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This paper aims to highlight provisions that may attract corporate criminal liability (CCL) in legislation and regulations enacted in Malaysia. Further, this paper identifies gaps or obstacles in the implementation of CCL in Islamic banks (IBs) in Malaysia.

This research adopts the qualitative methodology. More specifically, it uses normative legal research by focusing on primary and secondary data obtained from legislation, regulations, decided case laws, guidelines, law textbooks and bank annual reports in relation to CCL provisions. It also conducts semi-structured interviews with different categories of experts, including legal practitioners (lawyers), regulators from Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) and Securities Commission Malaysia, officers of the Attorney General's Chambers and officers from legal departments in IBs.

The results conclude that IBs should implement the law on CCL because they are considered corporations. It is also found that not all IBs complied with CCL provisions brought corporate offenders before the court.

This research is restricted by its specialisation in CCL in IBs in Malaysia.

The CCL provision has to be implemented effectively by IBs to achieve the benefit. However, not all IBs implement CCL provision properly. The understanding created by the interview data illuminates the challenges in implementing CCL provisions. Thus, this paper seeks to change the approach in the implementation of CCL provisions by IBs in Malaysia.

The paper touches upon a new area, notably CCL in IBs, which is not well researched in past literature. Although there is a vast research on CCL, corporate crime in IBs in Malaysia is still an unexplored area. This study gives light on the implementation of CCL provisions in IBs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how legitimacy is gained, maintained or repaired through direct action with salient stakeholders and/or through external reporting, by using a number of empirical case vignettes within a single case study organisation.

The study investigates a foreign affiliate of a large multinational organisation involved in an environmentally sensitive industry. Data collection included semi-structured interviews with 26 participants, organisational reports and participation in the organisation’s annual environmental management seminar and a stakeholder engagement meeting.

Four vignettes featuring environmental issues illustrate the complexity of organisational responses. Issue visibility, stakeholder salience and stakeholder interconnectedness influence a company’s action to manage legitimacy. In the short-term, environmental issues which affected salient stakeholders resulted in swift and direct action to protect pragmatic legitimacy, but external reporting did not feature in legitimacy management efforts. Highly visible issues to the public, regulators and the media, however, resulted in direct action together with external reporting to manage wider stakeholder perceptions. External reporting was used superficially, along with a broad suite of communication strategies, to gain legitimacy in the long-term decision about the company’s future in New Zealand.

This paper outlines how episodic encounters to manage strategic legitimacy with salient stakeholders in the short-term are theoretically distinct, but nonetheless linked to continual efforts to maintain institutional legitimacy. Case vignettes highlight how pragmatic legitimacy via dispositional legitimacy can be managed with direct action in the short-term to influence a limited range of salient stakeholders. The way external reporting features in legitimacy management is limited, although this has predominantly been the focus of prior research. Only where an environmental incident damages legitimacy to a larger number of stakeholders is external reporting also used to buttress community support.

The concept of legitimacy is comprehensively applied, linking the strategic and institutional arms of legitimacy and illustrating how episodic actions are taken to manage legitimacy in the short-term with continual efforts to manage legitimacy in the long-term. Stakeholder salience and networks are brought in as novel theoretical extensions to provide a deeper understanding of the interrelationships between these key concepts with a unique case study.

The purpose of this study is to examine both accruals and real earnings management in a large sample of private companies in the UK using data from 2002 to 2009 following the implementation of the UK Act of 2006.

A panel data analysis using GMM has been adopted to examine the objectives of the study and answer the research questions.

The results of this study showed that the imposition of the Companies Act of 2006, on its own, did lead to changes in earnings management behaviour, in both accruals-based earnings and real earnings management. Moreover, this study also found that firms that chose to provide IFRS financial statements tended to show less discretionary earnings management, however, it tended to have no impact on real earnings management.

In accordance with the research findings, standard setters with some insight tend to determine how capital markets see the information provided under the legislation such as the UK Act of 2006 in developed countries and thereby ensure long-term sustainability in a modern and sophisticated financial world. This study provides an insight into the successful implementation of the UK act of 2006, and its influence on the aspect of financial reporting.

The novel conclusion reached in the study is that there exists a strong and direct link between the smooth implementation of UK Act of 2006 and the practices of both accruals and real earnings management in real-world business and financial scenarios, particularly, in private companies.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the empirical relationship between gray directors (non-executive non-independent directors) and executive compensation among companies listed in India’s National Stock Exchange (NSE). The paper also examines the possible interplay of relationships between controlling shareholder duality (controlling shareholder being the CEO), ownership category and executive compensation.

A sample of 438 firms listed in the NSE of India was studied using data spanning five financial years, 2012–2013 to 2016–2017.

Empirical evidence suggests that there is a positive association between the proportion of gray directors on the board and executive compensation. The sensitivity of executive compensation to gray directors is found to be higher among family controlled firms. This research has also found that CEOs who belong to controlling shareholder groups received higher pay than professional CEOs. The authors conjecture that these results suggest cronyism and may contribute to lower levels of corporate governance practices in the country.

The hybrid board structure, which India has adopted with the desire to bring the best of Anglo Saxon and Japanese board philosophies, has paradoxically led to self-serving boards. Exploration of alternative thinking to bring about changes in the regulatory framework is, therefore, necessary.

Serious problems are identified with the philosophy behind board composition mandated by Listing Requirements for Indian firms with empirical evidence showing how the existing rules generate cronyism and unfairness to minority shareholders.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) in India includes education, environment, healthcare and rural development. In post-liberalized India, the healthcare sector (services and facilities) has grown in leaps and bounds over last two decades. The purpose of this paper is to reveal and explain the CSR profile of select healthcare companies of India and reveal gaps and scope of healthcare activities with a special consideration towards maternal health.

Primary data are collected from seven listed companies of Goa state which were willing to participate in the study. In total, 67 companies constituting the Healthcare Sector Index of Standard & Poor of the Bombay Stock Exchange are considered as secondary source. Data of 59 companies that come within the threshold of Companies Act, 2013, are studied. CSR guidelines (with a turnover of Rs 10bn or a market capitalization of Rs 5bn or a net profit of Rs 50m) are taken as an initial frame of reference.

In total, 89.83 per cent of these companies have initiatives related to health care. Structured companies (contribute to the company’s overall mission and goals) with CSR policy have committee size varying from three to five directors with an independent director. During 2016–2017, they were mandated to spend Rs 4.2613bn out of which only 74.59 per cent was spent. Geographical spread of CSR initiatives is skewed, with majority of companies focussing on the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat, whereas the states of Odisha and North-Eastern being neglected. The focus areas of CSR are education, healthcare and rural development. The variation of MMR in different states of India is an indicator for corporate as to which state needs more attention. The corporate sector in India needs to focus on SDG3 target of MMR and move towards a newer dimension and direction.

The originality of this paper lies in the recognition of the initiative of Government of India of weaning out CSR activities outside the purview of business sense and towards instilling a social sense in company behaviour. This is a dimensional and directional change in the evolution of CSR practices in companies and countries. To this end, 59 healthcare sector companies under the threshold of Companies Act 2013 were studied and results were outlined.