Governance of director and executive remuneration in leading firms of Australia

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to examine how the introduction of state regulation and self-regulation impacts on the disclosure of director and executive remuneration in Australia. In doing so, we step beyond the simple state-market dichotomy in the extant literature, and proposes a symbiotic association between both regulatory modes for remuneration governance. The study reveals that remuneration disclosure levels are significantly higher after the advent of both self-regulatory and state regulatory reforms rather than state regulation alone. Furthermore, foreign-MNCs which experience increased agency problems due to spatial complexities and increased liabilities of foreignness do not have a superior disclosure level of director and executive remuneration: findings with important messages for policy makers and for regulators.