ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the diverse approaches to corporate governance practised in the Asia Pacific countries. The special qualities of the relationship-based approach to corporate governance are considered and the pervasiveness of family-owned businesses, embedded in business networks. The traditionally informal and often weak corporate governance mechanisms of this region are examined, where boards lack authority, and financial institutions fail to monitor. Despite the evident weaknesses in corporate governance, this region maintained the fastest economic growth, until the East Asian systemic financial crisis hit in 1997, and the lessons of the crisis for corporate governance reform are studied. The distinctive corporate governance systems of the giant economies of Japan, China and India are examined and the extensive transformations that are taking place in each of those countries. The impact of the global financial crisis upon the Asia Pacific is considered along with the continuing reverberations of financial instability which exist in China. Finally, the extensive development of corporate governance codes of practice throughout the Asia Pacific is considered as are the continuing efforts towards more durable reforms, together with the development of new modes of corporate governance and strategy in the Asia Pacific which are increasingly effective in competing with Western corporations.
