HAS CORPORATE MALAYSIA SHIFTED TO STAKEHOLDER CORPORATE GOVERNANCE?

Although many studies have explored the shift to stakeholder corporate governance in western countries, so far there has been a lack of study, which explores whether corporate Malaysia has shifted to stakeholder corporate governance. Therefore, the main objective of this study is to explore whether corporate Malaysia has shifted to stakeholder corporate governance. Based on 15 interviews with board members of Malaysian listed companies, the analysis of this study was conducted, using thematic analysis through NVivo version 10. Finally, the interpretive approach was adopted as the main worldview of the study. The findings indicated that the practices of board members have shifted to stakeholder corporate governance primarily shareholders, employees, customers and the community. Several factors emerged as determinants of stakeholder corporate governance such as sustainability, values and ethics, corporate attributes, and individual attributes. This study, implicates that, current corporate governance theories such as agency theory and stakeholder theory are inadequate to explain the actual behaviors of board members regarding the practices of stakeholder corporate governance. Therefore, this study proposes a practical theory regarding stakeholder corporate governance based on the actual behaviors of board members.