This article examines the various factors that influence the level of conformance with corporate governance recommendations for companies listed on the Alternative Exchange (AltX) in South Africa. To achieve this objective, a corporate governance disclosure index was developed by examining the extent to which AltX companies apply the corporate governance recommendations as set out in King II and King III. The corporate governance disclosure index was then regressed on a number of corporate governance and firm characteristics to determine the influence of various factors on the level of conformance with corporate governance recommendations. It was found that larger companies, where the CEO and chairman of the board are separate, companies with an independent audit committee and companies with higher debt levels are more likely to conform to corporate governance recommendations. There is no evidence that levels of corporate governance conformance are influenced by the growth and profitability of companies, or by corporate governance characteristics, such as the independence of the board.

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Executive directors’ remuneration of leading South African companies often attracts the attention of the press, shareholders and unions. The research on which this article is based investigated whether executive directors’ remuneration of the Top 100 companies listed on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange (JSE) is influenced by the implementation of certain corrective corporate governance measures. The remuneration of executive directors was regressed on a number of firm and corporate governance characteristics to determine whether these characteristics have an influence on executive directors ’remuneration. It was found that corporate governance reforms relating to institutional ownership, the number of non-executive directors on the remuneration committee, shareholder voting on the remuneration policy and the number of remuneration committee meetings act as an effective governance tool to protect shareholders’ interests with regard to some of the elements of executive directors’ remuneration.

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