Internal And External Governance Mechanisms

Since its opening up and economic reforms in 1979, China has undergone tremendous economic growth and social development, with a ten percent real gross domestic product growth per year on average through 2013. In spite of such an accomplishment, the current economic growth model in China, which is mainly triggered by the export-led policy and the huge government investment, has been challenged by potential external and internal risks, which do not support sustainable economic growth in the long run. In this book, the author comprehensively reviews the corporate governance practices in China, identifying the major problems within such practices. It is contended that these problems have been seen as the major challenges facing the Chinese economy, and further, that the current weakness of corporate governance practices in China can be ascribed, to a great extent, to the incompleteness and weakness of law enforcement.

This paper analyses the relationship between internal and external corporate governance mechanisms and the performance of UK companies within the context of the Cadbury Committee's Code of Best Practice. The results show, first, that the market for corporate control is an effective governance mechanism that may be regarded as a substitute for the other mechanisms. Second, there is a weak relationship between the internal governance mechanisms and performance. Third, there is also little evidence that with firms in the top and bottom performance deciles have different internal governance characteristics. The results therefore raise questions about the efficacy of imposing prescriptive internal governance mechanisms on companies, particularly given that the market for corporate control has been shown to be an effective means of reducing agency costs.

Corporate Governance is a text which considers the problems surrounding governance and proposes solutions to help restore investor confidence in the corporate world. The book is intended for board members, corporate executives, regulators, auditors, creditors and analysts seeking a concise analysis of the governance issues facing financial and non-financial corporations round the world. The book is fully international in context and includes real-life examples and cases to emphasize the practical nature of governance problems and solutions.

An effective system of corporate governance has both internal and external aspects that have to be sufficiently responsive if governance is to succeed. In this book, Ahmed Naciri examines these two core aspects or the latest buzzword in business and management theory. Internal aspects include ownership structure, the board of directors and committees, internal control, risk management, transparency and financial reporting. External aspects can either be market-oriented, or can take the form of credit ranking, and/or social requirements. Due to the original orientation of the Sarbanes/Oxley Law, concentrating solely on financial disclosure and given its decisive and tremendous influence on all other similar corporate governance legislations all over the world, most writings on corporate governance have dealt with solely internal corporate governance mechanisms. This book aim is to fill up the gap by using a systemic approach and giving a global picture of the corporate governance theoretical foundations, mainly by putting the emphasis on its double dimension: internal and external.

We characterize the corporate governance system as a portfolio of external and internal governance procedures that addresses firm-specific governance problems. External governance consists of statutory and contractual provisions that determine the costs of active shareholder participation in the management process. Internal governance concerns interaction between firm management and Boards of Directors. The evidence suggests that external and internal corporate governance mechanisms function as substitutes. Further analysis indicates that associations between internal and external governance characteristics are less substantial after than before recent corporate governance regulation. Moreover, we find that provisions that weaken external governance are more likely in firms where increases in internal governance are substantial. Such evidence raises questions regarding the consequences of corporate governance legislation such as that imposed by the 2002 Sarbanes Oxley Act.

Corporate governance research has largely focused on internal governance mechanisms (i.e., the board of directors, controlling owners, and managerial incentives). However, much of this work ignores the role that external corporate governance practices play in preventing managers from engaging in activities detrimental to the welfare of shareholders, and the overall firm. In this essay, we first review and organize current research on external governance mechanisms and integrate this siloed body of work within the broader corporate governance equation. We explicitly focus on six external governance mechanisms: the legal environment, the market for corporate control, external auditors, stakeholder activism, rating organizations and the media. We discuss findings showing how external governance mechanisms act both as independent forces as well as in conjunction with internal corporate governance mechanisms. We conclude the review by mapping an agenda for future research on corporate governance that better integrates internal and external governance mechanisms. Our review suggests that studying different configurations of external and internal governance mechanisms will help us to better understand what factors and conditions lead to effective corporate governance.

The Corporate Governance of Business Groups first summarizes how the existing body of literature has defined and studied business groups (BG). It then discusses the arguments for why BGs exist and persist. To provide a contextual understanding of BGs, the authors present the worldwide distribution and structure of these organizations. Gaining an overview of BGs' and their affiliated firms' characteristics allows one to disentangle the various dimensions of their corporate governance, particularly focusing on identifying what we know about how they are governed and where future research should continue. The authors adopt a traditional corporate governance framework based on financial economics to discuss BGs' corporate governance mechanisms. This financial perspective is complemented by incorporating an organizational and sociological lens to better understand how ties among the affiliate firms influence BG governance. Overall, the monograph argues that BG corporate governance is a fruitful path for scholars to continue to examine because many internal and external governance mechanisms remain understudied and the specificities of BGs generate differences in how these mechanisms are understood in these organizations, resulting in gaps in the literature ripe for future research.

It is difficult for the companies to work with only one mechanism of corporate governance. Internal mechanisms must combine with external mechanisms regardless the type of industry or the country of analysis. I examine empirically the interaction between internal and external corporate governance mechanisms in the U.K. and US corporations. What is the best mix of corporate governance mechanisms which affect companies' performance and how each mechanism affects the others??