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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.

This chapter examines the relationship between corporate governance and agency costs of family and non-family ownership of public listed companies in Malaysia. It presents a longitudinal study of the 290 publicly listed companies in the Main Board of the Bursa Malaysia over the period 1999–2005.The study applies the governance mechanisms such as board size, independent director and duality as a tool in monitoring agency costs based on asset utilization ratio and expense ratio as proxy for agency costs. There is strong evidence that larger board size has a significant effect as a device in mitigating agency costs. The study supports that independent directors and duality are viewed differently by family and non-family ownership. The evidence shows that an independent director in family ownership does not influence agency costs. But non-family ownership needs more independent directors to counsel and monitor the company and thus reducing the agency conflict with shareholders. The study also finds that family ownership experiences less agency conflicts when duality role exists. Contrary, non family ownership experiences high agency costs when duality exists on board.

This study outlines some major findings of the impact of ownership concentration on corporate performance, investment and financing decisions in the Malaysian corporate sector. Earlier studies on corporate governance linked very concentrated ownership structure to weak corporate governance, thus leading firms to make poor investment and financing decisions. However, a firm that strives towards maximising shareholder’s wealth would select its investment and financing strategy with care. Thus concentrated ownership has also been found to lead to better corporate performance, and that composition of ownership is an important element to spur better corporate performance.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relative efficiency of the Islamic commercial banks (ICBs) and conventional commercial banks (CCBs) in Malaysia. The study measures and compares the level of efficiency of both ICBs and CCBs from the year 2003 to 2007.

There are ten local commercial banks selected in Malaysia, which comprise of eight CCBs and two ICBs. The study uses data envelopment analysis (DEA) to measure the relative efficiency of the selected banks in intermediating inputs into outputs. The study then analyses the difference in the average efficiency score of the ICBs and CCBs using the Mann‐Whitney U test.

This study found that the CCBs outperformed ICBs in all efficiency measures. The finding indicates that the CCBs may be more efficient than the ICBs due to managerial efficiency and technological advancement.

This study may be extended in various ways. Since, this study only covers a sample period of five years, i.e. 2003 to 2007, future research might cover more sample periods. Further studies could also take a bigger sample size by including both the domestic and foreign commercial banks.

The study indicates that the domestic commercial banks' management is well organised, reflecting the effective roles of a bank as the mediator between the savers and entrepreneurs. The technology used in the commercial banks may be up‐to‐date and fully utilised in the bank's operation. However, the commercial banks in Malaysia are facing the scale inefficiency. This means that the banks are unable to fully utilise their capabilities and capacities in generating the outputs from their resources. The findings also indicate that the scale inefficiency is the main factor that leads to the low technical efficiency in the ICBs as their size is relatively smaller than the CCBs.

This study identified the most and least efficient domestic banks and the finding could be useful to the regulators and the banks to identify the bank's ranking within the industry. Thus, it is hoped that the regulators are able to address the gap between the best and worst‐practices. The study may also improve the awareness among the least efficient banks to initiate the proactive measures in order to be sustainable in the industry.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss Malaysia's industrial development since achieving its independence in 1957 to 2007. The industrial development in Malaysia has gradually shifted from mere trading type of activities to technology based entrepreneurial activities.

The transformation of Malaysia's industrial development from entrepreneurship to technology entrepreneurship is studied by applying the World Bank framework introduced by Bessant et al. The improvised framework has eight key dimensions that are developed as the key activities of technology entrepreneurship to assess the presence of technology entrepreneurship activity during the study period.

The initiation of the government's heavy industrialization drive in the 1980s had given rise to the growth of the manufacturing sector, and consequently, the implementation of public policies and government programmes in the 1990s have led to the shift of the economy from labor intensive manufacturing to high technology with higher value added activities. The findings thus indicate that the government's effort and support through the implementation of different policies and various state‐led programmes have basically driven Malaysia's entrepreneurial activities to be technology oriented.

As for the limitation, it is represented by the difficulties in identifying the key technology entrepreneurship activities and using them to analyze the entrepreneurship development at the macro level. Having analyzed at the macro level, this study hopes to contribute to the policy makers in drafting the government policies strategically so as to foster the growth of technology entrepreneurship in Malaysia generally, and to develop capabilities in particular industrial sectors.

The paper provides an overview of the industrial development in Malaysia as a background to the discussion on the transformation to technology entrepreneurship development.