Board of Director's Attributes as Deterrence to Corporate Fraud

Good corporate governance serves a great shield for the company to counter corporate fraud. Several attributes create good corporate governance and one of them is the board of directors. This paper examines the influence of board size, board meeting and board duality in deterring corporate fraud on 99 fraudulent companies listed under the Malaysian Securities Commission enforcement action for criminal prosecution or civil action regarding corporate fraud. These companies are then matched with another 99 non-fraudulent public listed companies in Bursa Malaysia. This study covered a period of ten (10) years, from the year 2000 until 2010. The panel data of ten (10) years was used to provide a stronger suggestion of causality via natural examination and subsequently, would provide better evidence from the analysis of board of director's attributes. Binary logistic regression analysis is used to analyse the data obtained. The result shows that there is a significant influence between the frequency of board meetings and corporate fraud. However, there is no significant influence between board size and board duality toward corporate fraud. This study concluded that in Malaysia the frequency of board meetings can be used as a method to deter corporate fraud. The findings will contribute to enhance the existing corporate governance policy in Malaysia to foster the achievement of zero corporate fraud.