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Ethics Practices of Malaysian Public Listed

Companies Empirical Evidence

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 Ethics Practices of Malaysian Public Listed Companies
Empirical Evidence

Ahmad Saiful Azlin Puteh Salin* and Zubaidah Ismail**

The Malaysian Code of Corporate Governance (MCCG) was revised for
the third time in 2012. One of the new requirements under this revision is
the need for public listed companies to formalize ethical standards in a
code and ensure its compliance. Based on this, the study attempted to
examine the level of ethics practices disclosure among the companies in
their Annual Report 2013. A disclosure index based on MCCG
requirements was developed to analyse the disclosure. This study found
that a majority of the companies did not have or formalized the code of
ethics in their company. However, those who have a formal code of ethics,
appeared to have a lack of commitment and did not have any systematic
way to promote, support, and ensure compliance with the code.

JEL Codes: M41 and G34

1. Introduction

Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Singapore are among the South East Asian countries that were
seriously shaken by the East Asian financial crisis in 1997. Since that time, these countries
have taken continuous and substantial efforts to enhance their corporate governance
mechanism and practices (Sawicki, 2009; Hamid et al., 2011; Manan et al., 2013). This is
because poor corporate governance was identified to worsen the crisis (Mitton, 2002).
However, although many studies were conducted in the field and discipline of corporate
governance, there are very few studies conducted on developing markets such as the
Malaysian market. This study examines the Malaysian corporate governance mechanism
and its effects on ethics practices.

Besides, recently Malaysia has been plagued with many corporate scandals. Although
much effort has been made by the government to prevent these scandals from occurring,
they still continue. For example, the KPMG Malaysia Fraud Survey Report 2009 revealed
that a total of 61% of the respondents believe fraud in the private sector will continue to
increase in the future. In addition, more than three-quarter of the respondents agree that
financial statement frauds will continue. The survey also reported that the major factors
that contributed to the frauds include poor internal control, collusion with external parties
and unethical practices (KPMG, 2009).

Many studies have been conducted on ethics practices previously. Some ethics studies
have been conducted on the code of business ethics. Gaumnitz and Lere (2004) and
Schwartz (2002) are examples of studies conducted to assess and evaluate the content,
the construction, and the evolution of code of ethics over the years. However, this kind of
research is not so valuable because the effectiveness of the application of the code in
organizations such as the operations of the code, how the code communicates across the
organization, and how it blends with an organizations environment remain questionable
(Helin & Sandstrom (2007).
*Ahmad Saiful Azlin Puteh Salin, Faculty of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, Western Australia, Australia. Email:
saifulazlin@yahoo.com
Faculty of Accountancy, Universiti Teknologi MARA (Perak), Malaysia. Email: ahmad577@perak.uitm.edu.my
** Faculty of Business and Law, Edith Cowan University, Western Australia, Australia. Email: z.ismail@ecu.edu.au

1
Specific attention is also given to the implication of the code of ethics at different levels of
employment and various professions such as manager (Marquardt & Hoeger, 2009),
employees (Kaptein, 2004), and auditor (Dedoulis, 2006).

Many examples of corporate malpractices and mismanagement have indicated that

immoral attitude and behaviour among the employees will contribute to the occurrence of
fraud, financial crime, and financial loss to the company. At worst, the company will
collapse and go into insolvency due to the unprecedented loss and damage of reputation
that cannot be repaired and recovered. The failure of many prominent international
companies such as Enron, Parmalat, Tyco, Polly Peck, HIH Insurance, WorldCom,
Adelphia Communications, Arthur Andersen, Satyam, and many others shows that poor
ethical conduct of its employees, particularly the top management will lead to the
destruction of the company (Sims & Brinkman, 2003). Malaysia also has its own scandals
like Transmile, Megan Media Holdings, MEMS Technology, Fountain View Development,
and FTEC Resources (Salin et al., 2011).

Basically, the employees are collectively responsible for continuous profitability and
sustainability of the company. This can be accomplished if all of the workforce both at the
top and lower levels together responsibly manage and operate the company, have a sense
of accountability in their entire tasks and activities, and uphold moral conduct to the
highest value. However, poor ethics practices will lead to the decline of business activities
and ultimately business performance (Ali & Falcone, 1995).

Based on this premise, the study attempts to examine the level of ethics practices among
the companies listed in the Malaysian stock exchange. This study is important and
significant because it is time for the business players in the business world to adopt good
moral practices in their daily business.

This study will contribute in several ways. Firstly, this study develops an instrument that
reflects the ethical practices of a company. A checklist and measurement will be
developed from MCCG 2012 to determine or capture what are the responsibilities of the
employees towards ethical conduct and ethical practices of a company. The instrument will
be beneficial for the companies and researchers of business ethics to assess the
compliance of the company in relation to the ethical practices of the company in Malaysia.

Secondly, this study will highlight to the relevant regulatory bodies in Malaysia where more
effort is warranted and emphasize more in protecting and preventing the collapse
companies in Malaysia. Briefly, the results from this research will give a sign to these
agencies that they should focus on promoting the right ethical culture and ethical
framework in companies to complement their corporate governance structure.

Thirdly, this study will add to the body of the literature regarding the importance of ethics
and the current ethical practices of a company particularly in the developing countries.
Many prior studies to date have focused on the companies listed in the capital markets in
developed countries.

2. Literature Review
Ethics can be simply described as a concern with right or wrong behaviour. It deals with
what is good and what is bad, moral duty, obligation, moral principles, and values (Duska,
2007). Hosmer (1994) and Luo and Bhattacharya (2006), found that good ethical practices
promote trust between companies and their customers, hence enhances the reputation of
2
these companies (Roberts & Dowling, 2002). Long and Driscoll (2008) argued that a firms
code of ethics leads to its legitimacy in the eyes of the public and help the company to
survive in the business world. When companies incorporate good ethical practices,
companies can satisfy their stakeholders which in turn affect their performance (Chun,
Shin, Choi & Kim, 2013).

Internally, all the efforts taken to implement ethics within an organization will affect the
internal stakeholders such as employees and managers. Baker, Hunt, and Andrews (2006)
suggested that by implementing a code of ethics, job satisfaction among the employees
and their commitment to organizations will increase. Eventually, the employees will have
higher productivity, less absenteeism and low turnover which will increase individual job
performance. When ethical practices are positively associated with internal processes and
involve employees, it will increase corporate performance (Chun et al., 2013). As
suggested by Becker, Huselid, Pickus, and Spratt (1997), good human resource practices
are expected to shape employees attitudes and behaviours properly. Indirectly, this will
influence the operational and financial performance of the organization.

The company also needs to inform all the external stakeholders of the company that the
company is committed to implement good ethical practices by disclosing sufficient
information about those practices in the annual report. These practices are much easier
nowadays due to internet technology that enables businesses to disclose their corporate
information efficiently (Hashim et al., 2014). Healy and Palepu (2001) argued that the
information about a company, irrespective whether it is required to be disclosed under
laws and regulations or not, will reduce information asymmetry and lessen the divergence
between owner (principal) and manager (agent). Empirical findings showed that the
disclosure of positive information is associated with superior accounting quality (Francis,
Nanda & Olsson, 2008), decreases stakeholder concerns and uncertainty (Hirst, Koonce &
Venkataraman, 2007), has stronger market response (Hutton, Miller & Skinner, 2003),
results in cheaper capital cost (Easley & OHara, 2004), and lowers the premium of non-
equity financing (Mazumdar & Sengupta, 2005). In contrast, poor information disclosure
indicates low of quality of accounting (Francis et al., 2008). According to Leuz and
Wysocki (2006), a company with low minimum disclosure of information to the outsiders
may indicate an intention to hide and cover up the companys bad condition and
manipulate the information for its own advantage only.

Theoretical Framework Signalling Theory

Signalling theory is based on the work by Spence (1973). The problem with agent-principal
relationship is the information gap, well known as information asymmetry. The agent
knows more information about the companys operation and management than the
principal because they are involved in day to day business affairs. Hence, to reduce this
problem, agent or managers of a company will provide more and higher quality information
to the external parties. This will portray a good image of the company. Hence, investors
will be interested to invest in the company while the existing owners or shareholders will
increase their current holdings. A lender will provide money to be lent at a discount rate
which will reduce the capital cost of the company. Suppliers and consumers have more
confidence to continue their relationships with the company, thus increasing the sales and
revenue of the company. The government also will not place this company under their
radar for close monitoring which lead to the disappearance of unnecessary regulatory
costs.

3
In the context of this study, some companies may wish to signal their quality by adapting
and implementing good ethics practices in their operation and management. These
practices are then disclosed in the annual report as their commitment to engage in morally
responsible conduct in their daily business transactions. For example, the company will
formalize the code of ethics that bind the work of the employees and top management of
the company. The code, either in full or summary is then disclosed in the annual report.
These disclosures will also highlight to the stakeholders the companys intolerance for any
misconducts and malpractices such as fraud and corruptions.

3. Research Methodology

Data Collection

Content analysis was used to collect the data to examine all the hypotheses of the study.
This type of data collection is common for corporate governance research because data
can be collected in a large quantity from many companies and for several years.
Furthermore, much information about ethics including its changes can be easily examined
through the annual report of the companies. This primary data collection related to ethics
was extracted from the annual reports of companies, which are posted on the Bursa
Malaysias website (http://www.bursamalaysia.com) and are readily downloadable.

Assessment Instrument

To evaluate the disclosure of ethics practices, an index was developed from the MCCG
2012. The information disclosed for the index were measured using a 3-point Likert scale.
2-point score represents beyond level of disclosure (more information), 1-point score
represents a minimum disclosure (as required by MCCG code), while 0-point score
represents no disclosure (no information). Based on this, a formatted checklist was
developed comprising of numerous items. The accumulated score for each item was used
to measure sub-indices and ultimately the index. To avoid subjectivity and bias, all items
were considered as equal in importance, hence they were equal in weight (Barros,
Boubaker & Hamrouni, 2013).

Sample

This study included the biggest 500 companies by market capitalization that were listed
under Bursa Malaysia (formerly known as Kuala Lumpur Stock Exchange) in the year
2013. However, 33 companies from financial and banking institutions industries were
eliminated because this sector is subjected to different laws and regulations and have
different accounting and business treatments. Five (5) companies that were just listed in
the stock exchange were also excluded because the annual reports were not available.
Finally, eight (8) companies that were currently restructured were also eliminated because
they have financial statements that were based on periods of either more or less than 12
months. The final sample used in this study comprised of 454 companies, as in Table 1
below.

Table 1: Sample selections

No of Firms
Base sample (by highest market capitalization at 31 Dec) 500
Elimination:
1. Finance (33)

4
 2. Newly listed company (annual report not available) (5)
3. Company with FYE more/less than 12 months (8)
Final sample 454

The MCCG 2012 was issued by the Securities Commission of Malaysia on March 2012
and applied to all companies with the financial year ending on 31 December 2012
onwards. The current study considers 2012 as the transition year for the company to adopt
the new MCCG 2012. Thus, collecting data for this period will be subjected to bias and
uncontrollable factors. Due to this reason, the study will not collect the data for the
financial year ending in 2012.

4. Findings and Discussion

Table 2 shows the descriptive statistics on the industry of the firms that were selected for
this study. A majority of the firms are operating in trade and services industry (144
companies or 27.3%) followed by industrial product industry (111 companies or 24.4%)
and plantation industry (106 companies or 23.3%). Only a few firms are operating in the
technology industry and mining industry.

Table 2: Firms and Industry of the Sample

Industry Number of Firms

Trade and services 124
Industrial product 111
Plantation 106
Consumer product 65
Construction 32
Technology 15
Mining 1
Total 454

Table 3 shows the main results of this study. There are eight (8) items requiring disclosure
by the company about their ethical practices. These items were developed and modified
from the Recommendation 1.3 under Principle 1 Establish Clear roles and
Responsibilities of MCCG 2012.

Almost half of the sample (217 companies or 47.8%) did not disclose whether the
company has a formal code of ethics or not. The remaining companies (237 companies or
52.2%) clearly stated that they have formal code of ethics or have formalized the code of
ethics, with 152 companies or 33.5% providing further information on the code. This is
considered as unsatisfactory because it indicates that nearly half of the companies operate
without any formal guideline of ethical practices. It is unclear what is the reference used by
the company when it faces ethical issues. These include making a decision that possibly
has the impact on the and behaviour to other people internally and externally, process and
procedures of investigation if the employees are accused of alleged misconducts, and type
of punishment meted out for an employees misbehaviour.

From the 237 companies that have formalized the code of ethics, only 206 companies
made a clear commitment to the code with merely 49 companies stating how or in what
5
ways the companies have committed to the code, such as, understanding the content and
formally sign the formal undertakings to comply with the code. The results indicate that the
company may not be serious enough to implement the ethics practices in the company
and just establish a document without specific power and authority.

Items number 3, 4, and 5 support the results of item 2. Only 22 companies (4.8%) have
indicated that they have implemented a system to support the code and a slightly higher
percentage of companies have a system to promote the code and ensure the compliance
to the code (32 companies or 7.0% each for item 4 and item 5). These findings indicate
that the companies do not have any plan or intention to make ethics practices meaningful
and a part of the business environment in the companies. Having code of ethics without
proper support mechanism will impair the effectiveness of the code. This support can
include dedicated employees who monitor the implementation of the code, goods,
services, money, and other resources that are specifically provided to implement the code.
Likewise, without communication of the code within the company, employees will forget
about the existence of the code and without a mechanism to ensure the code compliance,
employees will have poor perceptions on ethics; for example, may regard violating the
code of ethics as acceptable and tolerable since no action will be taken.

In terms of whistleblowing provision, more than half of the companies (253 companies or
55.7%) do not indicate whether a whistleblowing channel exist or not in their company.
This is quite surprising as whistleblowing is not a new issue. The Malaysian government
had enacted Act 711 of Whistleblower Protection Act in 2010. After four years of
implementation, many companies still do not have a proper and formal mechanism for the
reporting of sensitive information.

After the code is established, it needs to be reviewed so that it will keep pace with the
changes in the business environment. Only 64 companies or 14% of the companies
indicated they re-assess the code. Without a systematic review and evaluation, the code
provision can be outdated and difficult to enforce.

The final item in this checklist is the availability of a summary of the code on the
companys website. Only 116 companies indicated that their code of conduct is available
on their website with 71 companies giving a specific link or address for the code in their
website. Making the code available to the public is important because it will show the
transparency of the company and show their commitment to have a noble conduct in the
workplace. As described by Signalling Theory, this positive information will benefit the
company greatly in the long term.

6
 Table 3: Companys Score on Ethics Practices Items

No. Disclosure items No Meet Beyond

disclosure disclosure disclosure
Frq. % Frq. % Frq. %
1. Formalize the code (for the 217 47.8 85 18.7 152 33.5
company/general)
2. Commit to code 248 54.6 157 34.6 49 10.8
3. Implement system to support 432 95.2 11 2.4 11 2.4
code
4. Implement system to promote 422 93.0 18 4.0 14 3.0
code
5. Implement system to ensure code 422 93.0 12 2.6 20 4.4
compliance
6. Establish whistleblowing 253 55.7 141 31.1 60 13.2
channel/provision
7. Periodically review the code 390 86.0 32 7.0 32 7.0
8. Summary of code available on the 338 74.4 45 10.0 71 15.6
website

Table 4 shows the score of the items among the companies in relation to ethics practices.
Based on the table, it is clear that only eight companies managed to score more than 10
out of 16 which are very disappointing results. This indicates that majority of the company
do not foresee the importance of ethical practices and disclosing these items in the annual
report. This is supported by the findings that showed 83 companies do not have any
ethical practices at all which accounted for 18% of the total sample.

Table 4: Total Scores for disclosure

Score Number of companies

>10 8
10 4
9 4
8 11
7 13
6 23
5 42
4 52
3 63
2 76
1 75
0 83
Total 454

Table 5 shows that only 12 companies (2.6%) managed to score minimum ten (10) marks
in this study. It was led by a business conglomerate Sime Darby which is involved in
various business sectors such as plantation, industrial, motors, property, energy, and
utilities. It is one of the largest companies in Malaysia with a market capitalization more
7
than USD15 billion and has been operating in more than 20 countries. This is the possible
reason why the company has emphasized good ethical practices. As a multinational
business player, this company needs to keep up with the international trend that places
sustainability and ethics as a part of the business operation. This is indicated on their
website (Figure 1), where all ethics and governance related documents such as Business
Principles, Code of Business Conducts, Corporate Child Protection Policy, Conflict of
Interest, and Whistleblowing are easily accessible with links provided on the main page.

Table 5 also shows that all companies with a higher score are basically large multinational
and diversified companies that have been operating in multiple countries. This indicates
that exposure of business in many countries can influence the companies to adopt good
ethical practices, especially companies which have been operating in more developed
countries. Two companies, Shell Refining and British American Tobacco are originally
from developed countries, so it is not surprising for these companies to have a higher
score.

Table 5: Companies with score 10 and higher

Rank Company Score

1. Sime Darby Bhd 13
2. Kulim (M) Berhad 12
2. Shell Refining Company 12
3. British American Tobacco 11
3. ECS ICT 11
3. Felda Global Ventures Holdings 11
3. Telekom Malaysia / TM 11
3. Top Glove Corp 11
4. CCM Duopharma 10
4. Chemical of Malaysia Co 10
4. Malaysian Airline 10
4. Maxis 10

8
 Figure 1: Main Page of Sime Darby Website (extract)

5. Summary and Conclusions

The purpose of this study was to examine the level of ethics practices among Malaysian
companies in their Annual Report 2013. It was found that the majority of the company do
not have code of ethics in their company. However, those who have a formal code of
ethics showed a lack of commitment and did not have any systematic way to promote,
support, and ensure the compliance with the code. These poor results showed that
business players in Malaysia mainly do not have the interest to introduce and maintain
good ethics practices in their transactions and day to day business activities. This may be
the reason why the respondents of the KPMG fraud survey indicated that fraud, bribery,
and corruptions is a major business problem in Malaysia and a majority of them believe
that business cant be done in Malaysia without paying bribes (KPMG, 2013).

This research has a few limitations that can be used as an extension in future research.
Firstly, it concentrated mainly on Malaysian public listed companies. Thus, the results from
this study may not be generalized to non-listed companies and other countries which have
different political, cultural, and economic factors. Future studies should extend the samples
by including many countries i.e. ASEAN countries so that comparisons can be conducted.
Secondly, data were collected for only one (1) year; i.e. 2013. A longer period of study
such as five (5) years of data analysis may give more accurate results. Thirdly, the
disclosure items selected for ethics practices were solely based on MCCG 2012.
Therefore, other factors or variables may be excluded from this study. Future research
should incorporate international best practices such as Organisation for Economic Co-
operation and Development (OECD), International Corporate Governance Network
(ICGN), Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) report, and many others.

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