Abstract

This paper attempts to analyze the opinion of shareholders and company secretaries on reforms ushered to enhance shareholders participation with the amendments to Companies Act 2013 towards electronic initiatives; to study the perceptions of company secretaries on newly introduced provisions on electronic board meetings and; to compare the opinions of shareholders and company secretaries on different aspects of electronic initiatives. Through primary data analysis using phenomenological analysis, logistic regression, independent sample t-test, one sample test and binomial test the evidence has been collated. Specifically, for electronic delivery of documents, its impact on the environment has come out to be insignificant, while the level of ease and comfort associated with it and its impact on cost reduction have come out to be the significant variables impacting the opinion of shareholders in favour of electronic mode. For electronic voting, level of ease, no risk of security and no issue of e-votes being less informed have turned out to be the significant variables for the shareholders. It has been found that spreading awareness is quintessential for all the three initiatives. 66.7% of company secretaries and 83.6% of the shareholders themselves have agreed that educating shareholders about various concepts of an electronic interface is the need of the hour.

Keywords: Companies Act, Company Secretaries, Corporate governance, Electronic initiatives, Shareholders, e-commerce, India.

How to Cite:

Sharma, J. P., Kanojia, S. & Gupta, S., (2018) “An Empirical Evaluation of Legislative Reforms for E-Corporate Governance in Indian Companies”, Australasian Accounting, Business and Finance Journal 12(2), 29-45. doi: https://doi.org/10.14453/aabfj.v12i2.3