The banking sector is central to the economy, but has recurrent dysfunctions. Following the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2009, regulators have attempted to reform governance in banks. However, previous empirical studies on the effects of governance structures have important gaps. Using an econometric framework with novel simultaneous equations models and new dependent variables, I investigate whether corporate governance and ownership have significant effects on bank risk and performance. I employ a novel data set combining financial data from the Bankscope database with governance and ownership data collected painstakingly by hand from annual reports and Basel Pillar 3 disclosures of UK banks over the period 2003-2012. My findings are supported by interpretation of relevant literature and are summarised as follows (stated along with policy implications in parentheses for which features of banking should be encouraged, based on normative assumptions stated in section 9.3). My work shows that the effects of a particular ownership or governance structure can be attributed to the ways in which categories of decision-maker within the bank are empowered by that structure, and that factors relating to information processing capability have important effects. Mutual and foreign ownership each have negative effects on risk and return because of managerial incentives and information asymmetries, respectively, without either affecting provision of investment to the wider economy. A foreign parent also increases the probability of bank failure (implying mutuality is socially beneficial while foreign ownership is not). A higher NED ratio reduces the probability of bank failure, as does having a remuneration committee, because of greater accounting for risk in decisions (implying they are desirable). The presence of an independent Chairman increases risk because it weakens CEO accountability and confuses decision-making (implying it is undesirable). An independent CRO (as a full Board member) may have similar effects. A higher proportion of Directors with no previous financial services experience increases both returns and the probability of failure because of weaker use of information (implying it is undesirable). Permission to use IRB models lowers risk and return because it provides information to empower risk-averse agents, again without affecting credit provision to the wider economy (implying it is desirable). I report other novel findings on effects of ownership, governance, remuneration and size. These results can guide bank reform.

This dissertation investigates the following questions. How does the structure of ownership, board governance, and board monitoring influence the corporate entrepreneurship behaviour of privatised firms in Vietnam? Furthermore, does uncertainty regarding the changing business and institutional environment moderate the relationships among corporate governance, ownership structure, and corporate entrepreneurship?In the dissertation, Stewardship Theory, Institutional Theory, Resource Dependence Theory, are integrated with Agency Theory to provide a framework to investigate the relationships between board composition, ownership structure and corporate entrepreneurship in post-privatisation environments. The theoretical arguments are tested using a mixed-method approach, based on a survey of privatised Vietnamese firms and data collected and collated from in-depth interviews of board and top management team members in six selected privatised firms. The study findings indicate that a reliance on any single theoretical lens is ineffective in explaining the phenomenon in the context of privatised firms in transition economies, and that the employment of multiple theories is crucial for providing a complete understanding of context-dependent phenomena, such as corporate governance. Empirically, the results show that the board composition and characteristics have little impact on corporate entrepreneurship and ownership structure almost plays no role in enhancing the entrepreneurial activities of privatised firms. In particular, the study highlights that there are no unique corporate governance practices that can be employed in every context. The practices are effective only in certain conditions and specific environments. The study provides a set of policy and managerial implications for shaping corporate governance in order to foster corporate entrepreneurship in Vietnamese privatised firms.

Concept en vogue ou novlangue, la gouvernance est devenue une équation, ces dernières années, notamment pour les États africains en quête de légitimité à la faveur de la démocratisation. Ainsi, à travers cette thèse, nous choisissons, après avoir situé le concept, de décrire les repères à la fois historiques et actuels du Mali dans sa construction épistolaire, de visualiser les réseaux d'acteurs et les différentes distanciations empiriques qui ont marqué la construction et la déconstruction du système politique ou de l'idéal étatique. Cette démarche nous a conduit à situer de fortes antinomies qui font que nous qualifierons la gouvernance au Mali de « gouvernance d'identification ». L'analyse du contexte nous conduira alors à nous pencher sur le paradigme de la gouvernance sous l'angle de l'appropriation ou « gouvernance d'appropriation ». Les pistes de réflexion mises en perspective concernent, ainsi, à la fois l'établissement d'une congruence entre la gouvernance et les réformes institutionnelles et la prise en compte de la crédibilité de la gouvernance , aux niveaux national et territorial, pour une meilleure réforme institutionnelle. Enfin, nous ouvrons des perspectives sur la situation post-crise au Mali qui demandent à intégrer les leçons à tirer par tous les acteurs, afin d'éviter que le Mali ne retombe dans une situation similaire à celle qui a prévalu avant l'intervention de la « force serval ». / Popular concept or contemporary “jargon”, governance has become in recent years an issue mainly for African states seeking legitimacy through democratization. So through this thesis, we define the concept, describe the references from history and present perspectives in Mali in its epistolary construction, stakeholder networking, different empirical distancing that marked the construction and deconstruction of the ideal state or the political system. This approach enables us to situate the strong antinomies for which we refer to governance in Mali as “governance of identification”. The analysis of the context will help us study the paradigm of governance under the prism of ownership or “ownership governance”. The perspective lines of reasoning concern both the establishment of the congruence between governance and institutional reforms and the taking into account of the credibility of governance at national and territorial levels for a better institutional reform. Finally we open perspectives for the post crisis situation in Mali which require to take into account the lessons learnt by different actors in order to avoid that Mali falls back again in a similar situation to the one prevailing before “serval force” intervention.