Board mechanisms and Malaysian Family Companies' Performance

Many overseas studies discussed the topic of corporate governance and performance in family companies, however, few studies have been conducted in Malaysia. The objective of this paper is to examine the board mechanisms and family companies’ performance using three performance indicators (Tobin’s Q, Earnings Per Share & Operating Cash Flow). The sample size is 189 family companies listed on Bursa Malaysia from 2003 to 2007. The findings from this study reveal that some of the board mechanisms influence family companies’ performance. This study evidenced that family companies with a large board size, low directors’ expertise and duality leadership contribute to higher family companies’ performance. However, this study found that the academic qualification of directors does not influence firm performance. Therefore, generally, regulators and investors need to be sensitive to the fact that family companies do have differences in corporate governance practices compared to non-family companies

The relationship between non-audit service fees and audit fees in the banking sector in Malaysia

The issue of audit fees and non-audit fees charged by the audit firms has been discussed regularly in accounting and auditing literature. Recently, due to the corporate scandals in United States, the issue is discussed together with a host of revelations about audit failures that led to the companies’ demise. The auditing profession is being badly blamed and some suggest that this could be due to the audit firm’s reliance more on non-audit services rather than the audit itself. Therefore, this study attempts to probe the situation in Malaysia using the banking sector as the subject of interest. Specifically, it tries to examine the impact of non-audit services conducted by audit firms to these banks on audit fees. The results showed that the variable of non-audit fees is statistically significant in determining audit fees as predicted. Further sensitivity analysis showed that the results are robust to different measurements and company size

DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF PHYSICAL CLASSROOM LEARNING ENVIRONMENT INSTRUMENT (PCLEI) FOR SECONDARY SCHOOL IN MALAYSIA

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a new learning environment instrument used to measure the physical learning environment in secondary school’s classroom in Malaysia. The Physical Classroom Learning Environment Instrument (PCLEI) was developed by using a three stages approach, field-tested with 900 students and then validated. The PLCEI has 66 items allocated to six constructs: (1) furniture; (2) facilities; (3) space; (4) lighting; (5) air quality; (6) color. Each construct has a factor loading at least 0.40 and alpha reliability coefficient for constructs ranged from 0.83 to 0.98. The instrument will inform us on existing physical learning environment in secondary school’s classroom. Further effective way can be planned to overcome the existing gaps

Knowledge sharing behaviour in the public sector: The business process management perspectives

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the preliminary analysis on the knowledge sharing behaviour of the public sectors in terms of individual attitudes, organisational environment, reward system and information and communication technology (ICT) within the system. The paper looks into the perspective of business process management which embedded in a knowledge sharing behaviour. This research-inprogress intends to use both quantitative and qualitative methods (triangulation) because we believe that it will be appropriate to answer the research questions better. In the Phase One, consists of the questionnaire that uses to measure perceptions, beliefs, reactions, and attitudes related to knowledge sharing. The unit of analysis using middle to senior management in the public sector as knowledge is said to be captured more systematically at this level. Phase Two will be carried out after analysis of data from the questionnaire survey is completed. The researcher intends to undertake an in-depth exploration of issues arising from Phase One. Hence a semi-structured interview will be carried out with small group of people. Top management officials will be selected from within the same sample for this exercise. The research design in this study hopefully will answer all the research questions significantly. The preliminary findings will provide a basis for proposing a structured framework for further data collection and analysis

Contractors’ Approaches to Risk Management at the Construction Phase in Malaysia

Abstract - Often times, contractors failed to identify, plan, strategize, analyzed, execute, monitor, control and manage the risk involves during construction phase in Malaysia. Consequently, the contractor failed to complete the project on schedule, within client’s budget and quality. The idea of introducing formal risk management among Malaysian contractors during construction phase is seem to be a proactive approach to achieve the project objectives. This paper intends to identify the application of formal risk management among the contractors during the construction phase in Malaysia. Questionnaires and interviews were used. It was found that although the risk management process in Malaysian construction industry has been introduced, most of them are not well structured and not being implemented in a formal manner. Therefore, it is suggested that these contractors should try to implement formal risk management and hope that the construction industry in Malaysia can enjoy the benefits and lead our industry effectively into the next stage of building the nation.Keywords : Risk Management, Contractors, Construction Phase, Malaysia

A theoretical framework on the relationship between political connection, board characteristics and environmental disclosure in Nigeria

The poor environmental performance and by extension low level of environmental disclosure evident in the annual reports of quoted Nigerian companies have aroused stakeholders concern about the condition of the environment.The main objective of this study is to x-ray the relationship between political connection, board characteristics and environmental disclosure. The quantitative approach will be adopted using data from the annual reports of the sampled companies. The theoretical framework is built on the legitimacy theory with support from the agency and managerial power theory.It is envisaged that the study will engage corporate organizations to adequately provide for environmental information in their internal policies.The study will facilitate environmental cost reporting responsiveness and disclosure to investors and environmental regulatory bodies

Inside and outside shareholders and monitoring: evidence from developing country

This paper tests the effect of managerial (inside) and block-holders (outside) ownership in relation to agency theory in Malaysian business environment. This study tests the agency relationship in different culture and social contact and provides evidence whether agency theory in non-western organizations have equal impact in Asian organizations. Consistent with agency theory and the convergence of interest hypothesis, managerial ownership (insiders) in Malaysia indicate a negative relationship with the demand for monitoring. This finding may be due to the fact that as the managers are also the owners, there is less conflict, less information asymmetry and less hierarchical organization structure in the companies, which lead to lower monitoring costs. However, another ownership structure, outside block-holders appear to demand more monitoring. This positive relationship may be explained by their effort to compensate their lack of involvement in the daily transactions and internal decisions of the company, especially in the concentrated business environment in the country

Assimilating construction worker safety into design – a review

Construction industry is an essential element in Malaysian economy. However, with the highest fatality rate compared to other industries in the country, construction industry faces a great challenge. In order to address this challenge, researches have demonstrated that decisions made throughout construction upstream activity i.e. the design stage can stimulate construction safety. In Malaysia, safety topics are often not highlighted until the start of construction stage. Assimilating construction worker safety in the design consideration presents designs that are safe to be built and maintain. During design process, designers can provide best safety practices such as modification to permanent features, preparation of plans and specifications with construction safety is considered. Besides, communication of risk regarding design and utilization of specific safe design can also be integrated to eliminate or reduce hazards during construction and occupational stage. Assimilating construction worker safety into design is consistent with safety hierarchy of control which calls for eliminating or minimizing hazard before relying on management or temporary controls to protect workers. This paper aims to review the concept of assimilating construction worker safety into design published by various literatures

Block-holders and monitoring mechanisms in Nigeria

Companies continue to fold up after the global economic melt-down of 2008 starting with the Enron saga. One of the reasons offered by practitioners and intellectuals in their search for the cause and solution to the problem is information asymmetry between the managements and the shareholders. It is extremely necessary ever since the sagas and continuous business failures and financial distress in Nigeria, in particular, to focus on monitoring mechanisms (MM), especially in Sub-Saharan countries. In addition, it is essential to understand the factors relating to MM as it cannot work in isolation. The purpose of this study is therefore to examine the extent to which block-holders impact on MM using the annual reports of 111 Nigerian non-financial listed companies in the context of agency theory. In addition, data were collected from the companies in respect of their internal auditing using the questionnaire as these are not available in the annual reports. The findings provide evidence that the block-holders significantly relate to monitoring mechanisms. Thus, this paper provides a new knowledge regarding monitoring mechanisms and its antecedents (directorship, internal and external auditing). These findings are with policy implications for the board of directors to implement their monitoring responsibilities. The findings also suggest policy implications for the internal and external auditors. The findings are useful for further review of corporate governance guidelines by the regulatory agencies and government. The paper contributes to knowledge in Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria in particular by examining block-holders in relation to the aggregate cost of monitoring mechanisms (directorship, internal and external auditing)