Institutional change versus resilience: A study of incorporation of independent directors in Singapore banks

Abstract

We examine how Anglo-American capital market logic penetrated into Singapore where relational logic tends to guide business activities and illustrate how domestic banks reacted to this imported logic in the corporate governance field. We argue that the banks’ ability to accommodate competing logics was enhanced by state agencies’ willingness to modify Anglo-American standards to fit the local context. Given the resulting institutional ambiguities in rules, local banks, while incorporating higher outside representation on their boards, reinterpreted the meaning of independence and emphasized the resource provision role rather than the monitoring function of outside directors. The resultant institutional change has been gradual.