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The purpose of this paper is to determine whether the representation of women on the boards (WOMBDs) and audit committees is associated with a reduction in the practice of earnings management and whether women are associated with income reducing (conservative) rather than income-increasing (aggressive) earnings management. The authors further argue that family ownership moderates the relationship between the presence of WOMBDs and audit committees and earnings management.

The study uses non-finance firms listed on Bursa Malaysia over a period of four years, i.e. from 2008 until 2011.

The evidence reveals that the presence of WOMBD or audit committee is not associated with a propensity for earnings management. In addition, the evidence also reveals that family ownership does not interact either with WOMBD or with women on the audit committee (WOMAC) to influence the propensity for earnings management. Nevertheless, the additional analyses show that, while women on boards are not associated with income-decreasing accruals, the presence of women on audit committees leads to income-reducing earnings management. The evidence further reveals that family ownership does not interact with either WOMBD or WOMAC to influence income-decreasing earnings management.

This study extends prior research on the role of women directors and women audit committee members on earnings management focussing on family ownership. Further, the study also examines the direction of earnings management as opposed to the most prior studies, which mainly focus on the propensity of earnings management.

This study investigates the roles of board independence and CEO duality on a firm’s performance relying on financial ratios, namely ROA, ROE, EPS and profit margin. This paper argues that if boards and leadership structure are well in place and conform to the practices in other developed countries, the long‐term shareholder value is expected to increase and shareholder interests are also well protected. To test the roles of board independence and CEO duality, data from the KLSE Main Board companies for the 1994‐1996 financial years were used. The 1994‐1996 financial years were chosen because, during this period, the issue of corporate governance in Malaysia was not as prominent as it was during, and after, the 1997/1998 financial crisis. Thus, this period could be considered as the period during which guidelines on the structure of the board of directors were not yet available in Malaysia. The findings, generally, suggest that neither board independence, leadership structure nor the joint effects of these two showed any relations with firm performance. Findings of this study, nonetheless, showed that Malaysian companies’ boards were generally dominated by outside directors and the majority of the companies in the study practiced non‐dual leadership structures. Thus, this evidence suggests that the structure of the boards of directors in Malaysia is largely independent of management and the absence of any dominant personality.

This paper seeks to examine the effects of Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance on the nature of financial restatements in Malaysia and whether corporate governance characteristics are associated with financial restatements.

Data for this paper are obtained from annual reports that had been restated for the period of 2002‐2005 with firm‐years being the unit of observation. A control group comprising non‐restating firms is formed using match‐pair procedures where restated and non‐restated firms are matched by size, industry, exchange board classification, and financial year end. The data are subsequently analyzed using a t‐test, the Pearson correlation and logistic regression.

The results show that the primary reason for misstating the accounts is to inflate earnings. The nomination committee of the firms that restated is found to be less independent with higher managerial ownership. The logistic regression analysis indicates that the extent of ownership by outside blockholders deters firms from misstating accounts. Surprisingly, audit committee independence is associated with the likelihood of financial misstatement. Financial restatements, nevertheless, are not found to be associated with board independence, managerial ownership, and CEO duality. Finally, the results show that firms with high level of debts are more likely to commit in financial misstatement.

The research is significant as it provides evidence on the role of corporate governance, especially the independence of the nomination committee and extent of ownership by outside blockholders in Malaysia. It shows that outside blockholders is effective in disciplining managers so that the accounts so prepared are not misleading. The move in 2007 by the Malaysian Government to require companies audit committee to be composed of only independent and non‐executive directors, as well as requiring audit committee members to be financially literate, should be seen as important in ensuring the effectiveness of the audit committee.

This research is considered as the first study which examines the effects of corporate governance variables on the incidents of financial restatements in a developing country. The findings of this paper would be useful for policy makers in evaluating the importance of corporate governance in emerging countries, specifically on the issue of quality financial reporting.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent to which firm's performance, the structure of the board of directors and ownership determine directors' remuneration in Malaysia among distressed firms.

The study uses publicly available data from a sample of 86 distressed firms and matched 86 non‐distressed firms for 2001 financial year.

The findings for the full sample show that directors' remuneration is not associated with firm's profitability, as measured by ROA. A negative and significant association is observed between directors' remuneration and lagged ROA. With regard to corporate governance, board independence and the extent of non‐executive directors' interests are found to have negative influence on directors' remuneration. In addition, findings also reveal directors' remuneration is positively associated with firm's growth and size. In sub‐sample analyses, a strong negative relation is observed between ROA and directors' remuneration for healthy sub‐sample.

Future research on this area could examine period after the adoption of the Malaysian Code by the Bursa Malaysia in 2001. Further, interviews with directors and managers about the need to link remuneration and performance could be carried out.

There is a need for companies to link remuneration with performance, which this paper found to be lacking in practice.

The contribution of this paper is its examination of directors' remuneration among distressed firms. Findings of this paper would be useful to both regulatory bodies and practitioners.

This study seeks to examine the influence of board independence, CEO duality and ownership structure on the firm financial distressed status using a sample of distressed companies and a matched‐pair sample of non‐distressed companies listed on the Bursa Malaysia.

This study utilized publicly available data from annual reports of a sample of 86 non‐finance distressed firms listed on the Bursa Malaysia and a sample of matched 86 non‐distressed firms for a period covering the 1999‐2001 financial years.

Board independence and CEO duality are not associated with financial distressed status. Management and non‐executive directors' interests are associated negatively with financial distress. A negative association is also documented for outside blockholders. The evidence also supports the contention that ownership by non‐executive directors and outside blockholders effectively increases their incentives to monitor management in ensuring their wealth in the firms is intact.

One limitation of this research is that it relies on publicly available data and agency theory. Future research could apply other theories, such as resource dependency and stewardship. Use of process‐oriented data could also improve the findings.

Independent directors need to undergo training to help them improve and be aware of their responsibilities.

This paper offers evidence on the extent to which distress is associated with corporate governance from a developing country. The paper should be of interest to the regulatory bodies and practitioners.

The study aims to examine the relationship between the corporate disclosure on intellectual capital and five firm characteristics, namely, size, leverage, profitability, age and industry type.

The research uses a meta-analysis technique by taking 19 articles published between 2003 and 2013. Thus, this study integrates and accumulates the findings of prior studies.

The research finds a significant relationship between intellectual capital disclosure (ICD) and the independent variables: size, profitability and industry.

This study provides a systematic overview of the determinants of ICD by using a meta-analysis approach. A systematic analysis is currently lacking in the ICD literature; hence, this study attempts to resolve the mixed findings of prior studies.

In relation to the critical problem, this paper aims to present an understanding of the agency theory and the stakeholder theory from the perspective of the Islamic principles. Indeed, a thorough examination of the theoretical background explaining corporate governance from the Islamic perspective is necessary to conduct research analysing corporate governance in Islamic banks.

The authors followed a critical review discussion; this method takes into consideration presenting important theories and comparing those theories with Islamic perspective.

The authors presented important arguments on the difference between ordinary theories to explaining corporate governance and Islamic perspective. The paper browsed into whether the Shariah Supervisory Board is a fit with the agency theory by explaining the agency theory and how it differs from the Islamic banking concepts. The paper involved an analytical review on stakeholder theory and presented a critique and the rationale as to why there is ample room for the Shariah Supervisory Board to be considered a fit with the stakeholder theory, as the Shariah Supervisory Board is an independent body influencing the firm.

The paper is of important value to those conducting research in the area of governance in Islamic banks; they may find it beneficial in terms of underlining theory building their research framework.

Prior studies suggest that most expropriation of firm’s resources is conducted through related party transactions (RPTs). Based on the conflict of interest view, related parties opportunistically use their authorities to expropriate firms’ resources for their own benefits via RPTs subsequently increasing agency costs and reduce firm value. One important monitoring system suggested by agency theory to reduce the agency problem is corporate governance (CG). CG monitors firm’s performance to align the interests of those who control and those who own the residual claims in a firm. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating effect of CG characteristics on the relationship between RPTs and firm value.

In order to clarify the distinct effect of RPTs, this study categorises RPTs into two groups including beneficial and detrimental RPTs (DRPTs). Applying “proportionate stratified random sampling”, this study covers a panel of 271 firms listed on Bursa Malaysia over the period of 2009–2011, using a moderated multiple regression model.

This study documents that firm value is positively associated with beneficial RPTs (BRPTs) and negatively related to detrimental RPTs (DRPTs). In addition, results show that divergence can intensify the negative relationship between DRPTs and firm value. Findings support the necessity for more scrutiny by regulators, policy makers and standard setters to monitor the conflict of interests in RPTs and restrain the power of related parties to protect the firm’s wealth by introducing stricter regulations for RPTs and improve CG practices especially to monitor RPTs in order to limit the opportunistic behaviour of related parties.

Research implications have been presented in Section 10. It has also been summarised in practical implications and social implications sections.

The findings of this study indicate that investors, creditors and policy makers should not consider all RPTs as harmful transactions and it seems necessary to categorise RPTs into different groups including transactions which are detrimental and transactions which are beneficial to the firm.

The findings of this study support the necessity for more scrutiny by regulators, policy makers and standard setters to monitor the conflict of interests in RPTs. They should restrain the power of related parties to protect the firm’s wealth by introducing stricter regulations for RPTs and improving CG practices especially to monitor RPTs in order to limit the opportunistic behaviour of related parties.

This study contributes to the RPTs literature by showing that the effect of RPTs on firm value depends on the types of RPTs, and market participants allocate different values to different types of RPTs. Therefore, to fill the gap and clarify the distinct effect of RPTs, this study categorizes RPTs into two groups including beneficial and detrimental RPTs.