Search results for: environmental governance (EG)

Authors: Petronella Jonck, Freda van der Walt

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Despite the benefits of innovation diffusion in the South African public service, implementation thereof seems to be problematic, particularly with regard to e-governance which would enhance the quality of service delivery, especially accessibility, choice, and mode of operation. This paper reports on differences between the public service and the private sector in terms of innovation diffusion. Innovation diffusion will be investigated to explore identified obstacles that are hindering successful implementation of e-governance. The research inquiry is underpinned by the diffusion of innovation theory, which is premised on the assumption that innovation has a distinct channel, time, and mode of adoption within the organisation. A comparative thematic document analysis was conducted to investigate organisational differences with regard to innovation diffusion. A similar approach has been followed in other countries, where the same conceptual framework has been used to guide document analysis in studies in both the private and the public sectors. As per the recommended conceptual framework, three organisational characteristics were emphasised, namely the external characteristics of the organisation, the organisational structure, and the inherent characteristics of the leadership. The results indicated that the main difference in the external characteristics lies in the focus and the clientele of the private sector. With regard to organisational structure, private organisations have veto power, which is not the case in the public service. Regarding leadership, similarities were observed in social and environmental responsibility and employees’ attitudes towards immediate supervision. Differences identified included risk taking, the adequacy of leadership development, organisational approaches to motivation and involvement in decision making, and leadership style. Due to the organisational differences observed, it is recommended that differentiated strategies be employed to ensure effective innovation diffusion, and ultimately e-governance. It is recommended that the results of this research be used to stimulate discussion on ways to improve collaboration between the mentioned sectors, to capitalise on the benefits of each sector.

Keywords: E-governance, ICT, innovation diffusion, comparative analysis

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Authors: Rabiaal Adawiyah Shazali, Corina Joseph

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The disclosure of Intellectual Capital (IC) information is getting more vital in today’s era of a knowledge-based economy. Companies are advised by accounting bodies to enhance IC disclosure which complements the conventional financial disclosures. There are no accounting standards for Intellectual Capital Disclosure (ICD), therefore the disclosure is entirely voluntary. Hence, this study aims to investigate the extent of ICD and to examine the relationship between corporate governance and ICD in Malaysia. This study employed content analysis of 100 annual reports by the top 100 public listed companies in Malaysia during 2012. The uniqueness of this study lies on its underpinning theory used where it applies the institutional isomorphism theory to support the effect of the attributes of corporate governance towards ICD. In order to achieve the stated objective, multiple regression analysis were employed to conduct this study. From the descriptive statistics, it was concluded that public listed companies in Malaysia have increased their awareness towards the importance of ICD. Furthermore, results from the multiple regression analysis confirmed that corporate governance affects the company’s ICD where the frequency of audit committee meetings and the board size has positively influenced the level of ICD in companies. Findings from this study would provide an incentive for companies in Malaysia to enhance the disclosure of IC. In addition, this study would assist Bursa Malaysia and other regulatory bodies to come up with a proper guideline for the disclosure of IC.

Keywords: annual report, content analysis, corporate governance, intellectual capital disclosure

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Authors: Henriette Scholtz

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Excessive executive directors’ remuneration remains a major concern for many stakeholders and are some of the factors to blame for the recent global financial crisis. The objective of this study was to examine whether certain firm characteristics are an effective way of protecting shareholders’ interests with respect to executive directors’ remuneration. To achieve this, an ordinary least squares model was used to test the relationship between the remuneration of executive directors and a number of firm and corporate governance characteristics to determine whether these characteristics have an influence on executive directors’ remuneration of large listed companies in South Africa. It was found that corporate governance reforms relating to institutional ownership, shareholder voting on the remuneration policy and the number of remuneration committee meetings acts as an effective governance tool to protect shareholder’s interests with regard to executive remuneration. There is no evidence that the number of non-executive directors on the remuneration committee has an influence on the executive directors’ remuneration.

Keywords: executive directors’ remuneration, agency theory, corporate governance, remuneration committee, directors’ shareholding, institutional ownership

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Authors: Abiodun Oluwaseun Ibude

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Every now and then we hear of companies closing down their operations due to unethical practices like an overstatement of company’s balance sheet, concealing company’s debt, embezzlement of company’s fund, declaring false profit and so on. This has led to the liquidation of companies and the loss of investments of shareholders as well as the interest of other stakeholders. As a result of these ugly trends, there is need to put in place a formidable mechanism that will ensure that business activities are conducted in a healthy manner. It should also promote good ethics as well as ensure that the interest of stakeholders and the objectives of any organization is achieved within the confines of the law; wherein law exists to provide criminal penalties for falsification of documents and for conducting other irregularities. Based on the foregoing, it becomes imperative to ensure that steps are taken to stop this menace and face the challenges ahead. This calls for the practice of good governance. The purpose of this study is to identify various components of corporate governance and determine the impact of it on the performance of established organizations. A survey method with the use of questionnaire was applied in collecting data useful for this study which were later analyzed using correlation co-efficiency statistical tools in generating finding, making a conclusion, and necessary recommendation. From the research conducted, it was discovered that there are systems within organizations apart from regulatory agencies that ensure effective control of activities, promote accountability, and operational efficiency. However, some members of organizations fail to explore the usage of corporate governance and impact negatively of an organization’s performance. In conclusion, good corporate governance will not be achieved unless there is openness, honesty, transparency, accountability, and fairness.

Keywords: corporate governance, formidable mechanism, company’s balance sheet, stakeholders

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Authors: Nico Rosamilia

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The study evaluates the importance of non-financial disclosure practices for regulators, investors, businesses, and markets. It aims to create a sector-specific set of indicators for environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performances alternative to the ratings of the agencies. The existing literature extensively studies the implementation of ESG rating systems. Conversely, this study has a twofold outcome. Firstly, it should generalize incentive systems and governance policies for ESG and sustainable principles. Therefore, it should contribute to the EU Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation. Secondly, it concerns the market and the investors by highlighting successful sustainable investing. Indeed, the study contemplates the effect of ESG adoption practices on corporate value. The research explores the asset pricing angle in order to shed light on the fragmented argument on the finance of ESG. Investors may be misguided about the positive or negative effects of ESG on performances. The paper proposes a different method to evaluate ESG performances. By comparing the results of a traditional econometric approach (Lasso) with a machine learning algorithm (Random Forest), the study establishes a set of indicators for ESG performance. Therefore, the research also empirically contributes to the theoretical strands of literature regarding model selection and variable importance in a finance framework. The algorithms will spit out sector-specific indicators. This set of indicators defines an alternative to the compounded scores of ESG rating agencies and avoids the possible offsetting effect of scores. With this approach, the paper defines a sector-specific set of indicators to standardize ESG disclosure. Additionally, it tries to shed light on the absence of a clear understanding of the direction of the ESG effect on corporate value (the problem of endogeneity).

Keywords: ESG ratings, non-financial information, value of firms, sustainable finance

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Authors: Jacqui Robertson

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The sustainable governance of groundwater is of the utmost importance in an arid country like Australia. Groundwater has been relied on by our agricultural and pastoral communities since the State was settled by European colonialists. Nevertheless, the rapid establishment of a coal seam gas (CSG) industry in Queensland, Australia, has had extensive impacts on the pre-existing groundwater users. Managed aquifer recharge of important aquifers in Queensland, Australia, using treated coal seam gas produced water has been used to reduce the impacts of CSG development in Queensland Australia. However, the process has not been widely adopted. Negative environmental outcomes are now acknowledged as not only engineering, scientific or technical problems to be solved but also the result of governance failures. An analysis of the regulatory context for aquifer injection using treated CSG water in Queensland, Australia, using Ostrom’s Common Pool Resource (CPR) theory and a ‘heat map’ designed by the author, highlights the importance of governance arrangements. The analysis reveals the costs and benefits for relevant stakeholders of artificial recharge of groundwater resources in this context. The research also reveals missed opportunities to further active management of the aquifer and resolve existing conflicts between users. The research illustrates the importance of strategically and holistically evaluating innovations in technology that impact water resources to reveal incentives that impact resource user behaviors. The paper presents a proactive step that can be adapted to support integrated water resource management and sustainable groundwater development.

Keywords: managed aquifer recharge, groundwater regulation, common-pool resources, integrated water resource management, Australia

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Authors: Mahmoud Datti Yola

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There is wider agreement among the scholars of political science and public administration that transparency and accountability constituted one of the most crucial ingredients of good governance. In addition democratic government is expected to be accountable and responsive to the wishes and aspirations of the people. In Nigeria, after more than fifteen years to the handover of power to the civilian administration, the leaders has not been at their best, as people’ expectations for nation building, socio-economic progress and better opportunities has been dashed by high level corruption, rising insecurity, absence of the rule of law and lack of transparency and accountability. The objective of this paper is to examine the prospects and challenges of transparency and accountability in Nigeria’s democratic governance. The study utilizes secondary data for this purpose. The study is of the view that the enormous task of dealing with the issue of corruption, insecurity and promotion of ethics and accountability in Nigeria lies not only in effective oversight of the executive by the legislative bodies, respect for the rule of law and an independent judiciary, but also in the ability of the citizens, civil society organizations and other associations to hold elected and appointed officials accountable.

Keywords: good governance, transperancy, accountability, Nigeria

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Authors: Ghadeer A.Al-Jabaree, Husam Aldeen Al-Khadash, M. Nassar

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This study aimed at investigating the effect of well-designed corporate governance system on the financial stability of insurance companies listed in ASE. Further, this study provides a comprehensive model for evaluating and analyzing insurance companies' financial position and prospective for comparing the degree of corporate governance application provisions among Jordanian insurance companies. In order to achieve the goals of the study, a whole population that consist of (27) listed insurance companies was introduced through the variables of (board of director, audit committee, internal and external auditor, board and management ownership and block holder's identities). Statistical methods were used with alternative techniques by (SPSS); where descriptive statistical techniques such as means, standard deviations were used to describe the variables, while (F) test and ANOVA analysis of variance were used to test the hypotheses of the study. The study revealed the existence of significant effect of corporate governance variables except local companies that are not listed in ASE on financial stability within control variables especially debt ratio (leverage),where it's also showed that concentration in motor third party doesn't have significant effect on insurance companies' financial stability during study period. Moreover, the study concludes that Global financial crisis affect the investment side of insurance companies with insignificant effect on the technical side. Finally, some recommendations were presented such as enhancing the laws and regulation that help the appropriate application of corporate governance, and work on activating the transparency in the disclosures of the financial statements and focusing on supporting the technical provisions for the companies, rather than focusing only on profit side.

Keywords: corporate governance, financial stability and solvency margin, insurance companies, Jordan

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Authors: Manmeet Kaur, Madhu Vij

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The Board of Directors in a firm performs the primary role of an internal control mechanism. This Study seeks to understand the relationship between internal governance and performance of banks in India. The research paper investigates the effect of board structure (proportion of nonexecutive directors, gender diversity, board size and meetings per year) on the firm performance. This paper evaluates the impact of corporate governance mechanisms on bank’s financial performance using panel data for 28 listed banks in National Stock Exchange of India for the period of 2008-2014. Returns on Asset, Return on Equity, Tobin’s Q and Net Interest Margin were used as the financial performance indicators. To estimate the relationship among governance and bank performance initially the Study uses Pooled Ordinary Least Square (OLS) Estimation and Generalized Least Square (GLS) Estimation. Then a well-developed panel Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) Estimator is developed to investigate the dynamic nature of performance and governance relationship. The Study empirically confirms that two-step system GMM approach controls the problem of unobserved heterogeneity and endogeneity as compared to the OLS and GLS approach. The result suggests that banks with small board, boards with female members, and boards that meet more frequently tend to be more efficient and subsequently have a positive impact on performance of banks. The study offers insights to policy makers interested in enhancing the quality of governance of banks in India. Also, the findings suggest that board structure plays a vital role in the improvement of corporate governance mechanism for financial institutions. There is a need to have efficient boards in banks to improve the overall health of the financial institutions and the economic development of the country.

Keywords: board of directors, corporate governance, GMM estimation, Indian banking

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Authors: Ayu Diar Sari, Sidharta Utama

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The main objective of this study is to examine the empirical association among strategic corporate social responsibility (Strategic CSR), corporate governance (CG), and firm performance by investigating their causal effects. In order to get the comprehensive result, this study uses CSR variables which consist of Strategic CSR, Non-Strategic CSR and CSR as a whole. Exerting the two stage least square (2SLS) method, the result showed that CG mechanism positively influences CSR, Non-Strategic CSR, and firm performance (both ROA and PBV). CSR and Non-Strategic CSR positively influence ROA. Meanwhile CSR, Strategic and Non-Strategic CSR positively influence PBV. Firm’s Strategic CSR engagement plays a significantly positive role in enhancing PBV. The results supported the social impact hypothesis, agency theory, and conflict resolution theory.

Keywords: corporate financial performance, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, strategic corporate social responsibility

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Authors: Mujeeb Saif Mohsen Al-Absy, Ku Nor Izah Ku Ismail, Sitraselvi Chandren

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This study examines whether corporate governance (CG) mechanisms in firms that have a whistle-blowing policy (WHBLP) are more effective in constraining earnings management (EM), than those without. A sample of 288 Malaysian firms for the years 2013 to 2015, amounting to 864 firm-years were grouped into firms with and without WHBLP. Results show that for firms without WHBLP, the board chairman tenure would minimize EM activities. Meanwhile, for firms with WHBLP, board chairman independence, board chairman tenure, audit committee size, audit committee meeting and women in the audit committees are found to be associated with less EM activities. Further, it is found that ownership concentration and Big 4 auditing firms help to reduce EM activities in firms with WHBLP, while not in firms without WHBLP. Hence, functional and effective governance can be achieved by having a WHBLP, which is in line with agency and resource dependent theories. Therefore, this study suggests that firms should have a WHBLP in place, and policymakers should come up with enhanced criteria to strengthen the mechanisms of WHBLP.

Keywords: corporate governance, earnings management, whistle-blowing policy, audit committee, board of directors

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Authors: Venugopal Kummamuru

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Corporate Governance (CG) is of utmost importance for running a company ethically. It is essential for the growth and success of the corporation. It is intended to increase the accountability of an organization to the larger context of the business environment. The general principles of CG include and are related to Shareholder recognition, Stakeholder interests, and focus on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Clear Board responsibilities, Ethical behavior, and Business transparency. Network Marketing Organizations (NMOs) focus on marketing through direct-sales using people who are associated with the organization but are not their employees. This paper tries to study the importance of Ethics and CSR in an NMO and suggest a basic guideline for CG in NMO(s). This paper could be used as a basis or starting point for conducting an in-depth research to understand the difference in CG practices between NMO(s) and other organizations and define a standard set of guidelines for CG practice.

Keywords: corporate governance, corporate responsibility, direct selling, network marketing

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Authors: Anouschka Swart

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In 2023, sport faces a plethora of challenges including but not limited to match-fixing, corruption and doping to its integrity that, threatens both the commercial and public appeal. The continuous changes and commercialisation that has occurred within sport have led to a variety of consequences resulting in the need for ethics to be revived, as it used to be in the past to ensure sport is not in danger. In order to understand governance better, the Institute of Directors in Southern Africa, a global network of professional firms providing Audit, Tax and Advisory services, outlined a process explaining all elements with regards to corporate governance. This process illustrates a governing body’s responsibilities as strategy, policy, oversight and accountability. These responsibilities are further elucidated to 16 governing principles which are highlighted as essential for all organisations in order to achieve and deliver on effective governance outcomes. These outcomes are good ethical culture, good performance, effective control and legitimacy therefore, the aim of the study was to investigate the general state of governance within the clubs affiliated with a rugby club in South Africa by utilizing the King IV Code as the framework. The results indicated that the King Code IV principles are implemented by these rugby clubs to ensure they demonstrate commitment to corporate governance to both internal and external stakeholders. It is however evident that a similar report focused solely on sport is a necessity in the industry as this will provide more clarity on sport specific problems.

Keywords: South Africa, sport, King IV, responsibilities

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Authors: Jamila Garba Audu, Shehu Usman Hassan

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The widespread failure in the financial information quality has created the need to improve the financial information quality and to strengthen the control of managers by setting up good firms structures. Published accounting information in financial statements is required to provide various users - shareholders, employees, suppliers, creditors, financial analysts, stockbrokers and government agencies – with timely and reliable information useful for making prudent, effective and efficient decisions. The relationship between corporate governance and performance to financial reporting quality is imperative; this is because despite rapid researches in this area the findings obtained from these studies are constantly inconclusive. Data for the study were extracted from the firms’ annual reports and accounts. After running the OLS regression, a robustness test was conducted for the validity of statistical inferences; the data was empirically tested. A multiple regression was employed to test the model as a technique for data analysis. The results from the analysis revealed a negative association between all the regressors and financial reporting quality except the performance of listed manufacturing firms in Nigeria. This indicates that corporate governance plays a significant role in mitigating earnings management and improving financial reporting quality while performance does not. The study recommended among others that the composition of audit committee should be made in accordance with the provision for code of corporate governance which is not more than six (6) members with at least one (1) financial expert.

Keywords: corporate governance, financial reporting quality, manufacturing firms, Nigeria, performance

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Authors: Synthia Atas Sari, Engkos Achmad Kuncoro, Haryadi Sarjono

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of reward system which is determined by government over the work of Board of Commissioners in implementing good corporate governance in Indonesian state-owned enterprises. To do so, this study analyses the adequacy of the remuneration, the job attractiveness, and the board commitment and dedication with the remuneration system. Qualitative method used to examine the significant features and challenges to the government policy over the remuneration determination for the board of commissioners to their roles. Data are gathered through semi-structure in-depth interview to the 21 participants over 10 Indonesian stated-owned enterprises and written documents. Findings in this study indicate that government policies over the remuneration system is not effective to increase the performance of board of commissioners in implementing good corporate governance in Indonesian state-owned enterprises due to unattractiveness of the remuneration amount, demotivate active members, and conflict interest over members of the remuneration committee.

Keywords: reward system, board of commissioners, state-owned enterprises, good corporate governance

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Authors: Yrfet Shkreli

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Despite all the wide research and literature on the subject, changing and challenging times often present themselves with new objectives, fluid politics and everlasting point of views. Much is said about the subject and the trend nowadays is watching every EU intervention as a form of neo colonialism or a form of establishing new markets. The paper will try to establish a new perspective on EU influences, policies and impacts analyzed from multidimensional point of view, not limiting itself on a narrow external dimension, focusing on a broader understanding of it diverse contribution to global governance and peace keeping. Tending to be critical, this paper, tend to fall out of extremes, nether holding a Eurocentric position, nor falling for cheap critic to the whole failures and impact of EU policies. The ambition is to show EU as a contributing factor while keeping in mind its nature as a multi layered actor and with not necessarily coinciding interests among its member states.

Keywords: European Union, global governance, globalization, normative power

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Authors: Robert Lindner

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In recent years a multitude of international efforts, including the United Nations’ aspirational 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, provided a new momentum to facilitate energy access and rural electrification projects to combat energy poverty in developing states in Asia. Rural electrification projects promise to facilitate other sustainable development aims, such as the empowerment of local communities through the creation of economic opportunities or increased disaster resilience. This study applies a multi-governance research framework to study the cases of the ongoing energy system transition in Myanmar and Cambodia. It explores what impact the international aid community, especially multilateral development banks and international development agencies, has on the governance of the transitions and how diverging aid donor interest shape policy making and project planning. The study is based on policy analysis and expert interviews, as well as extensive field research. It critically examines the current development trajectories and the strategies of the stakeholders involved. It concludes that institutional and technological competition between donors, as well as a lack of transparency and inclusion in the project planning and implementation phases, contributes to insufficient coordination in national energy policy making and project implementation at the local level. The study further discusses possible alternative approaches that might help to promote the spread of sustainable energy technologies.

Keywords: energy governance, developing countries, multi-level governance, energy transitions

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Authors: Sheriff Folarin, Oluwafunke Folarin, Hadassah Hussaini, Victor Jubril, Olaniyi Ayodele

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Using a famous, unrestrained and fiery United States-based, Nigerian-owned Sahara Reporters as a case study, this paper examined the impact of online-based media on governance in Nigeria. The discourse is premised on the thesis that the internet has changed the face of journalism and that the mainstream but online-based media have made journalism more participatory than ever. Everyone who has something to say finds it easy to say it quickly and conveniently, unhinged or without being censored. This has made online journalism very popular and the number of online-based news platforms to be on the increase. As these platforms have given the citizens a means to interact and added to the content of the news, they have also succeeded in promoting partisanship. It thus becomes necessary to study the impact of the rabid news platform, Sahara Reporters, on governance in Africa’s biggest democracy, Nigeria. Few studies have examined the impact on governance of mainstream-online media platforms and those studies that did, have only focused on social media, such as Facebook and Twitter. This paper is a product of a bigger study, in which the research design entailed semi-structured interviews with participants from different sectors of the society and an analysis of contents from the Sahara Reporters website, from which data were collected. The findings revealed that through uncensored reporting and citizen participation on the platform of Sahara Reporters, there had been a significant people influence on governance in Nigeria, with government at two levels (national and state) sometimes shifting or yielding grounds, particularly from 2011-2016. The study also recognized the presence of counter-forces in the online community who want to discredit the information on the site. Through the lens of media dependency theory, the study concluded that the public now increasingly depends on online news media for information and the more news these media provide, the more the people depend on it, making it easy for them to influence governance.

Keywords: governance, media, online news, Sahara reporters

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Authors: Asah Nelson Asoh, Wanie Clarkson Mvo

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Given the diverse nature of cultural diversity in Cameroon from the forested south to the sudano-sahelian north regions, Cameroon is aptly described as 'Africa in Miniature', which simply means all of Africa in a single country-Cameroon. Cameroon possesses all that can be attractive to the eyes in Africa. Yet, there is a microscopic involvement of the local inhabitants in participatory governance of cultural patrimony for tourism and community-based socio-economic development, which greatly jeopardizes conservation endeavors because the community fails to trust governing authorities. This study delves into the ways through which local inhabitants could be indulged in participatory governance of cultural patrimony for tourism and community-based socio-economic development. The study adopts a qualitative research design and semi-structured interviews with experts in the collection of primary data blended with secondary materials from published sources, including textbooks, scientific journal articles, dissertations, reports, and internet websites. The collected data was presented and analysed using descriptive statistical techniques, photographic illustrations, and through intuition. The study fosters the ways through which local inhabitants could be indulged in participatory governance of cultural patrimony for tourism and community-based socio-economic development. This is to ensure community support for the conservation of tourism cultural patrimony in Cameroon in particular and the world at large.

Keywords: participatory governance, cultural patrimony, tourism, socio-economic development, Cameroon

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Authors: Abdulaziz Abdulsaleh

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This study aims at identifying the practices that should be taken into consideration by audit committees as a tool of corporate governance in Libyan commercial banks by investigating various perceptions on this topic. The study is based on a questionnaire submitted to audit committees ‘members at Libyan commercial banks, directors of internal audit departments as well as members of board of directors at these banks in addition to a number of external auditors and academic staff from Libyan universities. The study reveals that the role of audit committees has to be shifted from traditional areas of accounting to a broader role including functions related to financial reporting, audit planning, support the independence of internal and external auditors, acting as a channel of communication between external auditors and board of directors, reviewing external audit, and evaluating internal control systems. Although the study is a starting point in developing a framework of good audit committees’ practices in Libya, it is believed that the adoption of its results can result in enhancing the corporate governance practices not only in the banking sector but also in the entire corporate sector in Libya.

Keywords: audit committees, corporate governance, commercial banks, Libya

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Authors: Richard Mbatu

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Implementation of the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) program will not only lead to significant net gains in greenhouse gas reduction but also gains in biodiversity conservation. However, the looming paradigm shift in the program in the form of the proposed landscape governance approach could change this inclination. The concern lies with the fact that pursue of carbon credits by governments and private entities under the proposed landscape approach could encourage obstinate land use behaviors that are detrimental to the cause of biodiversity conservation and ecosystem services. Yet, the landscape approach could also stimulate governments to develop and implement land use management policies for climate change adaptation and mitigation. Using two potential areas of land use under the proposed landscape approach – carbon farming in grasslands and carbon farming in plantations – this paper provides a balanced analytical review of conservation challenges and opportunities for forest governance and beyond under the proposed landscape approach to REDD+. The paper argues that such a balanced view will enable policymakers and other stakeholders to better present their arguments in their efforts to shape the course of the REDD+ program in the post-Paris Agreement era.

Keywords: biodiversity conservation, REDD+, forest governance, grasslands, landscape approach, plantations

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Authors: Patricia Chinyere Oranefo

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This study examined the effect of sustainability accounting disclosure on financial performance of listed Brewery firms in Nigeria. The dearth of empirical evidence and literature on “governance disclosure” as one of the explanatory variables of sustainability accounting reporting were the major motivation for this study. The main objective was to ascertain the effect of sustainability accounting disclosure on financial performance of listed Brewery firms in Nigeria. An ex–post facto research design approach was adopted for the study. The population of this study comprises of five (5) Brewery firms quoted on the floor of the Nigeria exchange group (NSX) and the sample size of four (4) listed firms was drawn using purposive sampling method. Secondary data were carefully sourced from the financial statement/annual reports and sustainability reports from 2012 to 2021 of the Brewery firms quoted on the Nigeria exchange group (NSX). Panel regression analysis by aid of E-views 10.0 software was used to test for statistical significance of the effect of sustainability accounting disclosure on financial performance of listed Brewery firms in Nigeria. The results showed that economic sustainability disclosure indexes do not significantly affect return on asset of listed Brewery firms in Nigeria. The findings further revealed that environmental sustainability disclosure indexes do not significantly affect return on equity of listed Brewery firms in Nigeria. More so, results showed that Social Sustainability disclosure indexes significantly affect Net Profit Margin of listed Brewery firms in Nigeria. Finally, the result established also that governance sustainability disclosure indexes do not significantly affect Earnings per share of listed Brewery firms in Nigeria. Consequent upon the findings, this study recommended among others; that managers of Brewers in Nigeria should improve and sustain full disclosure practices on economic, environmental, social and governance disclosures following the guidelines of the Global Reporting Index (GRI) as they are capable of exerting significant effect on financial performance of firms in Nigeria.

Keywords: sustainability, accounting, disclosure, financial performance

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Authors: Marcus Lee

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The energy sector is the largest contributor of greenhouse gas emissions in Malaysia, which induces climate change. The climate change problem is therefore an energy sector problem. Tackling climate change issues successfully is contingent on actions taken in the energy sector. The researcher propounds that ‘Climate Policy Integration’ (CPI) into energy policy is a viable and insufficiently developed strategy in Malaysia that promotes the synergies between climate change and energy objectives, in order to achieve the targets found in both climate change and energy policies. In exploring this hypothesis, this paper presentation will focus on two particular aspects. Firstly, the meaning of CPI as an approach and as a concept will be explored. As an approach, CPI into energy policy means the integration of climate change objectives into the energy policy area. Its subject matter focuses on establishing the functional interrelations between climate change and energy objectives, by promoting their synergies and minimising their contradictions. However, its conceptual underpinnings are less than straightforward. Drawing from the ‘principle of integration’ found in international treaties and declarations such as the Stockholm Declaration 1972, the Rio Declaration 1992 and the United Nations Framework on Climate Change 1992 (‘UNFCCC’), this paper presentation will explore the contradictions in international standards on how the sustainable development tenets of environmental sustainability, social development and economic development are to be balanced and its relevance to CPI. Further, the researcher will consider whether authority may be derived from international treaties and declarations in order to argue for the prioritisation of environmental sustainability over the other sustainable development tenets through CPI. Secondly, this paper presentation will also explore the degree to which CPI into energy policy has been achieved and pursued in Malaysia. In particular, the strength of the conceptual framework with regard to CPI in Malaysian governance will be considered by assessing Malaysia’s National Policy on Climate Change (2009) (‘NPCC 2009’). The development (or the lack of) of CPI as an approach since the publication of the NPCC 2009 will also be assessed based on official government documents and policies that may have a climate change and/or energy agenda. Malaysia’s National Renewable Energy Policy and Action Plan (2010), draft National Energy Efficiency Action Plan (2014), Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (2015) in relation to the Paris Agreement, 11th Malaysia Plan (2015) and Biennial Update Report to the UNFCCC (2015) will be discussed. These documents will be assessed for the presence of CPI based on the language/drafting of the documents as well as the degree of subject matter regarding CPI expressed in the documents. Based on the analysis, the researcher will propose solutions on how to improve Malaysia’s climate change and energy governance. The theory of reflexive governance will be applied to CPI. The concluding remarks will be about whether CPI reflects reflexive governance by demonstrating how the governance process can be the object of shaping outcomes.

Keywords: climate policy integration, mainstreaming, policy coherence, Malaysian energy governance

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Authors: Memory Ranga, Phillip Pretorious

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The South African Government has invested a lot of money in Information Technology Governance (ITG) within the Government departments. The ITG framework was spearheaded by the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA). This led to the development of a governing ITG DPSA framework and later the Government Wide Enterprise Architecture (GWEA) Framework for assisting the departments to implement ITG. In addition to this, the government departments have adopted the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (COBIT) for ITG processes. Despite all these available frameworks, departments fail to fully capitalise and improve the ITG processes mainly as these are too generic and difficult to apply for specific governance needs. There has been less research done to evaluate the progress on ITG initiatives within the government departments. This paper aims to evaluate the existing ITG frameworks within selected government departments in South Africa. A quantitative research approach was used in this study. Data was collected through an online questionnaire targeting ICT Managers and Directors from government departments. The study is undertaken within a case study and only the Eastern Cape Province was selected for the research. Document review mainly on ITG framework and best practices was also used. Data was analysed using the Google Analytic tools and SPSS. A one–sample Chi-Squared Test was used to verity the evaluation findings. Findings show that there is evidence that the current guiding National governance framework (DPSA) is out dated and does not accommodate the new changes in other governance frameworks. The Eastern Cape Government Departments have spent huge amount of money on ITG but not yet able to identify the benefits of the ITG initiatives. The guiding framework is rigid and does to address some of the departmental needs making it difficult to be flexible and apply the DPSA framework. Furthermore, despite the large budget on ITG, the departments still find themselves with many challenges and unable to improve some of the processes and services. All the engaged Eastern Cape departments have adopted the COBIT framework, but none has been conducting COBIT maturity Assessment which is a functionality of COBIT. There is evidence of too many the ITG frameworks and underutilisation of these frameworks. The study provides a comprehensive evaluation of the ITG frameworks that have been adopted by the South African Government Departments in the Eastern Cape Province. The evaluation guides and recommends the government departments to rethink and adopt ITG frameworks that could be customised to accommodate their needs. The adoption and application of ITG by government departments should assist in better governance and service delivery to the citizens.

Keywords: information technology governance, COBIT, evaluate, framework, governance, DPSA framework

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Authors: Roshan Jelal, Charles Mbohwa

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In today’s world, internal fraud remains one of the most challenging problems within companies worldwide and despite investment in controls and attention given to the problem, the instances of internal fraud has not abated. To the contrary it appears that internal fraud is on the rise especially in the wake of the economic downturn. Leadership within companies believes that the more sophisticated the controls employed the less likely it would be for employees to pilfer. This is a very antiquated view as investment in controls may not be enough to curtail internal fraud; however, ensuring that a company drives the correct culture and behaviour within the organisation is likely to yield desired results. This research aims to understand how creating a strong ethical culture and embedding the principle of good corporate governance impacts on levels of internal fraud with an organization (a South African Bank).

Keywords: internal fraud, corporate governance, ethics, reserve bank, the King Code

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Authors: Nadia Degregori

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This paper focuses on Peru’s Environmental Impact Assessment’s communication and participation mechanisms, whose rationale is to prevent conflictive situations by –supposedly- providing high-quality information about mining projects and their impacts to affected stakeholders. It is argued that, in fact, these mechanisms enhance citizens’ feelings of fear and/or mistrust towards mining projects and the companies behind them because their design follows a top-down perspective that limits “participation” to a passive reception of information, and which does not address power unbalances between communities and companies or government. As well, the paper contends that this way of managing the social aspects of Environmental Impact Assessments in Peru leads stakeholders who possess less power (typically communities) to incline towards maintaining the status quo and avoiding negotiations with either the central government or mining companies as a defence mechanism for avoiding a bad negotiation.

Keywords: community relations, environmental impact assessments, governance and participation, mining, Peru

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Authors: Alexandre Beaupré-Lavallée, Pier-André Bouchard St-Amant, Nathalie Beaulac

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The question of internal governance of universities is a political and scientific debate in the province of Quebec (Canada). Governments have called or set up inquiries on the subject on three separate occasions since the complete overhaul of the educational system in the 1960s: the Parent Commission (1967), the Angers Commission (1979) and the Summit on Higher Education (2013). All three produced reports that highlight the constant tug-of-war for authority and legitimacy within universities. Past and current research that cover Quebec universities have studied several aspects regarding internal governance: the structure as a whole or only some parts of it, the importance of certain key aspects such as collegiality or strategic planning, or of stakeholders, such as students or administrators. External governance has also been studied, though, as with internal governance, research so far as only covered well delineated topics like financing policies or overall impacts from wider societal changes such as New Public Management. The latter, NPM, is often brought up as a factor that influenced overall State policies like “steering-at-a-distance” or internal shifts towards “managerialism”. Yet, to the authors’ knowledge, there is not study that specifically maps how the Quebec State formally influences internal governance. In addition, most studies about the Quebec university system are not comparative in nature. This paper presents a portion of the results produced by a 2022- 2023 study that aims at filling these last two gaps in knowledge. Building on existing governmental, institutional, and scientific papers, we documented the legal and regulatory framework of the Quebec university system and of twenty-one other university systems in North America and Europe (2 in Canada, 2 in the USA, 16 in Europe, with the addition of the European Union as a distinct case). This allowed us to map the presence (or absence) of mandatory structures of governance enforced by States, as well as their composition. Then, using Clark’s “triangle of coordination”, we analyzed each system to assess the relative influences of the market, the State and the collegium upon the governance model put in place. Finally, we compared all 21 non-Quebec systems to characterize the province’s policies in an internal perspective. Preliminary findings are twofold. First, when all systems are placed on a continuum ranging from “no State interference in internal governance” to “State-run universities”, Quebec comes in the middle of the pack, albeit with a slight lean towards institutional freedom. When it comes to overall governance (like Boards and Senates), the dual nature of the Quebec system, with its public university and its coopted yet historically private (or ecclesiastic) institutions, in fact mimics the duality of all university systems. Second, however, is the sheer abundance of legal and regulatory mandates from the State that, while not expressly addressing internal governance, seems to require de facto modification of internal governance structure and dynamics to ensure institutional conformity with said mandates. This study is only a fraction of the research that is needed to better understand State-universities interactions regarding governance. We hope it will set the stage for future studies.

Keywords: internal governance, legislation, Quebec, universities

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Authors: Robin Molinier

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Industrial symbiosis (I.S) deals with the exchange of waste materials, fatal energy and utilities as resources for production. While it brings environmental benefits from resource conservation its economic profitability is one of the main barriers to its implementation. I.S involves several actors with their own objectives and resources so that each actor must be satisfied by ex-ante arrangements to commit toward investments and transactions. Regarding I.S Transaction cost economics helps to identify hybrid forms of governance for transactions governance due to I.S projects specificities induced by the need for customization (asset specificity, non-homogeneity). Thus we propose a framework to analyze the best contractual practices tailored to address I.S specific risks that we identified as threefold (load profiles and quality mismatch, value fluctuations). Schemes from cooperative game theory and contracting management are integrated to analyze value flows between actors. Contractual guidelines are then proposed to address the identified risks and to split the value for a set of I.S archetypes drawn from actual experiences.

Keywords: contracts, economics, industrial symbiosis, risks

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Authors: Mahfoudh Hussein Mgammal

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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating and mediating effect of corporate governance mechanisms proxy on the relationship of tax planning measured by effective tax rate components and tax disclosure. This paper tested the hypotheses by a 3-step hierarchical regression with 2010 to 2012 Malaysian-listed nonfinancial firms. We found companies positively value tax-planning activities. This indicates that tax planning is seen as a source of companies' wealth creation as the results show that there is an association between the tax disclosure and the extent of tax planning, and this relationship is highly significant. Examination of the implications of corporate governance mechanisms on the tax disclosure-tax planning association showed the lack of a significant coefficient related to any of the interactive variables. This makes it hard to understand the nature of the association. Finally, we further study the sensitivity of the results, the outcomes were also examined for the robustness and strength of the model specification utilizing OLS-effect estimators and the absence of tax planning related factors (GRTH, LEVE, and CAPNT). The findings of these tests display there is no effect on the tax planning-tax disclosure association. The outcomes of the annual regressions test show that the panel regressions results differ over time because there is a time difference impact on the associations, and the different models are not completely proportionate as a whole. Moreover, our paper lends some support to recent theory on the importance of taxes to corporate governance by demonstrating how the agency costs of tax planning allow certain shareholders to benefit from firm activities at the expense of others.

Keywords: tax disclosure, tax planning, corporate governance, effective tax rate

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Authors: Arnold Sanda Layuk

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Fraud in the disclosure of financial statements by management shows that agency conflict is an important issue in the company. The conflict has consequences for the agency costs that must be borne and has an impact on the firm's performance. The effect of agency costs on firm performance is investigated in this study, as well as whether several variables such as corporate governance mechanisms can positively moderate the agency cost and firm performance relationship. The agency cost is measured by the asset utilization ratio and discretionary expenditure ratio. The firm's performance is represented by the return on equity. Data was collected from the manufacturing companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange from 2015 to 2019, then regressed on the panel data using the panel corrected standard error model (PCSE). According to the findings, agency costs are negatively related to firm performance, which supports previous empirical research findings. It also found that the agency cost and firm performance relationship is significantly moderated by board size and ownership concentration as the representatives of corporate governance mechanisms. It suggests that corporate governance can become tools to reduce agency costs and increase firm performance as well. The empirical evidence adds to previous research on agency conflict, particularly in emerging markets. These findings are expected to supplement previous research and provide additional information to shareholders in order to control opportunistic management decisions that affect their investments and discretionary operational expenses.

Keywords: agency cost, corporate governance, asset utilization ratio, firm performance

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