This paper examines the impact of board and audit committee characteristics on the audit fee paid by large UK companies in the post-Cadbury period. Our results suggest that audit fees remain predominantly influenced by the size, complexity and risk of the audit client. Additionally, we find that...

Purpose – This paper seeks to investigate the holding of non‐executive directorships by CEOs in a sample of 387 large UK companies. The main objective of the paper is to ascertain whether the holding of additional directorships by CEOs is influenced by the governance and ownership...

This paper investigates why large public companies in the UK purchase liability insurance for their directors and officers (D&O). Previous research suggests that companies may purchase D&O insurance for three reasons: (1) as part of their corporate insurance programme, (2) due to demand from...

The objective of this paper is to review the coexistence of mutual and proprietary insurance companies from a corporate governance perspective.The paper begins by reviewing the theoretical justification for the existence of mutual and proprietary companies in the insurance industry. The paper...

An important aspect of current governance practice is theutilisation of non-executive directors to monitor the behaviourof senior management. The purpose of this paper is to provide aninitial insight on the determinants of non-executiverepresentation on the boards of large UK companies. The...

This paper examines the relationship between board composition, ownership structure and takeovers in the UK in the period 1989–1993. We compare board composition and ownership characteristics for a sample of 166 takeover targets with a matched sample of nontarget firms. We further disaggregate...