Understanding Corporate Governance from a Social Constructionist Perspective
Zaleha Othman, Rashidah Abdul Rahman

Abstract
The ambiguity and subjectivity of the corporate governance concept motivated the study to explore the understanding of corporate governance from a social reality perspective. Based on the nature of the study, where the subject matter is ambiguous, subjective and complex, social constructionist epistemology is appropriate. Social constructionist epistemology is suitable for the subjective dimension, where seeking the meaning of the subject matter is the objective. Relevant to the characteristic of social constructionist epistemology, interviews are used as the main primary data. Interviews were conducted among experts in corporate governance in Malaysia. The meaning of corporate governance is interpreted based on the text derived from the verbatim transcription of the interviews. Text is used as the main unit of analysis. The emergent themes from the analysis indicate that there is a new paradigm of understanding concerning the concept of corporate governance. The finding of this study revealed corporate governance as a social process that bring forth the meaning of a system that oriented towards economic objective, guided by value in guiding corporations towards proper conduct in order to achieve corporate sustainability. It is suggested that the concept of corporate governance needs modification, where the moral foundation of the corporate governance concept is required. The study offers a social constructionist perspective in seeking the meaning of corporate governance.

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