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This paper aims to investigate whether the revised Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance in 2007 enhances earnings conservatism. In addition, the authors examine the relationship between board of directors’ expertise and conservatism. The third objective is to investigate the relationship between audit committee characteristics and earnings conservatism.

The sample of this study is based on 3,183 firm-year observations for a period of 2004-2009. The authors hand collected the corporate governance variables, whereas the remaining data were extracted from Compustat Global. The authors used two measures of conservatism. The first is the market-based model by Basu’s (1997), and the second measure is the accrual-based measure by Ball and Shivakumar (2005).

The authors find that the revision of Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance 2007 results in improving earnings conservatism. The authors find two audit committee characteristics, namely, audit committee financial expertise and independence increase earnings conservatism, after 2007. However, the authors could not find support whether board financial expertise mix affect conservatism.

This study did not consider other possible corporate governance variables that could influence earnings conservatism, as it would be a difficult task to gather them.

The authors provide evidence on the role of corporate governance and earnings conservatism in Malaysia.

This study examines the relationship between financial reporting quality, Industrial Revolution 4.0 and social well-being of stakeholders among public companies in Malaysia.

The sample of the study includes 232 firm-year observations of Malaysian publicly listed companies from 2013 to 2017. Social well-being is measured using social pillar scores from the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) data provided by Refinitiv. The study identified companies as an adopter of IR 4.0 based on their disclosure on the use of autonomous robots, simulation, cloud, horizontal and vertical system integration, cybersecurity, additive manufacturing, augmented reality and big data analytics in their financial reports. Financial reporting quality is measured using discretionary accruals.

This study found that financial reporting quality and IR 4.0 are related to social well-being, particularly the workforce. These results imply that companies with higher adoption of IR 4.0 are more likely to provide more information concerning job satisfaction, a healthy and safe workplace, maintaining diversity, equal and development opportunities for its workforce. Furthermore, the results show that firms with lower discretionary accruals (i.e. higher quality of financial reporting) are more likely to provide more information about social well-being. The results are robust even after addressing endogeneity issues.

This research contributes new insights into the role of financial reporting quality and IR 4.0 in enhancing social well-being in Malaysia. These findings offer valuable input for regulators striving to advance the United Nations' 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

This study carries substantial practical implications for policymakers and businesses alike. It underscores the importance of embracing IR 4.0 technologies and integrating them into strategic planning to foster social well-being. These insights can guide policymakers in shaping economic strategies and assist businesses in prioritizing financial reporting quality while engaging stakeholders to promote social well-being.

This is the first study to investigate the combined relationship of financial reporting quality and IR4.0 on social well-being, which provides valuable evidence in this novel domain. While previous studies have primarily explored the relationship of IR4.0 on sustainability from an environmental and human resource perspective, this study sheds light on the specific dimension of social well-being, hence promoting sustainable development goals by the United Nations in 2030.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between political connections and corporate tax aggressiveness in Malaysia. In addition, this paper investigates the relationship between corporate governance variables and corporate tax aggressiveness. Next, the study investigates the mitigating role of corporate governance in the relationship between political connections and corporate tax aggressiveness.

The sample of this study is based on 2,538 firm-year observations during the 2000-2009 periods. This study employs a panel least square regression with both period and industry fixed effects. The study retrieved the corporate governance variables from the downloaded annual reports, whilst the remaining data were collected from Compustat Global.

This study finds that politically connected firms are more tax aggressive than non-connected firms. Furthermore, the study finds that large board size decreases the likelihood of tax aggressiveness and a non-linear relationship exists between institutional ownership and tax aggressiveness suggesting increase in monitoring as the ownership increases. However, the study finds no evidence to suggest that corporate governance mitigates the influence of political connections in promoting tax aggressiveness behavior. The findings suggest that the impact of political connections could outweigh the benefits of changes in corporate governance in Malaysia.

The data are not recent, but it reflects a rather longitudinal research period.

This paper extends the literature of tax research in Malaysia which is in its’ infancy stage. Furthermore, it investigates the role of political connections in tax-planning research.

This study aims to design a set of sustainability indicators that is pertinent to cooperatives longevity. The primary goal of the cooperatives is towards meeting the economic progress of members while satisfying their socio-cultural interests and protecting the environment. As a sustainable and participatory form of business, cooperatives offer an alternative business model to social enterprises.

Using an extraction process analysis, this study examined and analyzed guidelines, indices, and framework on sustainability used by the public companies. The selected materials were analyzed using Atlas.ti software, whereby common indicators were divided into themes. The indicators were further scrutinized to suit the cooperatives identity and local regulations.

The results are presented as indicators for cooperatives sustainability that could serve as strategies and performance measurement. Promotion and expansion of cooperatives could be an important instrument for more than one billion people around the world involved in cooperatives either as members/customers, employees/participants, or both.

This work extends and complements the on-going efforts in uplifting the cooperatives sector as the third engine of economic growth in Malaysia. It contributes towards enriching the knowledge of the relationship between sustainable development and sustainability and its influence towards the cooperative sector. It may also provide the building blocks for future studies that could explore the usefulness of these indicators to other business setting having a similar objective like the cooperatives.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the convergence of IFRS in ASEAN countries resulted in an improvement in financial-reporting quality, and in particular with regards the degree of conditional conservatism of financial reporting. Then, the authors investigate whether the convergence to IFRS and the degree of conditional conservatism is influenced by corruption as a proxy for the strength of ASEAN jurisdiction legal and enforcement systems.

The sample of this study is based on 22,085 firm-year observations from three ASEAN countries, namely, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore from 2008 to 2014. This study employs a panel least square regression to test the effect of IFRS on two measures of conservatism which are asymmetric timeliness and accrual-based loss recognition. The conservatism data are extracted from ORBIS, while data for corruptions are extracted from Corruption Perception Index (CPI) that was released by Transparency International.

This study finds Convergence of IFRS enhance conditional conservatism. The findings are robust for two measures of conservatism which are asymmetric timeliness and accrual-based loss recognition. The result on unconditional conservatism finds that IFRS reduce unconditional conservatism, which supports that the code-law structures of the ASEAN countries as characterized by unconditional conservatism is reduced after IFRS convergence. A further test indicates that corruption reduces conditional conservatism in more corrupt countries.

This study focused on three ASEAN countries only, as they have consistent convergence dates to the IFRS. Therefore the result may not be generalized to other ASEAN countries.

The study provides implications to the regulators that IFRS enhance financial-reporting quality and reduce the randomness of decisions that are based on financial information as has been introduced by unconditional conservatism. Therefore it is important for the regulators to incorporate IFRS compliance into laws and regulations. Currently, IFRS compliance is not incorporated into laws and regulations for ASEAN countries, except for Malaysia. In Malaysia, Section 7 of the Financial Reporting Act 1997 (FRA) empowers the Malaysian Accounting Standards Board (MASB) to issue approved accounting standards for application in Malaysia. Under section 26D of the FRA, financial statements that are prepared or lodged with the Central Bank, Securities Commission or Registrar of Companies must comply with the standards issued by the MASB.

This paper extends the literature on the effect of IFRS on conservatism as it provides robust effect of IFRS on both conditional and unconditional conservatism. In addition, this study extends the literatures on the effect of corruptions in the relationship between IFRS and conditional conservatism.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects and challenges of the new amendment of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 9 in Malaysia from the perspectives of regulators, auditors, accountants and academicians in Malaysian Islamic financial institutions. For the purpose of this study, this paper focuses on the recognition criteria perspective of the standard, which provides a basic understanding of the financial reporting framework.

Using 10 series of semi-structured interviews undertaken with key individuals in regulatory bodies, audit companies, full-fledged Malaysian Islamic Banks and Malaysian higher learning institutions.

The findings revealed that IFRS 9 strengthens International Accounting Standards 39 in terms of relevance and reliability, recognition of financial instruments and identification of business models. Nevertheless, Islamic financial institutions face challenges in terms of a faithful representation of fair value, substance over form, identification of financial instruments before recognition criteria and the extent of the role of risk management in reducing manipulation in identifying business models.

This study provides implications to regulators and standard setters in Malaysia to enhance the quality of financial reporting framework and practices in Islamic financial institutions in this country using IFRS 9.

Practically, the findings of this study can be used by the regulators to resolve the issues that arise in adopting IFRS 9 among Islamic financial institutions to further enhance financial reporting quality.

The findings of this study are very important to ensure that the adoption of IFRS among Islamic financial institutions are in line with Sharīʿah principles. To date, no studies have been done on the challenges of adopting IFRS 9 among Islamic financial institutions in Malaysia.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between board diversity and total directors’ remuneration in Malaysia. The authors have operationalised two variables to represent board diversity: the proportion of women directors on the board, to present gender diversity and the proportion of Bumiputras directors, to represent ethnic diversity.

This study has used a panel least squares to test the relationship between board diversity and total directors’ remuneration.

Based on a 1,094 firm-year sample from 2007 to 2009, the authors found a positive and significant relationship between gender-diverse boards and remuneration, but a negative and significant relationship between ethnically diverse boards and remuneration. The interaction between gender and ethnically diverse boards results in a weaker negative relationship between ethnically diverse boards and remuneration with an increased presence of women directors. Finally, the authors found a positive and significant impact on remuneration when there are at least three women and three Bumiputras directors. The findings are robust after controlling for corporate governance variables, institutional variables and firm characteristics.

The main implication of this finding is the positive effect of firms hiring more women in top management roles on remuneration. In addition, the negative effect of Bumiputras suggests that their role is to offer political expedience to the board and thus provide economies of scale through their status to the country.

This study tests the effect of both gender and ethnicity simultaneously on directors’ remuneration.

This paper investigates the relationship between risk management practices and potential fraudulent financial reporting in Malaysia by considering recent regulatory reforms of the Malaysian government on risk management practices.

The sample of this study was based on 257 firm-year observations during the 2012–2017 period. This study employed panel-least square regressions with period fixed effects.

This study found a significant association between risk management activities in the disclosure and potential fraudulent financial reporting. Nevertheless, this study found there is insignificant effect of the risk-management committee in reducing potential of fraudulent financial reporting.

This study is a pioneer research that relates firms’ risk management practices with potential fraudulent financial reporting measured by F-score. Thus, this study provides an insight to regulators on the extent of risk-management practices in deterring potential fraudulent financial reporting which can be used as an input for greater enforcement of risk-management regulations.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of audit fees, auditors' quality and board ownership on tax aggressiveness in Thailand.

The sample of this study is based on 215 firm-year observations of SET-100 listed companies in Thailand during the 2010–2018 periods. This study employs a panel least square regression with period fixed effects. The study retrieved the corporate governance variables from the downloaded annual reports, whilst the remaining data were collected from the EMIS database.

This study provides evidence that audit fees reduce tax aggressiveness and board ownership enhance tax aggressiveness among the firms. Nonaudit services provided by auditors impair auditors' independence and lead to higher tax aggressiveness. The result supports the agency theory, which explains that managers and blockholders may enjoy private benefits of control at the expense of other shareholders in the absence of market control. Thus, firms need good governance practices such as incentives paid for the effort of auditors and nonaudit services monitoring to curb such exploitation.

The results provide implications to the firms and regulators that incentives to the monitoring parties such as auditors can reduce tax aggressiveness among the firms. Nevertheless, higher ownership given to boards as incentives may lead to concentrated ownership and thus lead to the type 2 agency problem, which is between majority and minority shareholders. The result also provides caution to the regulators to monitor the nonaudit services provided by the auditors as it might impair their independence and compromise the tax paid to IRB.

This study is pioneer research discussing tax avoidance in Thailand. The Thai Government has been noticing that tax avoidance is being performed in the country, but academic discussion on this topic had never been elaborated.