This paper examines audit delay in Malaysian public listed companies, following the implementation of the Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance in 2000. It departs from the standard audit report delay studies by incorporating characteristics of board of directors and audit committee. Multivariate analysis using 628 annual reports for year ended 2002 indicates that active and larger audit committee shortens audit delay. However, audit committee independence and expertise are not associated with the timeliness of audit report.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1695085_code327785.pdf?abstractid=1695085&mirid=1&type=2

Corporate Governance and Audit Report Lag in Malaysia

The aim of this paper is to examine the linkages “corporate characteristics”, “governance attributes” and the “extent of voluntary disclosure” in Bangladesh. The paper is based on a sample of 120 listed non-financial companies in Dhaka Stock Exchanges (DSE) in 2007. The study used ordinary least squares regression model to examine the relationship between explanatory variables and voluntary disclosure. Using an unweighted relative disclosure index for measuring voluntary disclosure, the empirical results indicate that a positive association between board size and voluntary disclosure, board leadership structure and voluntary disclosure and between board audit committee and voluntary disclosure. In contrast, the extent of voluntary disclosure is negatively related to proportion of INDs, ownership structure and net profitability.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID2568480_code2356817.pdf?abstractid=2568480&mirid=1

Corporate Characteristics, Governance Attributes and the Extent of Voluntary Disclosure in Bangladesh

/pdf/the-impact-of-audit-committee-characteristics-on-corporate-4hi3wxs9b3.pdf

The Impact of Audit Committee Characteristics on Corporate Voluntary Disclosure

This paper examines audit report lag in Malaysian public listed companies, following the implementation of the Malaysian Code on Corporate Governance in 2001. It departs from the standard audit report lag studies by incorporating characteristics of the board of directors and the audit committee. Multivariate analysis using 628 annual reports for the year ended 2002 indicates that active and larger audit committees shorten audit lag. However, we fail to find evidence that audit committee independence and expertise are associated with the timeliness of the audit report.

http://web.usm.my/journal/aamjaf/vol 6-2-2010/6-2-4.pdf

Corporate governance and audit report lag in malaysia

Purpose




The purpose of this paper is to analyze the extent to which sustainability reporting by banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is affected by the attributes of audit committees.




Design/methodology/approach




The research is positivist and quantitative, based on a cross-sectional and time series analysis of 59 banks from 2013 to 2017. A multivariate model is used to investigate the impact of selected audit committee attributes (financial expertise, size, members’ independence and meeting frequency) on sustainability reporting. The model is built on agency, legitimacy, resources and stakeholders theories.




Findings




In contrast to the hypothesis, the authors report a negative association between financial expertise and sustainability reporting. Members’ independence and meeting frequency play a positive role in determining the extent of disclosure. The control variables (bank size, age and auditor type) are positively associated with corporate sustainability reporting.




Research limitations/implications




The main limitations of this study are related to the chosen attributes of audit committee and do not consider the board’s attributes. However, the authors believe these limitations do not affect the findings. Future research that includes more attributes when they became available will offer more insights into the role of audit committees on sustainability disclosure of financial institutions. Overcoming these limitations may make the results more generalizable.




Practical implications




The results of this study have important implications for regulators, bank management, investors and creditors. For regulators, in the countries of the GCC and in countries like them, the findings reveal the importance of disclosure requirements. The development of disclosure requirements is likely to improve corporate sustainability reporting and reduce variations in the extent of disclosure among banks. Banks could use these results to improve their reporting to outsiders. For creditors and investors, the study improves their awareness of the importance of corporate social responsibility, corporate governance and environmental information on credit and investment decisions and encourages banks to improve their disclosures of non-financial information.




Originality/value




This research makes a contribution to the scarce literature on sustainability reporting by banks, especially in an environment where capital markets lack active institutional investors, where regulators play the dominant role in determining the extent of disclosure and where banks are the main source of external finance for the corporate sector.

The role of audit committee attributes in corporate sustainability reporting: Evidence from banks in the Gulf Cooperation Council

This paper empirically examines specific characteristics of an audit committee that could be associated with the likelihood of earlier voluntary ethics disclosure. The sample includes firms that were investigated by the Securities Exchange Commission for fraudulent financial reporting before the Sarbanes–Oxley Act's ethics rule became effective, and their matched no-fraud firms. This study finds that the level of voluntary ethics disclosure was very low compared to the current mandatory disclosure. Results based on a logit regression analysis suggest that firms which made earlier voluntary ethics disclosure were likely to have a larger and more independent audit committee that met more often, and were less likely to engage in fraudulent financial reporting. These results should help policy-makers, investors and boards of directors focus on these audit committee characteristics, which could be crucial not only to ethics disclosure, but also to the ethical conduct of a firm. In particular, results regarding size and meeting frequency highlight how to further improve the effectiveness of an audit committee and the quality of an ethics code not only in the United States, but also in other countries. These characteristics may also indicate a firm's propensity to make any voluntary disclosures, and may help to explain the differential quality of current mandatory ethics codes in the United States. Additionally, these results should be useful to global investors who desire to use corporate governance criteria for screening stock investments in countries where there are no ethics-code requirements.

Audit committee characteristics and earlier voluntary ethics disclosure among fraud and no-fraud firms

This study examines voluntary ethics disclosure among public companies that were investigated by the Securities Exchange Commission for fraudulent financial reporting, and whose first year of fraud was before the effective date of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act (SOX) and the New York Stock Exchange's (NYSE) ethics rule. The research question is that of whether investors could assess the likelihood of a firm's involvement in fraudulent financial reporting by reading its publicly available reports for voluntary ethics disclosure. The extent of ethics disclosure was measured by 18 aspects using a point system. The sample includes 111 fraud firms and 111 matched no-fraud firms. The three important findings are as follows. First, only 11.7 per cent of fraud firms and 19.8 per cent of no-fraud firms had ethics disclosure in their proxy statements and/or 10-K reports in the first year of fraud. Second, the extent of ethics disclosure was lower among fraud firms than no-fraud firms. Third, ethics disclosure was negatively related to the likelihood of fraudulent financial reporting based on a logit regression analysis that controls for five explanatory variables. These findings suggest that investors could use the extent of voluntary ethics disclosure to assess fraud likelihood. Therefore, these findings support the requirement of the SOX and the NYSE that listed firms must disclose their code of ethics. Given that many countries currently do not require ethics code and disclosure, two major implications are that (1) global investors could use the extent of voluntary ethics disclosure as a screening criterion for stock investments in these countries, and (2) policy makers in these countries may want to consider requiring their public companies to adopt and disclose an ethics code.

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057%2Fjdg.2009.24.pdf

Obeua S Persons

Papers

Audit committee characteristics and earlier voluntary ethics disclosure among fraud and no-fraud firms

Could investors use voluntary ethics disclosure to assess the likelihood of fraudulent financial reporting