The emerging awareness on sustainability issues among Malaysian listed companies has increased the voluntary disclosure on environmental, social and governance (ESG) in the annual report. This study examines the relationship of board diversity on firm’s sustainability practices. Board diversity characteristics in terms of gender, age, board composition, board capabilities and board reputation are examined as to their influence towards firm’s sustainability practice. The data includes the ESG Scores of 38 listed companies in Malaysia for the period in 2010–2016 which was obtained from the Thomson Reuters Eikon™ Datastream. The result showed that board diversity traits such as age, board capabilities and board reputation are positively associated with firm’s sustainability practices. In contrast, women director and independent directors are negatively related with firm sustainability practice. Result of this study helps to provide another viewpoint on the roles played by board members, particularly their diversity representations as the determinant for corporate sustainability practice.

The failures of corporations such as Enron, WorldCom and HIH Insurance, to name but a few, have heightened investor awareness of the need to not only evaluate company performance, but also to consider the possibility that financial statements may not be a true reflection of company results, as fraudulent activities may have occurred during the reporting period. Since parties who are outside of the firm do not have access to pertinent information, they have to rely upon published financial and non-financial data to form an opinion regarding performance and/or the risk that fraudulent activities may have occurred. The prior literature shows a relationship between weak corporate governance and fraudulent activities, although most if not all of this research relates to Western economies. The differences in institutional setting e.g. cultural values and legal environment in Malaysia would not give the same findings with the study in western economies. Composing of many ethnicities, Malaysia is a multicultural country. With each ethnic group upholding its own culture, values and belief, businesses are conducted according to each ethnic’s culture. The results of this study could shed some light on the influence of institutional setting regarding corporate governance. Companies that were charged with accounting and auditing offences from year 2003 to 2007 were selected as the fraudulent samples. Data was collected from the years these companies were charged with fraud and the year prior to that. Logistic regression analysis was carried out to determine the significant differences between fraudulent and non-fraudulent companies with respect to corporate governance characteristics. The results indicated that the size of the board and the percentage of institutional shareholdings had significant relationships with the likelihood of corporate fraud occurrences consistently across the two-year period studied. The results of this study will assist public, corporate and accounting policy makers in formulating more effective corporate governance mechanisms.

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Public listed companies in Malaysia have been pressured tremendously to accept the engagement of Environment, Social and Governance (ESG), but the engagement is still low based on previous studies. ESG will enhance company financial performance, image as well as the ability to attract and retain the workplace which contributes to the market value in the economy. This shows that ESG engagement improve company brand image and reputation, increase customer loyalty and sales as well as productivity. Corporate governance is seen to be the key role to ensure that companies engage with ESG practices since it can enhance the value creation and improve financial performance. Even the present investors are bound to look for non-financial performance elements like corporate governance and environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices that the company engaged since it is an evidence of effective corporate governance. Based on today’s global and innovation-driven economy which also include social and environmental matters consisting of welfare distribution and growth, it is said that countries need to be more efficient in finding new ways to enhance the environmental policy promoting greater change and dynamics. Thus, they must find new ways to develop an innovation policy to emphasise the knowledge-driven economy on the capacity to adapt and adopt best practices, create, diffuse and transform innovation and knowledge. The absorptive capacity will recognise the ability of the individual and company in adopting the innovation which play an essential part in determining the characteristics of good corporate governance to ensure best ESG practices in the company. This paper examines the relationship between board capabilities and ESG practices through the mediating role of absorptive capacity. Board size, board diversity and board independent are the board capabilities that the paper investigates. Collection of information and data was from company's listed in FTSE4Good Bursa Malaysia from the year 2012 to 2016. The results from the regression analysis show that ESG practices have a significant relationship with board size, board diversity, board independence and absorptive capacity. On top of that, absorptive capacity is perceived to have influence on board diversity and board independence towards ESG practices. The results provide empirical evidence and guidance in identifying areas of problems in the current policy and amend it for a better policy in promoting sustainability.

Numerous studies on corporate governance proposed the connection of boards’ characteristics on firm performance and reputation. However, the results are mixed and limited research in the co-operatives context has creates a great interest to fill the conspicuous gap. This study seeks to examine the potential relationship between board characteristics and co-operative reputation in Malaysia from the perspective of resource-based view theory (RBVT). Hence, multiple regressions were conducted to analyze the relationship between co-operatives reputation with the respect of Top 100 Co-operatives Index and board characteristics in terms of board size, ethnic diversity, gender diversity, age diversity and education diversity in this study. The sample is composed of 61 listed co-operatives in the Top 100 Co-operatives Index for the three-consecutive year during the period 2015 to 2017. Reputation data were obtained from Top 100 Co-operative Index that published at Malaysia Co-operative Societies Commission (MCSC) website. While, the data of board characteristics and co-operative size on log of total assets which lagged by a year were extracted from MCSC’s INFOKOP system that provides both financial and non-financial data. The results found that Malaysian co-operatives that appear high up in terms of ranking in the reputation MCSC index tend to have a greater proportion of high educational directors on their board. Other board characteristics including board size, ethnic diversity, gender diversity and age diversity were not associated with the reputation of co-operatives. This generally can be explained that different types of law, geography, historical background, cultural environment and other factors may affect composition and diversity; and particularly the board in co-operative societies. Findings of this study provide insights into potential strategies in relation to corporate governance towards improving co-operative’s values and indirectly help the government in achieving the national economic goals.

Contribution/Originality: This study contributes to existing literature by investigating the corporate governance (CG) mechanisms that influence firm's risk measured by cost of equity capital. directors which is an important element in the corporate governance. Thus, the introduction and establishment of Malaysian Code of Corporate Governance (MCCG) as well as the Bursa Malaysia Listing Requirement in 2001

Educational Loan is an alternative of financial aids that is provided by the study funding agencies of Malaysia to reduce the economic burden of students in order to finance their studies at tertiary education level. Despite the increasing number of students who obtaining these educational loans, the issue of default in loan repayment among borrowers merely needs research attention. Thus this study aims to investigate the factors of study loan default among Malaysia tertiary graduates. Among the factors examined are family income, employment status and loan amount while respondents’ age, gender, marital status and education level are controlled. Questionnaires were distributed to 430 Universiti Teknologi MARA, Johor, Malaysia graduated respondents via online and 209 were returned The result of this study revealed that the employment status, loan amount and education level are significant to study loan default among Malaysian tertiary graduates. The results could serve some highlights to any study financing agencies to further understand their borrower intuitions in paying back loans they owed.

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