Ownership Structure and Auditor's Ethnicity of Malaysian Public Listed Companies

This study investigates the relationship between the ownership structure of Malaysian public-listed companies and the choice of auditor based on ethnicity. In addition, the study compares results for the years 2006, 2007 and 2008. The years were chosen as the Malaysian Code of Corporate Governance (MCCG) was revised in 2007. This enabled comparison to be made in the pre, during and post revision periods of the Malaysian Code of Corporate Governance. The data were derived from a sample size of 300 companies listed on Bursa Malaysia for three years i.e. 2006, 2007 and 2008. As such, it is possible to observe any impacts of the changes in the revised MCCG on ownership structure and auditor's ethnicity. Multinomial logistic regression was employed to analyse the relationship as the data levels support its use. It is found that in general MCCG 2007 influences the selection of auditor's ethnicity by companies. Future research is recommended to study the reasons and rationale of this result by employing other research strategies such as qualitative techniques and increasing the sample size to get more generalisable findings.