The financial crisis: reform and exit strategies, 12 October, http://www.oecd.org/daf/ca/corporategovernanceprinciples/thefinancialcrisisreforman dexitstrategies.htm 17. OECD (2010) Corporate governance and the financial crisis: Conclusions and emerging good practices to enhance implementation of the Principles, 24 February, Abstract Purpose: this paper provides an account of banking scandals in relation to corporate governance failures in an emerging economy, arguing that Anglo-American ideas

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... f corporate governance are misplaced in traditional settings. Research Methods: semi-structured interviews were conducted with key stakeholders. Observations of annual general meetings and the personal working experience of one of the researchers, along with documentation, provided triangulating data on corporate governance practices. Findings: We have found that both of the banks studied had adopted Corporate Governance CG practices contrary to the expectations of the Sri Lankan CG codes. Key features of CG practices that emerged from our investigations of these two scandals are ineffectual central bank regulations, familial boards of directors, ceremonial board meetings, biased auditing practices, and manipulative Annual General Meetings (AGMs), relying on traditional structures of accountability centred around families, kin and social networks. Research Implications: we argue, drawing on Weber (1958, 1961, 1968, 1978), that the traditionalist culture mediates the process of rationality in bank governance codes and regulatory frameworks. Therefore, practices fall far short of expectations. Originality: the paper builds on the extended critique of shareholder-centric CG models and their transferability to alien contexts. It contributes to the CG studies calling for more appreciation of the need to move beyond the conventional view of CG problems as simply down to conflicts of interests. We complement and advance the decoupling debate in CG studies drawing on the Weberian notion of traditionalism.