This thesis focuses on compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements in Malaysia. There are four objectives that this study attempts to achieve, namely: (1) to ascertain whether present regulatory enforcement is effective in curbing non-compliance with IFRS in Malaysia; (2) to determine whether corporate ownership structure, culture and corporate governance attributes have a significant influence on the extent of compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements; (3) to identify the factors of (non-) compliance with IFRS from the perceptions of preparers and auditors; and (4) to explore the reasons why an unqualified audit report was issued despite non-compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements. This study employs a mixed methods approach to achieve the stated objectives, where annual reports of 225 Malaysian listed companies are examined and interviews with regulators, preparers and auditors are conducted. The following findings are documented in this study. Although compliance with accounting standards is mandated by law, this study demonstrates that no Malaysian company has fully complied with IFRS disclosure requirements. Similarly, the companies examined still receive unqualified audit reports despite significant non-compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements. This study argues that merely mandating compliance with accounting standards by law does not result in full compliance with accounting standards if sufficient or stringent enforcement is not in place. The Malaysian economy is dominated by family-owned companies and government-owned companies; however, this study finds that there was not enough evidence to support the influence of these ownership types on the extent of compliance with mandatory disclosure requirements. Despite the importance of corporate governance mechanisms in enhancing financial reporting quality, this study finds that only board meeting, audit committee size and audit committee expertise are significantly associated with the extent of compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements. However, the association direction for audit committee expertise is puzzling, because the negative coefficient suggests that mandatory disclosure decreases with the presence of audit committee experts. This study also provides evidence that culture (ethnicity) has a significant influence on the extent of compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements. This study also contributes to the extant literature by documenting the factors of (non-) compliance with IFRS from the perceptions of preparers and auditors. These factors are the attitude of top management, problems with accounting standards, lack of enforcement, passive investors, materiality, accountants’ attitude, undeveloped capital markets and political excuse. These (non-)compliance factors in fact cannot be revealed by statistical analysis. This study finds that materiality and true and fair view are the two reasons suggested by interviewees that can explain why unqualified audit opinion was expressed despite non-compliance with IFRS. Nevertheless, this study argues that materiality and true and fair view override might also be used (or misused) as an excuse by auditors for not qualifying audit reports in the case of significant non-compliance with IFRS disclosure requirements, given the subjective and vague concept of both materiality and true and fair view.

This dissertation reports an investigation of the relationship between board strategic management functions and organizational performance. This dissertation provides a framework for understanding the influence of boards of directors in decision making, planning, control and operation, and financial performance of the firms. Based on the conceptual framework, it is argued that an effective board of directors will have a positive relationship with performance. Four hypotheses stemming from the conceptual framework were used to relate boards' strategic management functions and organizational performance. The research was conducted in Malaysia, and the organizations used for the study were public enterprises. Forty-two firms in three industries of the manufacturing sector were selected for the study. These firms were building materials, food, and wood-based. industries. Boards' strategic management functions, the independent variables, consisted of the boards’ role in decision making, planning, control, and board operation. Organizational performance, the dependent variable, was operationalized by using financial indicators: return on assets, profit margin, average rate of growth in profit, average rate of growth in assets, and average rate of growth in sales. Correlation, multiple regression, and t-test analyses were used to confirm or reject the four research hypotheses. Besides these analyses, the dissertation provided information on the profile of the boards of directors of the three industries in six different areas: size, age, occupation, educational level, specialization, and business experience of the directors. The findings showed that there was no consistent pattern in the relationship between board strategic management functions and organizational performance for all the three industries. The data analysis failed to support the conceptual framework which indicated that there should be a positive relationship between an effective board and organizational performance. The results of the dissertation were discussed with respect to major findings and significance to management theory and practice. The dissertation concluded with a discussion on the limitations of the study and suggestions for future research. / Ph. D.

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