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Although researchers and multilateral agencies recognize that no single model of corporate governance exists, this has not stopped the push for a one best corporate governance model. Research recognized institutional factors, including culture, affects the nature of corporate ownership structure and consequently on disclosure, transparency and enforcement practices. Drawing on East Asian examples, the chapter argues that a focus on ‘market’ principles alone fails to account for the contextual effects of Asian political, historical and institutional forms which moderate corporate governance systems and practices. This chapter suggests that there is the need to consider the extant effects of ‘culture’ on corporate governance.

Financial markets have become a central aspect of our daily lives. This is due to the liberalization of global capital markets during the last two decades. This has led to increased liquidity and enhanced volatility within the financial system as the amounts traded daily, monthly, annually are sometimes larger than total global GDP. This has affected our daily lives profoundly and indeed, as the current global financial crisis, leaves no country untouched. In examining the present financial crisis, the paper argues that we have enough regulations and systems but we do not have effective regulative practices to enable compliance, control, and oversight. Indeed, the regulatory response to current developments in the financial sector has been both slow and inadequate. The paper starts by providing a context and the evolution of the “new” financial system and its attendant practices. The paper argues that the crisis could have been averted had there been a proper and effective governance mechanism and appropriate instruments employed to effect such compliance. Such mechanisms and instruments would also need to critically interrogate the epistemological foundations of accepted practices and wisdom. The paper suggests that the present crisis provides a circuit broker for a radical rethink of the present financial system and practices.

Recent spectacular collapses globally have sparked renewed public interest in corporate governance and the pursuit of a new global model. The prevailing dominance of an American model has overshadowed constructive attempts to derive a model that is more appropriate for ‘non-western’ and developing countries. In this paper, I examine the discourse of corporate governance in China. I argue that rather than being a mere captive of the American model, it could have crafted and developed an alternate and more appropriate model that takes into account the economic and social needs of China instead of a corporate governance model developed for other countries.

The papers compiled in this special issue have been presented at the conference on “Corporate Governance and Ethics: Beyond Contemporary Perspectives” that has been held in June 2004 in Sydney, Australia.¹ The conference has brought together the three disciplines that impact on governance issues: accounting, management, and law. This issue reflects this interdisciplinary approach to the subject matter.

The purpose of this chapter is to explore practices of early childhood education (ECE) in four Southeast Asian countries, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam and Myanmar. For the past years, the attention toward ECE in these countries have arisen, partially as the result of the international development agenda such as Education for All, Millennium Development Goals and the latest Sustainable Development Goals. This chapter argues the extent to which the practices of ECE in these four countries are the result of their ongoing negotiation between the global and the local values. The chapter also elaborates the gap in the extent to which neoliberalism is very dominant in the ECE. Hence, despite the rhetorical that emphasize the importance of ECE, ECE is largely dominated by private sectors. This situation might create an obstacle for children’s access and participation to ECE sectors. Hence, this chapter serves as invitation for the government to spend more budget to ECE so that ECE can be accessible to all children in the regions.