Corporate governance and company boardroom consideration in Malaysia: Triple-Bottom Line insights

Attempts to test the impact of different boardroom characteristics relative to Triple-Bottom Line (TBL) performance in Malaysia has been limited. This study will offer such insights using a relatively new dataset from the Asian Sustainability Rating Index 2009. Using correlation tools, the study found no relationship between board characteristics and TBL performance, thus, this suggests that alternative control mechanisms should be created to steer the board´s decision to maximize the interest of stakeholders. It showed that the board´s incentive to maximize TBL performance is still lacking as compared to financial performance. The implications from the results are: companies can improvise the existing metrics of evaluating good governance from the non-financial stakeholder perspective in Asian Sustainability Rating Index and the control mechanisms can benefit Malaysia or any developing countries in the improvement of sustainability rating such as FTSE4good that has been established in the United Kingdom. Lastly, the findings offer additional information relating to TBL scenario in a different quality of board governance to interested parties by providing empirical support from the Asian perspective relating to TBL scenario in different corporate governance environment.