Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between board composition and firm performance variance in the context of recent corporate governance reforms, based on the agency and organisational literatures. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses 384 of the...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify some key issues for the analysis of corporate governance based on the papers within this special issue including the Guest Editor's perspectives. Design/methodology/approach – The five papers included in this special issue are summarized and...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to determine what aspects of board independence, in terms of board structure and characteristics of non-executive directors (NEDs), are associated with effective monitoring of management, as evidenced through lower levels of earnings management....

This paper explores the question of whether the institution of the stock market is likely to be helpful to developing countries in promoting their real economy and ensuring fast industrial growth. The case for and against the stock market inevitably involves a discussion of the important related...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to show that there did exist a typical “managing agency system” in pre-independent corporate India, which itself was a significant and powerful system of corporate governance. Design/methodology/approach – This is a qualitative exploration and...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between corporate governance characteristics, namely the board size, board independence, duality, audit committee, ten largest shareholders, managerial ownership, foreign ownership and government ownership and the extent of...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present the best practice initiative in Poland, presenting codes formulated in 2002 and 2005 and focusing on the recent document known asBest Practice of WSE Listed Companies. Moreover, the paper aims to present practical aspects of implementation of...

Purpose – The paper seeks to bring focus to the significance of the role of directors in corporate performance. The principles of good governance are not unknown to the Indian traditions. Today adoption of good corporate governance practices has emerged as an integral element for doing...

This paper joins the literature examining connections between legal protection of shareholders and finance. Driven by the need to attract funds a manager tries to reduce agency costs by selling a fraction of equity to a large investor (the outside blockholder). Monitoring by the blockholder can...

We test under what circumstances boards discipline managers and whether such interventions improve performance. We exploit exogenous variation due to the staggered adoption of corporate governance laws in formerly Communist countries coupled with detailed ‘hard’ information about the...