Completion date (month/year): October 31, 2019

The project was taken to identify corporate governance best practices in Bangladesh and to conduct research on independent directors. This study exclusively focuses attributes of independent directors of listed companies and their perception about effectiveness of various corporate governance tools in the corporate context of Bangladesh.

Despite the theoretical debate and inconclusive empirical evidence regarding the effectiveness of independent directors, the presence of independent directors may create a balance of opinion on board about different decisions taken by corporate management. This study exclusively focused on attributes of independent directors of listed companies and their perception about effectiveness of various corporate governance tools in the corporate context of Bangladesh. The activities included:

• Arranging a conference exclusively focuses on the role of CEOs in improving CG practices. The main discussion was to concentrate on topics including ‘role and responsibilities of CEOs for better CG effectiveness’, ‘Responsibility of senior management team’.

• Conducted a workshop to deliver deeper idea about CG environment and framework of Bangladesh.  This workshop aimed to equip CFOs with in-depth understanding about different elements of CG environment and various tools of CG framework in the context of Bangladesh so that they can play their role in a better way to improve CG practices of their respective organizations.

• A seminar was arranged to highlight the key features of corporate governance environment and firm-level corporate governance practices of Bangladesh and role of investors in improving corporate governance practices in Bangladesh, and create a platform for interacting with Japanese stakeholders about these issues.