News Release:
Hong Kong business reform's 'global significance'
| Date 28/1/04 No 015/04 A new book that analyses a changing climate in Hong Kong boardrooms has important messages for Australia and the rest of the world, according to one of its authors. John Whitman, from the University of New England, said reversion to Chinese rule had accelerated corporate-governance reforms in Hong Kong that were, however, taking place internationally. "Hong Kong is a microcosm of the issues that larger countries have to face," he explained. "Since the hand-over to China, people in Hong Kong have become a lot more conscious of issues such as freedom of the press, human rights, and academic freedom," Mr Whitman said. "As part of this general concern, issues of corporate governance are being taken more seriously." He said the book, Corporate Governance: the Hong Kong Debate (Sweet & Maxwell Asia, 2003), was "an attempt to see beneath the surface of a lot of initiatives that are taking place in the running of corporate businesses in Hong Kong". In the process, it explored "whether it makes sense for Hong Kong to conform to some sort of international norm". Such unprecedented regulation would be in contrast to the "very successful hands-off approach" that had characterised corporate governance in Hong Kong throughout the 20th century. Mr Whitman, a Lecturer in Accounting at UNE's New England Business School, has contributed three chapters to the book, whose principal authors are S.H. Goo and Anne Carver from the Faculty of Law at Hong Kong University.
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Mr Whitman was himself a lecturer (in Accounting) at Hong Kong University from 1986 to 2002, and the book draws on work he did in collaboration with Goo and Carver during that time. In outlining the significance for Australia of developments in Hong Kong's corporate governance, he mentioned that Australia's Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) was modelled on Hong Kong's Independent Commission Against Corruption, established in 1974. More than two decades ago Hong Kong had seen the collapse of the massive Carrian corporation, an event comparable to the recent collapse of HIH in Australia, he added. Mr Whitman said he enjoyed the challenge of making accounting accessible to the layman. "These days, accountants need to be able to communicate as well as compute," he said. He pointed out that one of the difficulties in writing about corporate governance was that "accountants and lawyers have different perspectives on economic reality". The book attempted to identify where this lack of coherence occurred, he said. "In the light of this current inconsistency, however, you sometimes have a sneaking sympathy for directors of corporations that get themselves in a mess." Media contact: John Whitman, New England Business School, UNE,
Armidale (02) 6773 2711 or Jim Scanlan, Public Relations, UNE, Armidale
(02) 6773 3049. |
