A Study on the relationship of corporate governance practices to the organizational characteristics of Christian churches in five cities in Metro Manila, Philippines

• Main Authors: Bacar, Ralph-Ryan C., Chiu, Karll Raymund B., Cotiangco, Evan Christopher Y., Tan, John Deck O.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2009
• Subjects: Corporate governance; Financial management; Fund management; Christian Churches and Churches of Christ
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_bachelors/14698
• Institution: De La Salle University

This paper addresses corporate governance practices in religious organizations by examining fiscal oversight and financial management practices in three chosen Christian church denomination in Manila, Pasay, San Juan and Mandaluyong. Fiscal oversight includes the existence of an independent board of directors with a financial expert and documented policies and procedures. Financial management includes the existence and use of a budget, controls over cash receipts and disbursements, financial reporting and compliance. A questionnaire and interview was used to collect data from the three chosen denominations. The results showed that churches do have adequate fiscal oversight and financial management controls. There are still rooms for improvement because some churches lack internal audits and some have incompatible functions assigned to a single individual and some other minor loop holes. However, no significant relationship between the governance score and the membership size, employee size and donation size was found. Different church denominations have different strength and weaknesses. The strength of one church could be the weakness of another or vice versa.