Corporate Governance and Accounting Standards in Malaysia: An Empirical Study on Practices

Abstract:     
Good corporate governance ensures that corporations perform better and have a better relationship with its stakeholders. The proper practice of accounting standards is very significant, as it leads to the effective disclosure and consequently good corporate governance programmes. Hence, the practice of proper accounting standards is more relevant issue for good corporate governance in the present competitive era as the standards provide a useful mechanism to restructure the core corporate values. In this context, the paper attempts to discuss the practice of accounting standards for good corporate governance, as it is regarded as one of the important relevant issues of corporate governance, with an objective to make accounting standards useful to ensure the better disclosure, thus the good corporate governance. The empirical results revealed that the most of the select companies perceived the relevance of standards for good corporate governance and complied with twenty to twenty five accounting standards with varied treatments of items, which jeopardized the comparability and left the scope for personal discretion and confusion. The necessity of stringent and uniform standards, wide participation, harmonization of related laws is realized for ensuring the true and fair view of business, thus good corporate governance.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 16

Keywords: Corporate governance, accounting standards, Malaysia

JEL Classification: M41, M45, M47, G34, G38

working papers series