annual reports of 1,115 companies across five years (2012-2016), this study found there is a need to improve several aspects of ethical practice disclosure. Although the findings suggest that companies supported the MCCG, with most of the companies complying with the recommendations of MCCG 2012 to uphold a high standard of ethical practice, supplementary practices (such as disciplinary action, programmes to support a code of ethics, whistle-blowers’ protection, and establishing an ethics committee) are still weak. This study suggests that regulator action is required to improve the level of ethical practice disclosure by Malaysian public listed companies

Developing a corporate governance reporting score for the Malaysian banking sector / Siti Nurain Muhmad, Hafiza Aishah Hashim and Mohd Hassan Che Haat.

There is a limited study on banking institution in Malaysia, especially the ones related to the corporate governance reporting of banks. The main objective of this study is to develop the Malaysian Bank Governance Reporting Score (MBGRS) for banking institutions in Malaysia. In these recent years, Bank Negara Malaysia has issued guidelines on corporate governance for banking institutions. Thus, it leads to the development of bank governance reporting score in order to measure the commitment of bank towards corporate governance. The overall finding of bank governance reporting score revealed that there is a lack of reporting in areas such as Board Structures, Duties and Effectiveness, Accountability and Audit, and Shareholder Rights. The findings provide a signal to identify the lack of area for the improvement in corporate governance of the banking sector in Malaysia

Board attributes and environmental and sustainability performance: Moderating role of environmental teams in Asia and Europe

This study investigates the influence of board attributes and environmental teams on environmental and sustainability performance. The study uses panel data of a sample of 8,094 Asian and European corporations from 2016 to 2021. The findings reveal that board attributes positively influence sustainability performance, except for frequent meetings and tenure that negatively influence sustainability performance. Further, environmental teams significantly moderate the association between board attributes and sustainability performance, which is more effective in European than Asian corporations. The study offers guidance for board members and policymakers to enforce sustainability disclosure regulations and encourages firms to establish environmental teams and committees to promote sustainability performance

The moderating effect of an audit committee on the relationship between ownership structure and firm performance: Evidence from emerging markets

AbstractThe study aims to investigate the relationship between ownership structure (OS) and financial performance (FP) in non-financial listed companies operating in Oman and the UAE, using panel data from 2012 to 2021. The results revealed that Tobin’s Q (TQ) is positively and significantly affected by managerial ownership and family ownership. In addition, return on asset (ROA) is found to have a negative and significant relationship with managerial ownership, while return on equity (ROE) is found to have a positive and significant relationship with family ownership. Comparing Oman and the UAE, the results indicated that all ownership variables tested have superior influence on FP. This study also documented that the moderating effect of the audit committee has a more positive relationship between managerial ownership, ownership concentration, and family ownership on firm performance in both countries. This study fills existing gaps in contemporary literature on OS in emerging markets by dissecting the outcome of OS on FP of companies in Oman and the UAE. To the best of our knowledge, most of the prior studies on OS have not examined the moderating effect of audit committee on the relationship between OS and FP. Our study on the OS in Oman and UAE listed firms shows that OS have an important outcome on market-based calculation. This study expands our understanding of the impact of OS on FP in emerging markets in two countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), a region of growing economic importance that has not received adequate research attention

Governance practices and corporate performance: Assessing the competence of principal-based guidelines

This study aims to investigate the relationship between corporate governance (CG) compliance and corporate performance in Jordan. We develop a corporate governance index (CGI) and investigate its impact on firms' performance. The index consists of 32 unique internal governance attributes that were built based on Jordanian governance Code. This study used a quantitative research method using panel dataset analysis of 672-firm year observations. Fixed effects regression model was employed to analyse the governance-performance nexus. To infer correctly, we re-examine the main analysis using a well-developed dynamic generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator to overcome possible endogeneity concerns. Consistent with prior studies in developed and developing countries in the governance literature, our findings robustly disclose that compliance with CG guidelines is a determinant of corporate performance of listed firms in Amman Stock Exchange (ASE) during period 2009-2016. The results indicate that a better degree of compliance with the Jordanian code and guidelines is positively and significantly related with better performance of publicly listed firms. This study contributes theoretically and practically to growing but under-developed literature on governance compliance and corporate performance in developing countries. Therefore, this research has useful implications for developing countries, stock market authorities, policymakers, firms' directors, and academicians