2018 Volume 7 Issue 2 Pages 111-116
As modern companies are separating ownership from control, they have established various corporate governance systems. However, in recent years, executive fraud has become a major issue which raises a primary question. Will corporate governance work effectively with regard to those at the highest level of management? In this study, I empirically verified whether or not corporate governance effectively regulates executives. The purpose of this study is to investigate the extent of corporate governance effectiveness by focusing on the main actors who committed accounting fraud. A multinomial logistic regression of accounting fraud cases committed in quoted Japanese companies between 2006 and 2015 indicates that increases in executive shareholding percentages actually decrease the numbers of accounting fraud committed by non-executives and increases the number of frauds committed by executives. Furthermore, the findings indicate that increases in shareholding percentages of directors, other than executives and outside directors, decreases the numbers of accounting fraud committed by non-executives. Nonetheless, it still has no effect on fraud committed by executives. This indicates that corporate governance does not equally affect all the main actors. It also shows that its scope of influence is limited, which provides a new perspective on corporate governance based on equity approaches.
