Abdul Hadi Zulkafli

Corporate Governance and Performance of Banking Firms: Evidence from Asian Emerging Markets

Corporate governance is regarded as a major issue during the post-financial crisis period in Asia. These countries have implemented corporate governance reforms to enhance the protection of shareholders and stakeholders interests. Such reforms have affected the conduct of business of all corporations in the region as it allows for greater monitoring especially by the shareholders. Unlike earlier studies which focused on non-financial firms, this study analyzes the corporate governance of listed banking firms in nine Asian emerging markets. Corporate governance mechanisms that serve to monitor the banking firms can be classified into Ownership Monitoring Mechanism, Internal Control Monitoring Mechanism, Regulatory Monitoring Mechanism, and Disclosure Monitoring Mechanism. This paper suggests that there are differences in the monitoring mechanisms of banking firms and non-bank firms.

Board structure and extent of corporate governance statement

The board of directors is an important entity in a company, creating a link between shareholders and managers and therefore playing an important role in the governance of a firm. This study focuses on board structure and the extent of the corporate governance statement disclosure. This study found that the size of the corporate board does have some influence on the extent of the corporate governance statement disclosure. It is quite surprising to find that the rest of the variables involving the board structure do not have any association with the extent of corporate governance statement.

Board structure and firm value: a study on listed banking firms in the Asian emerging markets

The banking sector in developing countries is regarded as an engine of economic growth (Arun, 2004). It is believed that corporate governance is necessary to ensure a sound financial system and, consequently, help develop the countrys economy. Using a Pooled Generalised Least Squares (GLS) regression model, the relationship between board structure and banks performance is analysed. A total of 107 listed banks in nine countries of the Asian emerging markets were included in the study. It is evidenced that only one aspect of board structure, which is CEO Duality, is positively significant, with market-based corporate performance.

Corporate governance, HRM practices and organizational performance

This study is unique as it analyzes corporate governance concept from a stakeholders’ perspective, instead of the more dominant shareholders’ perspective as indicated in previous studies. The study attempts to bridge the gap in the existing literature by examining the link between corporate governance, HRM practices and organizational performance. Attempt is also made to include the role of HRM as a mediator in explaining the relationship between corporate governance practices and firm performance. Data were collected from public listed companies in the consumer product sector in Malaysia. Using multiple regression analysis, the significance of the relationship between HRM practices and organizational performance is observed thus provides the evidence that HRM plays an important role for companies and this parallels previous studies. The result also implies that there is a link between corporate governance practices implemented in companies and the types of HRM practices implemented. Most importantly, the findings of the study reveal that the stakeholder approach is a viable approach to be taken in studying corporate governance. Despite the difficulties in gaining co-operation and responses from the companies involved, it proves that the stakeholders specifically the employees are aware of the issue of corporate governance and the companies are required to raise and maintain their standards.