<p>Background:</p><p>Family-business is considered to be the most frequent and complex form of business</p><p>organization around the world. However, recently there has been a large number of</p><p>corporate scandals in such firms especially at the board level (e.g. Parmalat). Within the</p><p>framework of two corporate governance models characterized by the Continental European</p><p>and the Anglo-Saxon model, boards of directors hold a central position. This position</p><p>becomes of great importance when talking about public companies and more specifically in</p><p>public family-controlled companies. The concentration of ownership is the main</p><p>characteristic of the Continental European, which is the most workable form of corporate</p><p>governance for family-controlled business. Nevertheless, family-controlled companies acting</p><p>under the Anglo-Saxon model have also been able to operate successfully. Therefore, we</p><p>will investigate if there is a convergence of corporate governance in family-controlled</p><p>companies across frontiers focusing mainly on boards’ structures and composition as well as</p><p>ownership, and the sub-committees.</p><p>Purpose:</p><p>The overall purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of Corporate</p><p>Governance in public Family-controlled firms which are in the Swedish and United</p><p>Kingdom stock market. More specifically, investigate whether the boards’ structures and</p><p>composition, as well as ownership and the existence of sub-committees show similarities or</p><p>not in Family-controlled firms acting within the framework of an Anglo-Saxon and</p><p>Continental model of Corporate Governance</p><p>Method:</p><p>A quantitative approach was used to fulfill the purpose of this thesis. Furthermore, the top</p><p>10 family-controlled companies with highest market-capitalization have been selected from</p><p>both countries to constitute our sample. The empirical material was gathered mainly from</p><p>the annual reports of the companies but also by contacting the companies by email or from</p><p>articles in online newspapers.</p><p>Conclusion:</p><p>This study found that in some aspects of corporate governance convergence exists while in</p><p>others it does not. Regarding board structures and composition, there is a convergence to</p><p>“one tier board” and the presence of family members and employee representation in boards.</p><p>On the other hand, when it comes to the sizes of the boards and number of independent</p><p>directors in the boards we argue that convergence is not present.</p>
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA/oai:DiVA.org:hj-1365 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Mártires, Miguel Ángel, Sawicki, Kamil |
| Publisher | Jönköping University, JIBS, Business Administration, Jönköping University, JIBS, Business Administration |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, text |
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