Impact of Organizational Characteristics on Adoption of Corporate Governance Reforms in the Banking Sector: A Study for an Emerging Economy

This study explores the relationships between organizational antecedents and the adoption of corporate governance reforms in the Nepalese commercial banking sector since 2012. The major source of data were self-constructed corporate disclosure index and other relevant organizational characteristics. Panel dataset was constructed with hand-collected data from 203 annual reports of commercial banks in Nepal covering the years 2012-2020. Findings suggest expected relationships between firm size, listed age, board independence, the size of the audit committee with corporate governance disclosure. Firm’s capital adequacy ratio has not been explored in past researches. The study shows significant and positive association between corporate adequacy ratio and governance disclosure. The study has additional policy implications in determining which firm specific antecedents significantly determine adoption of corporate governance code. A cross-comparative study dealing with adoption of corporate governance code and exploration of meso and macro level antecedents have the possibility to extend the study further.