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The purpose of this paper is to provide the reader with a high-level overview of the key messages of each of the four King Reports on Corporate Governance for South Africa, published during the period from 1994 to 2017, with a particular focus on the stakeholder-inclusive approach. While confirming the constant themes and messages, it also highlights the unique features and attributes of each of these reports.

This paper is based on a review and comparison of the four King Reports of Corporate Governance for South Africa with a particular focus on the stakeholder-inclusive approach.

The key findings of this paper are: the concept of “stakeholder inclusivity” is a common theme across all four the King Reports forming part of the review while, at the same time, having a unique flavour in each of the reports and visibly developing over the years. The reliance on human intervention and ethical leaders to appropriately and effectively steer the stakeholder-inclusive approach is obvious. In the absence of this, no corporate governance code will provide adequate safeguards to stakeholders against corporate failures and disasters, whether in South Africa or anywhere else.

This paper is a part of a special issue which looks at the contribution of the King Reports to governance globally.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the prominence and positioning of ethics in the four editions of the King Report on corporate governance for South Africa that were published since 1994. It tells a tale of how certain ethics aspects remained fairly constant over the four editions of the King Report on corporate governance for South Africa (King I in 1994; King II in 2002; King III in 2009; King IV in 2016), whilst other ethics aspects evolved quite substantially over the four editions.

In this paper, a conceptual distinction between “Ethics of Governance” and “Governance of Ethics” will be introduced, which will then be used to analyse the ethics dimensions of the four King reports.

It will be demonstrated that there is continuity across the four editions of the King Report as far as the Ethics of Governance is concerned.

With regards to the Governance of Ethics, there has been a quite drastic evolution in both the prominence and positioning of ethics since the publication of the first King Report in 1994.

This paper aims to discuss the King Reports and Codes and the development of South Africa’s common law. The role of developing the common law is explicitly recognised in the Constitution, as is the obligation to give effect to the spirit, purport and objects of the Bill of Rights. With decisions of the Supreme Court of Appeal being based on the King Code, the King Code is now an integral part of South Africa’s common law.

When the task team drafting King IV commenced their work, one of the important issues raised with Mervyn King, as Chairman, was the challenge to ensure that King IV was aligned to the now firmly entrenched common law principles taken from King I, King II and King III. It is believed that this has been achieved and it is hoped that King IV (and the subsequent King Reports that will inevitably follow because the corporate milieu keeps changing) continues to enrich South Africa’s common law.

The King Reports and Codes have been made part of South Africa’s common law.

This paper fulfils an identified need to study the King Report and Code, as it relates to South Africa’s common law.

The recommendations of the King II Report on corporate governance regarding employee‐related disclosures by listed companies were identified. The annual reports of the Top 100 industrial companies as well as of the mining companies listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange were furthermore analysed to establish the percentage of companies that comply with the King II recommendations. It transpired that few of them comply fully with these recommendations.

This paper aims to delve into the progress in governance application regimes over the years.

This paper was conceptual/analytical in nature and based on research of King Reports and other desktop research.

Distinctive developments in the narrative and practice of governance in the King Reports were found.

A unique reporting of the development in governance praxis through the King Reports is provided.

The purpose of this study is to provide a high-level review of the evolution of shareholder activism and institutional investor engagement in the corporate governance ecosystem in South Africa. Furthermore, it specifically seeks to explain the incorporation of such aspects into the various key codes and reports on corporate governance in South Africa since 1994.

Historical narrative and analysis.

This study highlights how shareholder activism and institutional investor engagement in the corporate governance ecosystem have been considered and addressed in South Africa since the publication of the First King Report in 1994. The progress that has been made specifically with regard to the introduction of a code for institutional investors is highlighted. The study ultimately acknowledges that this evolution is a continuing journey on the road to stakeholder inclusivity and engagement, and then concludes that the specific role and impact of institutional investors, particularly given some of the recent corporate governance failures, will require further consideration going forward. This should ensure the continued alignment of all stakeholders and assist in making the necessary improvements to the overarching governance framework and attendant culture.

This study is a part of a special issue that looks at the contribution of the King reports to governance globally.

The purpose of this paper is to establish the extent to which sustainability disclosures in a strategically important South African company have changed, in the light of the work by King.

The paper takes the form of a content analysis of the sustainability reports of a single reporting entity, Denel (Pty) Ltd (Denel), the largest manufacturer of defence equipment in South Africa. The computer assisted textual analysis software programme CATPAC II™ was used to undertake the investigation.

The paper finds that the emphasis of the sustainability reports changed each year over the period of the study. However, all the reports embody the principles and philosophical aspects of King (in 2002 and 2009). A year on year comparison of the 20 concepts identified as common to each data set over the period of the study found no substantial differences between them. This finding suggests an underlying consistency in their use by the prepares of the sustainability reports.

This research is limited to the analysis of the sustainability reports contained within Denel's 2007 to 2011 annual reports.

The use of research techniques such as those described in this paper has practical implications for future research. Where legislative requirement requires corporate social responsibility reports to be prepared by private and public sector entities, this technique would be especially useful to establish the similarities and differences between them. Differences and the extent of the differences will be of interest to stakeholders groups, preparers and researchers as they will indicate how organisations in the different sectors view sustainability.

Although sustainability reporting has been the subject of extensive research, longitudinal studies are limited. This longitudinal study contributes to the limited CSR literature focusing on developing countries and, in particular, African countries, as well as on the defence or armaments industry.

“The 19th century saw the foundations being laid for modern corporations: this was the century of the entrepreneur. The 20th century became the century of management: the phenomenal growth of management theories, management consultants and management teaching (and management gurus) all reflected this pre‐occupation. As the focus swings to the legitimacy and the effectiveness of the wielding power over corporate entities worldwide, the 21st century promises to be the century of governance.” This is a reflection and manifestation of how the world of work has changed over the last three centuries. The entrepreneur of the 19th century usually owned his business. The business was usually small and the employer was also the individual who owned the business. Because there were only a few employees the relationship between employer and employee was usually a personal relationship. As the era of Fordism emerged in the 20th century, the economies of scale dictated that in order for an enterprise to survive it had to be large (ie many employees) and production was dictated by post‐war Keynesian economic policies. In order to exercise control over these many employees, they had to be arranged into a hierarchy beginning at the bottom with unskilled labourers going up through a number of levels of supervisors and eventually management. Management was also divided into various levels in a hierarchical structure, beginning at lower management, going through to middle management and eventually reaching top management. This hierarchical structure resembling an army was typical of the large corporations of the 20th century. With such large enterprises, a natural consequence was the fact that the relationship between the employer (now usually a company and not an individual) was no longer a personal relationship. In the 20th century employee interests in the industrialized economies were generally protected by trade unions and collective bargaining. Collective bargaining regulated employer‐employee relations, institutionalized conflict and protected employees from “arbitrary management action”. The need to remain competitive in the global economy has resulted in a quest for flexibility. The result is inter alia flatter management structures, an ever‐increasing number of “atypical employees”, decentralization of collective bargaining, the individualization of the employer employee relationship and a general world‐wide decline in union membership and power. Given these facts it becomes necessary to look to alternate means to protect the employee against employer abuse of power in a relationship where the balance of power between the parties is inherently uneven. The possibility of corporate governance and acceptance of the stakeholder theory as a protector of employee interests is explored in this article.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that there was a clear shift from the First King Report in 1994, which advocated an input approach to corporate governance, to the Fourth King Report in 2016 that proposed an outcomes-based approach to corporate governance. It will be demonstrated that there was a gradual shift from an “apply-or-explain” approach in the earlier editions of the King Reports, to an “apply-an-explain” approach in the fourth edition of the King Report.

Historical narrative and analysis.

The fourth King Report, published in 2016, encapsulates an evolution in corporate governance thinking where four good governance outcomes – ethical culture, good performance, effective control and legitimacy – are placed at the forefront of measuring governance, with governance principles and practices following from these outcomes.

This study is part of a special issue that looks at the contribution of the King Reports to governance globally.

This study aims to explore factors influencing voluntary adoption of international sustainability and integrated reporting guidelines within a mandatory reporting framework. Given South Africa’s political history, the authors argue that accounting practice can be used to secure the legitimacy and transparency of businesses.

Two logistic regression equations are used to predict the likelihood of firms’ subscribing to either Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) or the Integrated Reporting (<IR>) framework, respectively. The authors consider annual, sustainability and integrated reports issued for the financial year ended 2014.

The results show a statistically and significant positive association between the adoption of the GRI’s guidelines and the level of transparency of non-financial disclosures and environmental sensitiveness. The application of the <IR> framework is also associated with the level of a firm’s transparency score and with its respective analyst following, which acts as a measure for capital markets requiring a high information environment.

This paper illustrates the development of integrated and sustainability reporting (SR) practices within an emerging market. By drawing distinctions between locally developed South African codes of corporate governance, namely, King I-III and international guidelines proxied by the GRI’s guidelines for SR, and the <IR> framework, the authors show that South African firms still adopt international guidelines despite the mandatory framework in place.