Corporate Governance in Asia: Recent Evidence from Indonesia, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand

Abstract

This book is the result of a survey of corporate governance practices in Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Republic of Korea. Corporate secretaries at 307 exchange-listed companies and 596 directors or commissioners participated.

The survey covers shareholder rights and information disclosure, effectiveness of the boards of directors, and the roles of stakeholders. Also attempted, on the basis of the survey, is the quantitative analysis of the linkage between the quality of corporate governance and corporate performance. Some of the findings from the survey include:

among the four countries, corporate governance seems to be substantially better in Malaysia and Thailand than in the Republic of Korea and Indonesia the effectiveness of the boards of directors, showing a relatively large variation among the sample firms, is probably the highest priority for sound corporate governance such stakeholders as employees and banks currently play little role in corporate governance though they appear to have a strong potential in the future corporate governance clearly matters (in terms of stock valuation) for the whole sample as well as for the Republic of Korea and Indonesia '– where the governance quality is poorer. The book is an edited version of a paper with the same title, which in turn represents a synthesis of papers presented at the Review of Corporate Governance in Asia Seminar.