This study examines the relationship between political connections, corporate governance, and tax aggressiveness among firms listed on the Main Board of Bursa Malaysia. Corporate governance is proxied by firm-level internal and external governance, whereas tax aggressiveness is identified by using the effective tax rates of firms. Data collected from 2000 to 2009 resulted in 2,538 firm-year observations. We find that politically connected firms are more tax aggressive than non-connected firms. Further, we find that a large board size decreases the likelihood of tax aggressiveness, and that an inverse U relationship exists between institutional ownership and tax aggressiveness, which suggests an increase in monitoring as the ownership increases. However, we find no evidence to suggest that corporate governance mitigates the influence of political connections in promoting taxaggressiveness behaviour. Our findings suggest that the impact of political connections could neutralise the benefits of changes in corporate governance in Malaysia.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of board of directors and audit committee effectiveness on the level of internet financial reporting (IFR) disclosure practices. Design/methodology/approach The sample consists of 152 listed financial companies in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries. Based on agency theory, the authors posit that board of directors and audit committee effectiveness influence corporate IFR disclosure practice. Content analysis approach, based on an un-weighted index of 35 IFR items is used to measure the level of IFR disclosure. Thus, multiple regression analysis is utilized to analyse the results of this paper. Findings The results show that board of directors and audit committee effectiveness has significant influence on the level of IFR disclosure. Research limitations/implications One potential limitation of this paper is that the sample is drawn only from the GCC listed financial companies. Therefore, the findings cannot be generalized to other than the financial institutions. Practical implications The finding(s) highlights the importance of board of directors and audit committee characteristics in corporate governance and in the development of financial markets that foster IFR disclosure. Originality/value This paper extends previous IFR disclosure studies by considering both the role of board of directors and audit committee effectiveness score in examining IFR disclosure.

Purpose Despite various regulatory frameworks to combat unethical conduct, fraud and corruption remain alarmingly high. While whistleblowing is an important mechanism to identify and prevent unethical conduct, there is a lack of empirical studies on this issue in the Malaysian context, especially whistleblowing within the audit firms. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to examine the whistleblowing intention of external auditors in Malaysia and the factors influencing this intention. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected using a structured questionnaire that was sent by post to external auditors throughout Malaysia. Participants were selected using a convenience non-probability sampling technique. A total of 274 responses were analyzed. SmartPLS version 3.2.8 was used for the analysis. Findings Professional commitment and independence commitment had a positive influence on whistleblowing intention, supporting the argument that professional factors can increase the intention of the external auditors to whistleblow. Perceived behavioural control had a positive relationship with whistleblowing intention, while there is no evidence to indicate that attitude and subjective norms influence whistleblowing intention. Originality/value This study explored whistleblowing among external auditors in Malaysia by focussing on the professional factors of professional commitment and independence commitment, which were hypothesized to be key factors in intention to whistleblow. These factors were incorporated with a multi-component of attitude, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control, which were derived from the theory of planned behaviour. The findings have implications for the auditing profession because they provide a better understanding of the factors that influence the whistleblowing intention of external auditors.

ABSTRACT

Abstract-This paper reviews the existing requirement on related party transactions (RPTs) disclosure in the Malaysian context and discusses issues surrounding such disclosure. As there are two conflicting effects of RPTs, sufficient information should be made available to assist investors in analyzing the risk and return of RPTs. We review prior studies and highlight issues of information disclosure related to RPTs, such as the variations in the level of RPTs disclosure. We propose future research on RPTs to apply content analysis using a voluntary disclosure index to understand more about the breadth and depth of the RPTs information.