Rahimah Mohamed Yunos¹ and Syahrul Ahmar Ahmad¹
Malcolm Smith² and Zubaidah Ismail^2
1Faculty of Accountancy,
Universiti Teknologi MARA, Johor, Malaysia
²School of Accounting, Finance and Economics
Edith Cowan University, Perth Australia

The purpose of this paper is to examine the ability of the board of directors in mitigating the influence of controlling shareholders on accounting conservatism. A panel data analysis of financial statements is conducted for 300 Malaysian listed firms between 2001 and 2007. The results show that substantial shareholders are associated with low conservatism and board of director’s inability to mitigate the adverse association. The results provide a useful input to the Malaysian policy setter that emphasizing on the structure of the board of directors in Malaysian firms may not be a solution to better governance, with the presence of substantial shareholders. This paper measures empirically the effectiveness of the Malaysian board of directors in moderating the effect of substantial shareholders on accounting conservatism.

Keywords: Malaysia, Financial reporting, Boards of directors, Conservatism