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This chapter analyses how corporate governance codes in Europe approach CSR, devoting specific guidelines or recommendations or specifying the responsibility of implementing and disclosing CSR in the company.

Content analysis have been used in a sample of 27 corporate governance codes of 27 European countries, issued in the European Union (EU) and United Kingdom (UK), issued by governments (seven codes), national stock exchange (eight codes), industrial associations (six codes) and composites (six codes).

Only five out of 27 codes make and explicit reference to the term Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Two of them reflect the importance of a CSR Report (Slovenia and Spain), whereas the Spanish Code was the only code which devoted a section to the implementation of a CSR policy.

Although corporate governance codes could represent an opportunity to shift the focus from an implicit CSR approach to an explicit CSR approach in Europe, the truth is that content related to the issue and its level of specificity does not reflect that change yet.

Previous literature has not focused on the analysis of corporate governance codes from a CSR perspective, so the chapter is relevant for policy makers when it comes to updating corporate governance codes.

Purpose – During the last decade, several nonprofit governance codes have emerged in Germany and Switzerland. In contrast to the corporate sector, where one code exists in each country, the nonprofit sector has not unified its initiatives on governance guidelines. This research study searches for reasons of this heterogeneity by analyzing the content of the governance codes.Design/methodology/approach – Based on a comparative content analysis of 15 governance codes from Germany and Switzerland, this survey gives some insight about the different range of issues and levels of detail.Findings – The findings report a great variety among the nonprofit governance codes. Three different clusters are defined in order to classify the governance codes regarding their information detailedness. Some codes present the basic principles, others give detailed information on focused subjects, and some others function as soft law with a large scope. Additionally, the kind of the producers does have an influence on the content of nonprofit governance codes.Research limitations/implications – The survey is limited because of its geographically focus. However, several implications for further research can be drawn, that are of international relevance. Better knowledge is necessary about the implementation of the governance codes. Additionally, further influence factors on the content of governance besides the kind of the producers have to be analyzed. Finally, it would be interesting to test the acceptance of the codes and the participation process of development among a larger group of organizations that complies with a governance code.Originality/value – For the first time, a complete list of all nonprofit governance codes in the two countries was conducted as a basis for this study. Former studies used a smaller sample of governance codes without clarifying the reasons for the selection.

Purpose – The objective of this paper is to examine how state-owned entities (SOEs) engage with the requirements of the corporate governance code in an African developing economy (Mauritius).

Approach – A content analysis of the annual reports of SOEs and National Audit Office (NAO) reports is undertaken. This is supplemented by semi-structured interviews with relevant directors and regulatory bodies.

Findings – We report a substantial non-implementation of the code and identify several impediments to the transposing of the corporate governance model to the state-owned entities. The salient issues relate to the inadequate definition of SOEs in the code, the different conceptualisations of ownership and accountability, the influence of political rivalries and the low level of financial accountability in SOEs. We also consider our findings in relation to the theoretical perspectives of ‘efficiency gains’ and ‘social legitimation’.

Originality/value – Very few studies have looked into the applicability of codes of corporate governance in SOEs. In spite of the prominence of SOEs in many African developing countries, empirical evidence on corporate governance implementation in such entities has been scant.

Recommendations/implications – The findings are of relevance to policy-makers and regulators who seek to rely on mainstream corporate governance principles and practices to enhance the accountability and transparency of SOEs. Key enabling conditions for corporate governance implementation involve a depoliticisation of board appointments and a redefinition of the accountability relationships between SOEs and their ultimate owner (i.e. elected representatives and taxpayers).

This study aims to explore the quality of corporate governance disclosure under an “apply and explain” regime in the context of an emerging economy (Mauritius), following a transition from the traditional “comply or explain” approach within the national code of corporate governance.

The research relies on a content analysis of corporate governance disclosure in 86 annual reports of companies listed on the Stock Exchange of Mauritius for the financial periods 2018–2019 and 2019–2020, one-way analysis of variance tests and draws on the typology of corporate governance explanations developed by Shrives and Brennan (2015), focusing on specificity, location and comprehensiveness dimensions. This paper draws on legitimacy theory and the concepts of substantive and symbolic disclosures to guide the interpretation of the findings.

From a specificity point of view, the disclosure index revealed significant variations, with the highest score being four times the lowest score. With regards to location and comprehensiveness, only around half of companies are making optimum use of a corporate governance report and providing explanations by principles. This paper also illustrated how some firms provided symbolic disclosures. Overall, there are disparities in the application of the code by companies, reflected in a blend of substantive and symbolic disclosures to maintain their legitimacy.

This study examines “apply and explain” disclosures in a emerging economy in contrast to the “comply or explain” approach studied so far in the literature. Merely professing a “well intended” shift to the “apply and explain” approach does not necessarily lead to improvements in the quality of corporate governance disclosures. Companies, governance professionals and regulatory bodies could formulate disclosure guidance to better underpin the implications of the “apply and explain” approach.

This paper aims to discuss and compare the corporate governance codes in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries.

The development of corporate governance codes in the GCC is considered using an analytical approach.

Efforts and initiatives are underway in the GCC towards improving the corporate governance environment and coping with international developments. Although most GCC codes are comprehensive compared to those of other Middle East North Africa (MENA) countries, and are similar to international codes, as with almost all countries in the region, there is room for development. Updated codes that address the unique nature of these countries could enhance corporate governance.

This comparison between GCC corporate governance codes provides opportunities to empirically compare the corporate governance status in these countries through indices or checklists based on the current comparison.

The research facilitates future evaluations of corporate governance in Gulf countries. In other words, different stakeholders, including investors and analysts, can utilise this paper during decision-making. Moreover, comparing GCC codes to others in the MENA region would help to assess the GCC’s position in the region regarding these codes, and also alert firms to corporate governance reforms occurring in the region.

The paper analyses the corporate governance codes issued in the GCC, which represents a group of countries with similar characteristics that are thus studied separately from other MENA countries, and compares the corporate governance codes issued for non-financial listed companies.

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether ownership concentration, leverage and demand for equity financing is associated with internal corporate governance quality. The paper focuses on dimensions of governance quality that are related to financial reporting quality.

The authors measure internal governance quality by an indicator variable that takes on higher values depending on whether a company has an audit committee, has a sufficient number of audit committee meetings during the year, has financial expertise on the audit committee, has an internal auditing function, a risk management function, a code of conduct and whistle blower provisions in the code of conduct. The sample consists of 91 Swedish listed companies of which 39 companies had to follow the Swedish Corporate Governance Code. The development of hypotheses is based on agency theory. Ordered logistic regressions are used to test the hypotheses.

The paper finds a strong negative association between leverage and the internal governance quality score for companies that do not have to follow the Corporate Governance Code. The paper also finds a positive association between the governance quality score and dispersed ownership among companies that have to follow the code.

The negative association between leverage and governance quality is opposite to the typical agency theory prediction. A number of other studies have also documented negative or insignificant associations with leverage in related settings. The research suggests there is a demand to develop theories related to leverage and the implementation of governance characteristics beyond the typical agency theory based predictions.

The results raise the question whether lenders more actively directly or indirectly should influence the governance quality of borrowers.

Based on the conjecture that governance quality increases with the number of governance elements, the paper studies a governance score that is built up by several elements of good corporate governance. Furthermore, the authors study a setting dominated by voluntary choices of governance quality, which makes it possible to study supply effects.

This paper examines the impact of corporate governance attributes and ownership structure patterns on corporate performance of Malaysian listed companies following the revised code on corporate governance in 2007. To provide an insightful assessment on the revised code's implications on firm performance, data before (2006) and after (2009) the revised code in 2007 were analyzed.

The study involves analyses of 170 observations in a two-year period, 2006 and 2009. The sample of the study was selected on the basis of a stratified random sampling procedure to allow a representative sample of the various sectors listed on Bursa Malaysia. Based on data extracted from the annual reports of 2006 and 2009, corporate performance was captured using accounting performance indicators (return on assets and return on equity). In addition to descriptive analyses, multiple regression analysis was used to assess the influence of the governance and ownership structure attributes on firm performance.

The findings revealed a decreasing trend of the financial performance of the sample companies over the two-year period which this study attributes to the recent global financial meltdown. In terms of corporate governance compliance, the results showed that there were cases of non-compliance of the basic requirements of the corporate governance code in Malaysia even after the revised code in 2007. In addition, the multiple regression results showed that only board meetings had significant negative association with firm performance following the revised code. None of the other variables had significant impact on firm performance before and after the revised code. Firm size and leverage, as control variables, however, showed significant association with firm performance.

Given the lack of non-compliance by some of the sample companies in Malaysia to some basic requirements such as the required percentage of independent directors on corporate boards and the insignificance of governance attributes in enhancing performance, this study suggests that the revised code needs reinforcement, at best, or even an overhaul change to suit more to the Malaysian business environment.

In distinction from most prior studies, this study provides ex-ante and ex-post examination of the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance, following changes in the regulatory environment. Such analysis is expected to have some practical implications in indicating whether recent regulatory changes are practiced in the corporate environment. This study draws evidence from Malaysia in adding to our understanding on whether changes in regulatory frameworks enhance firm performance.

This paper aims to fill the governance literature void by answering the seemingly unanswered vintage questions regarding governance reform effectiveness towards ensuring a firm’s financial reporting transparency (FRT) in an emerging country of Malaysia. It involves an assessment of the specific maintained assumption in its governance code (Code) introduced two decades ago that the Code would improve FRT through the direct channel of governance practices improvement.

The measured FRT as proxied by the firm’s accruals quality is examined across different governance regimes of pre- and post-Code periods. This paper conjectures that the firm’s FRT should improve post-Code period, evidencing reform effectiveness towards ensuring enhanced governance practices.

The results indicate that while governance reform improves governance practices, it did not, however, bring improved FRT of firms. The interaction analysis provides evidence of the Code’s ability to favourably moderate the link between the firm’s FRT and several board attributes, suggesting improvement in governance practices in ensuring the firm’s FRT pursuant to the introduction of a formally written and legally backed governance code.

This paper contributes to the extent of governance and FRT literature in developing economies in at least two specific ways. First, the paper presents evidence on public policy implications towards governance practices and the firms’ FRT. Second, it contributes to the public policy debate concerning governance reform effectiveness from the specific angle of the firms’ FRT, thereby confirming the potential conditions upon which the “maintained assumption” would be valid.

This research contributes to the extent of governance and FRT literature in emerging economies by studying the dynamic roles of governance in influencing firms’ FRT across governance regime change, something which governance literature repertoire seems to neglect. It also contributes to the public policy debate concerning governance reform effectiveness from the specific angle of the firm’s FRT by evidencing the strategic role of governance reform in influencing the financial reporting behaviour of Malaysian listed firms.

The purpose of this paper is to comparatively analyze the corporate governance codes of transition economies, particularly five Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) members (i.e. Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia). Specifically, the convergence or divergence of these countries’ corporate governance codes among themselves as well as relative to the best practices of the UK Corporate Governance Code (UK Code) and the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance are investigated.

Initially, the existing literature on corporate governance with special focus on transition countries is reviewed. Afterwards, benchmarking the international best practices, based on main chapters and contents, the corporate governance codes of all countries in the sample are analyzed.

The paper finds that even though some principles of the corporate governance codes of the countries in the sample differ in some aspects, they do converge to some extent. However, high misalignments between the UK Code and the OECD Principles and the codes of selected countries in some aspects were found.

The conclusion and implications of the study characterize the corporate governance of selected developing countries; thus, they might not be generalizable to other countries.

The codes of the countries in the sample should be revised, and more specifications regarding the stakeholder, board structure, its subcommittees, independence, diversity and transparency issues need to be addressed.

The paper comprehensively analyzes the contents of corporate governance codes of transition countries; from both practical and academic point of view, it was important gap that needed to be fulfilled.

This study focuses on the evaluation of the introduction of international corporate governance codes such as Combined Code (UK) and King Report III (SA) in the Greek publicly listed enterprises. This research is based on a case study analysis of six publicly listed enterprises (three of them are traded in the high capitalization index and another three in the medium‐low capitalization index of the Athens Stock Exchange). The main purpose of this paper is to examine the extent of international corporate governance codes impact in the relevant local laws and regulations, as well as the adopted best practices.

Qualitative research is carried out to address the research topic, using primary and secondary data. The primary source of this study is the professional experience of the author in the field of corporate governance within publicly listed enterprises, whereas secondary sources are the international corporate governance codes, Greek corporate governance laws, regulations and best practices, books, working papers and published articles.

Although certain parts of international governance codes requirements have been applied by a number of Greek publicly listed enterprises, there is a long way to go to achieve best practice. The reason for this is the typical, however not substantial application of international governance codes requirements.

Research is proved to be very useful as it describes a gap analysis in the application of international governance codes in the areas of corporate governance, internal and external auditing, as well as the regulators therefore making it easier to identify potential areas for improvement.