Culture and Corporate Governance Statement Disclosure

This study examines the influence of culture on Corporate Governance Statement disclosure in the annual reports of the major airline companies in Malaysia and Australia. The cultural research of Hofstede (1980) and the accounting value dimensions of Gray (1988) imply that Malaysian Airlines, from a large power distance country, will disclose less Corporate Governance Statement information in their annual report than Qantas Airlines, from a small power distance country. The results obtained from a comparison of the differences showed Malaysian Airlines disclosing more pieces of additional information in certain areas than Qantas Airlines and vice versa. However, the net result was that Qantas Airlines provided more pieces of additional information than Malaysia Airlines. This result supports Hofstede (1980) and Gray (1988). The implication for regulators of both countries is that while these culturally different countries do not disclose completely identical information they both suggest fruitful areas of additional corporate governance disclosure. Acknowledgements: The authors gratefully appreciate the helpful comments of the sessions moderator and participants at the International Conference on Corporate Governance and Reporting, Malaysia (2004) on an earlier draft of the paper.