Corporate governance in Indonesian State-Owned Enterprises: Feeding with western ingredients

Abstract

Corporate frauds and failures in Indonesian have continued despite the corporate governance principles of Indonesia's State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) which have been strengthened following the Asian financial crisis of 1997/1998. This appears to indicate that corporate governance principles primarily adopted from developed Western nations are not adequate to address problems faced by SOEs in Indonesia. This primarily analytical paper evaluates the current corporate governance practices in Indonesian SOEs in light of the prevailing political and corporate culture. Given the complexity of Indonesia's political and corporate culture the adoption of corporate governance principles from Western nations as promulgated by the OECD and/or the Cadbury report are inadequate to reduce corporate mismanagement and failure among SOEs. The study also utilizes some qualitative interview data from thirty respondents at managerial level within three SOEs to aid the assessment of corporate governance practices and principles in the Indonesian context.