Corporate governance and its reform in Hong Kong: a study in comparative corporate governance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper was to determine to what extent Hong Kong’s experience proves (or disproves) theories from corporate governance in the areas of family ownership, concentration, self-dealing in Hong, executive compensation and other issues. This paper – written in the comparative corporate governance tradition – uses data from Hong Kong to discuss wider trends and issues in the corporate governance literature. Design/methodology/approach – The authors use the comparative corporate governance approach – exposing a range of corporate governance theories to the light of Hong Kong data. The authors purposely avoid over-theorising – leaving the data to speak for themselves for other researchers interested in such theorising. Findings – The authors find that Hong Kong presents corporate challenges that are unique among upper-income jurisdictions – in terms of potentially harmful (shareholder value diminishing) family relationships, shareholder concentration and self-dealing by insiders. The a...