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The purchase of non-audit services from incumbent auditors has generated considerable attention. This study aims to examine the relationship between characteristics of non-audit services, namely, the recurrence and types of services, and accruals quality in Malaysia.

This study analyzed hand-collected audit and non-audit fees of 1,117 observations from Malaysian firms from 2009 to 2011. This study used descriptive analysis, univariate tests and multivariate regression to investigate the potential effect of non-audit services on accruals quality.

Non-audit services are associated with lower accruals quality. Recurring and non-recurring non-audit service fees are detrimental to the quality of accruals, as are all types of recurring non-audit services. Only non-recurring audit-related services decrease accruals quality. The results demonstrate that provisions of non-audit services create economic bonding, and thus a threat to auditor independence. Results remain robust with the inclusion of corporate governance and institutional variables.

The sample period might represent a limitation as it only covers three years of data. This limitation is mainly because of the nature of data collection of the non-audit services fees.

The findings could suggest a refinement on the Malaysian Institute of Accountants (MIA) by-laws focusing on auditor independence, and it could assist other regulative bodies such as the Securities Commission, the stock exchange (Bursa Malaysia) in ensuring better governance on the provision of non-audit services.

This study is the first that provides evidence on the relationship between non-audit services, types, and recurring and non-recurring non-audit services and accruals quality in Malaysia.

The purpose of this paper is to study the impact of institutional shareholdings on earnings management activities of their portfolio firms.

Using a final sample of 94 top firms on the Bursa Malaysia based on market capitalization as at 31 December 2007, this paper uses the magnitude of discretionary accruals as the proxy for earnings management. The paper measures the aggregate institutional ownership percentage of shareholdings of the five top institutional investors which are further divided into two categories: pressure sensitive consisting of percentage ownership by banks and insurance companies; and pressure insensitive institutional investor consisting of percentage shareholdings by unit trusts, pension funds and state‐owned institutions. Data were collected over a six‐year period from 2002 to 2007. The year it started was also when all the listed companies in Bursa Malaysia started adopting the MCCG requirements as mandatory reporting in annual reports.

The results show that only Malaysia Shareholders Watchdog Group (MSWG) institutional shareholdings are effective in mitigating self‐serving earnings management behavior of their portfolio firms. Within MSWG shareholdings, Permodalan National Berhad (PNB) is the most effective institutional shareholder in mitigating opportunistic earnings management behavior. Overall, the findings suggest that ownership may not be enough to mitigate earnings management. Firms may have to engage in shareholder activism such as through proxy voting and establishing direct dialogues with management in order to preserve the value of their investments.

One of the limitations in this study is measurement error which is a critical problem for studies on earnings management. Hence, this study inherits all the limitations of the Jones model although it is noted that it and the modified Jones model are extensively used in earnings management literature. Overall, this study provides empirical evidence to assess the merits of calls for institutional investors to play a greater role in portfolio firms' corporate governance practice in Malaysia. In essence, the results from the study provide evidence that ownership alone is not enough and institutional investors need to be involved in shareholder activism in order to be effective as an external monitor. In other words, by engaging in shareholder activism, institutional investors would be better able to safeguard the value of their investment. Moreover, the size of their shareholdings should provide powerful incentive for them to monitor their investee firms.

This is the first published paper that focuses on institutional investors and earnings management in Malaysia, as previous studies have focused more on developed countries. This study aims to provide empirical evidence on the effectiveness of institutional investors in mitigating opportunistic earnings management, in order to ascertain their generalizability to developing countries like Malaysia.

This paper aims to study the elements of social protection, namely, the labour market policy (working conditions), social insurance and social assistance from the law and policy standpoints to safeguard the rights and welfare of the frontline health-care workers (HCWs).

This study applies both doctrinal and non-doctrinal research methods with the legal and authoritative approaches by integrating the three elements of social protections, which are working conditions, insurance protection and social assistance for the protection of HCWs.

A pragmatic approach to the social protection system by integrating these elements can safeguard the rights and welfare of the frontline HCWs amid the pandemic. This approach should be made effective for the sustainability of the HCW and health industry in Malaysia.

This paper highlights the significance of initiating and empowering ad hoc approaches through the social protection system for the practical and effective protection of frontline HCWs who are the backbone of the nation, in the event of pandemic COVID-19. These practical needs and approaches are pivotal in response to HCWs demands in workplace.

While social protection commonly aims to address disadvantaged groups and to combat poverty, this research adopts the social protection approach with the aims to safeguard the rights and welfare of frontline HCWs amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper aims to fill the noticeably fragmented zakat literature repertoire by empirically exploring stakeholders’ views toward zakat management performance issues based on a selected zakat institution (ZI) operating on a corporatized platform with corporate administrative style.

A quantitative approach using a questionnaire survey distributed to Muslims in the State which ZI is operating was adopted. A total of 448 usable responses are used in the analysis covering descriptive and mean difference.

The results indicate that managerial reform configuration in terms of corporatization has been viewed positively by stakeholders, translated into a comforting agreement score toward ZI’s improved management performance (collection, disbursement and reporting). Such perceptions are, however, observably sensitive to demographic factors of gender and employment type. The survey also document evidence that the corporatization exercise itself had improved respondents’ confidence toward ZI being the zakat administrator in the State.

The research contributes to the public policy debate with respect to corporatized ZI’s management performance from the stakeholders’ perspective. The results are arguably informative at various levels, forming a basis for reality check and policy inputs for various stakeholders, including (but not limited to) the ZI itself, zakat payers and asnafs, particularly in designing relevant and necessary administrative strategies and relevant policy formulation in addressing the performance and accountability issues in ZIs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether political connections further impair auditor independence by investigating the relationship between non-audit fees and audit fees and as to whether political connections moderate such relationship.

This study employs panel regression analysis. The panel data set consists of 379 firm-year observations for three years from year 2001 to 2003.

Based on 379 firm-year observations for the period of 2001-2003, grounded on two proxies of political connections namely politically connected firms and the proportion of Bumiputras directors, the authors find a positive and significant relationship between non-audit fees and audit fees, and the relationship becomes weaker, only for Bumiputra-dominated firms connected firms.

This study contributes to the extant literature by examining the role of political connections in the context of auditor independence. In addition, this study is conducted in Malaysia, which provides a unique institutional environment with the existence of political connections that is built on ethnic grounds.

The purpose of this study is to analyse the characteristics of all the referrals to the forensic MHIDD service over the past five years and to compare these characteristics to the cohort of service users attending the three general MHID services based in Dublin which are Service 1, Service 2 and Service 3.

This is a cross-sectional study of adults attending the three generic MHID services and the national forensic MHIDD service. The medical files of service users attending the MHID services were reviewed, and data such as age, gender, level of intellectual disability and psychiatric diagnoses were extracted and compiled into a database. The forensic MHIDD service has since its inception maintained a database of all referrals received and reviewed. The characteristics data needed were extracted from the forensic MHIDD database. All these data were then analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS).

The majority of the three MHID service users were in the moderate to profound range of intellectual disability, while the majority of the cases assessed by forensic MHIDD had normal IQ, borderline IQ and mild intellectual disability with 66.1%. The prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorder, schizophrenia and emotionally unstable personality disorder in the forensic MHIDD is comparable to the three MHID services. The prevalence of depression, bipolar affective disorder (BPAD), anxiety disorder and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is higher in the three MHID services than in the forensic MHIDD service.

The FHMIDD received referrals at a greater level of overall ability, with two-thirds of the service users having mild intellectual disability to normal IQ. The prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorder such as ASD and schizophrenia is comparable between the forensic MHIDD and the three MHID services. There is a higher prevalence of depression, BPAD, anxiety disorder and OCD in the three MHID services as compared to the forensic MHIDD service.

This paper aims to examine the relationship between board diversity and total directors’ remuneration in Malaysia. The authors have operationalised two variables to represent board diversity: the proportion of women directors on the board, to present gender diversity and the proportion of Bumiputras directors, to represent ethnic diversity.

This study has used a panel least squares to test the relationship between board diversity and total directors’ remuneration.

Based on a 1,094 firm-year sample from 2007 to 2009, the authors found a positive and significant relationship between gender-diverse boards and remuneration, but a negative and significant relationship between ethnically diverse boards and remuneration. The interaction between gender and ethnically diverse boards results in a weaker negative relationship between ethnically diverse boards and remuneration with an increased presence of women directors. Finally, the authors found a positive and significant impact on remuneration when there are at least three women and three Bumiputras directors. The findings are robust after controlling for corporate governance variables, institutional variables and firm characteristics.

The main implication of this finding is the positive effect of firms hiring more women in top management roles on remuneration. In addition, the negative effect of Bumiputras suggests that their role is to offer political expedience to the board and thus provide economies of scale through their status to the country.

This study tests the effect of both gender and ethnicity simultaneously on directors’ remuneration.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the efficiency of the banking sector in Qatar. The paper utilizes 15 banks comprising Islamic, conventional and foreign banks for the duration of 2007 to 2011.

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) technique is applied to compute technical efficiency, pure technical efficiency and scale efficiency. Also, Malmquist productivity index (MPI) is used to identify the sources of productive efficiencies of the banks.

The results suggest that Qatari banks are operating below optimum performance and thus there is still room for improvement. While conventional banks are the most efficient in Qatar in terms of technical and pure technical efficiencies, Islamic banks are most efficient in terms of scale efficiency. Besides, pure technical inefficiency dominated scale inefficiency in the Qatari banking sector. Moreover, as compared to the Islamic banks, conventional and foreign banks recorded a reduction in average technical efficiency during the duration of the 2008/2009 global financial crisis. In terms of productivity progress, all the Qatari banks were experiencing a decline in productivity mainly attributed to less technological innovation in the banking sector of Qatar.

Most of the banks in Qatar do not have published data before 2007 and after 2011.

There is less technological innovation in the banking sector of Qatar. Hence, bank managers in Qatar should focus on educating customers about modern banking technologies and other innovative banking services in Qatar.

This study is a pioneering effort in the application of DEA and MPI to study about the banking sector in Qatar.

This chapter investigates the relationship between related party transactions (RPTs), corporate governance, and firm performance. Specifically, this chapters examines the moderating effect of corporate governance on the RPTs–performance relationship. On the basis of 448 firm-year sample for 2005–2007, we find evidence that related transactions are detrimental to shareholders and thus reducing firm performance. However, the negative effect is mitigated with the presence of good governance, namely level of board independence and executive remuneration. Furthermore, we find auditor size as an external governance mechanism could also reduce the negative impact of RPTs.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of family directors and independent directors on executive remuneration of listed family firms in Malaysia, and their involvement in remuneration committee on executive remuneration.

Fixed effect estimation is employed to examine 1,395 firm-year observations from 2010 to 2014.

Family and independent directors do not have statistically significant influence on executive remuneration. Rather, family ownership exerts a significant positive influence on executive remuneration. This study also reveals that the interaction of family CEOs with the family directors on remuneration committee exerts a significant positive influence on executive remuneration.

The measurement of executive remuneration excludes the share options due to the non-disclosure of this information in the annual reports.

The findings would be useful to the policy-makers and regulators in appraising the governance measures of remuneration arrangement.

This study premises on the Type II agency conflict between controlling shareholders and minority shareholders. Independent directors could not mitigate the Type II agency conflict via the governance of executive remuneration. They are not the effective governance mechanism that the minority shareholders can rely on. The additional analyses provide theoretical implication that the pervasive Type II agency conflict is ameliorated when the CEOs do not have family relationships with the controlling family shareholders.