This case study examines the governance role played by the Interogo Foundation as the owner of the Inter IKEA Group (the owner and franchisor of the Ikea concept) and its other subsidiaries. The IKEA businesses are the largest home furnishing operation in the world. In total, the various...

Short-termism has become a serious concern for corporate governance, and this has inspired a search for institutional arrangements to promote long-term decision-making. In this paper, we call attention to long-term ownership by industrial foundations, which is common in Northern Europe but...

A number of world class companies – such as the Tata Group, Robert Bosch, and Bertelsmann -- are majority owned by charitable nonprofit foundations. This structure places control of the company in the hands of a self-perpetuating foundation board that is immune to outside discipline through a...

A number of firms in Northern Europe and especially in Denmark are owned by private foundations similarly to what would have been the case if the Ford Foundation had owned a majority of the shares in Ford Motor Company. Foundation-owned companies appear to perform surprisingly well in terms of...