Thailand's currency crisis set off a national and regional economic meltdown in the closing years of the twentieth century. Written by Thai economists, this book gives a progress report on good corporate governance practices in listed non-financial companies, financial institutions, state-owned enterprises, and non-listed companies in Thailand.
This book provides an understanding of corporate governance in the context of Thailand. It explains the background and scope of corporate governance in Thailand before and after the Asian financial crisis, and details the roles of the relevant agencies and the key elements of corporate governance for listed companies. The author reviews the assessments made by both local and international organizations and concludes by looking at the challenges ahead and offering policy recommendations for raising the level of corporate governance in Thailand.
November 1998 Weaknesses in corporate governance and the fragile financial structure of many corporations contributed to, and deepened Thailand's recent financial crisis. Large corporations need to reduce their vulnerability to economic shocks and improve corporate governance; smaller firms should achieve a more stable funding structure. Alba, Claessens, and Djankov assess Thailand's policy options for reducing large corporations' vulnerability to economic shocks and improving their corporate governance - and for providing smaller firms a more stable funding structure. Using data for firms listed on Thailand's stock exchange, they empirically assess the relative importance of various factors determining the cost of capital, the availability of financing, and policies and distortions that affect corporate governance in nonfinancial firms. The empirical findings highlight weaknesses in corporate governance and the inherent risks in Thailand's corporate financing structures. They conclude that the most important ask in improving the structure of corporate financing and the framework for corporate governance is to change incentives. This will involve: * Accelerating legal reform, including reform of bankruptcy and foreclosure laws. * Improving bank monitoring of enterprise management and encouraging banks to develop more arm's-length relationships with firms. This will require greater transparency and disclosure of ownership relationships and stricter enforcement of insider and related lending limits, violation of which contributed poor intermediation and the recent crisis. * Improving disclosure and accounting practices. Self-regulatory agencies may need to play more of a role, possibly with more legal power to discipline violators. * Better enforcement of corporate governance rules. The formal structure for corporate governance is standard but enforcement is weak. * Facilitation of equity infusions. Investors - especially minority shareholders - may need to play a more direct role in monitoring and disciplining managers. To attract new infusions of equity, new equity owners may need more-than-proportional representation on the board of directors until other investor protection mechanisms are strengthened. * Improving the framework for corporate governance. A broad public discussion of corporate governance, similar to recent discussions in the United Kingdom and elsewhere, may be needed to clarify the distribution of control in the economy's real sector. * Strengthening institutions responsible for gathering and analyzing data on firms of all sizes and for monitoring firm performance and behavior. This paper-a product of the Economic Policy Unit, Finance, Private Sector, and Infrastructure Network-is part of a larger effort in the network to study the performance and financing structures of East Asian corporations.
In the decade following the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998, the management of organizations in Thailand has undergone significant change and development. The Changing Face of Management in Thailand examines in-depth the development of management during this pivotal period in the country’s recent history. The book draws together an impressive assortment of scholars, consultants and practitioners, whose experience and expertise significantly enhance our knowledge and understanding of this complex, multi-faceted Asian economy. The book is divided into 3 main sections: an examination of the political, economic, social and technological changes from 1997-2008 specialist chapters that contextualise these developments from the marketing, HR and finance perspectives concluding sections focusing on public sector organizations, women managers, corporate governance, e-communication and the ‘Thailand Brand’. With a wealth of vignettes, anecdotes and illustrative quotations bringing each chapter to life, this volume offers a refreshing, updated and in-depth analysis of this rich, diverse and fascinating nation.
This study investigates the relationship between information flow and corporate governance of Thai listed company during 2000-2007. The study uses corporate governance indices which capture major aspects of corporate governance that are board structure, conflict of interest, board responsibility, shareholder rights, and disclosure and transparency. The measurement of private information flow will use firm-specific return variation and Probability of information based trading (PIN) as alternatives of information flow. The results show that corporate governance is negatively related with private information flow. Strong corporate governance reduces private information flow relative to the public information. The better corporate governance will alleviate information based trading and reduce informational asymmetries. Moreover, this study indicates that board structure, conflict of interest , board responsibility are the sub-indices of corporate governance that have a negative relationship with private information flow while the rest sub-indices are not influence with information flow.
