Corporate Governance in Transition Economies : The Theory and Practice of Corporate Governance in Eastern Europe

Corporate governance issues are especially important in transition economies, since these countries do not have the long-established financial institution infrastructure to deal with corporate governance issues. Before the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was no need to discuss corporate governance issues because all enterprises were owned by the state and there were no shareholders. All that has changed since 1989. This paper discusses how transition economies are dealing with corporate governance issues and the extra obstacles they have to overcome due to a lack of established financial institution infrastructure. Several case studies from Eastern Europe are examined