This article aims to investigate, whether and to what extent, the corporate governance (CG) choices affect the firm performance (FP), measured in term of corporate social performance (CSP). The main theoretical framework behind the supposed relationship between CG and firm performance (FP) is the Agency Theory framework. Modern corporations are characterized by the separation of ownership and control. This means that the owners (principals) employ the executives (agents) to maximise their investment in the corporation. The agent, while charged to maximise firm value, perceives opportunities to maximise his/her own utility. To protect the owners’ interests, minimise agency costs and ensure principal–agent interest alignment, Agency Theory prescribes compensation schemes and corporate governance (CG) mechanisms (Jensen and Meckling, 1976). CG mechanisms can be divided into external (monitoring by block holders and analysts, external auditors, competition and takeovers, regulation and enforcement) and internal (the board of directors and its committees, the audit committee, the ownership structure) (Brown et al., 2011), nevertheless the board of directors is unanimously considered one of the key governance tools, its main task being to monitor executives on behalf of the shareholders (Hermalin and Weisbach, 1991). Managerial literature is plenty of empirical studies addressed to provide evidence of the link between board of directors and FP, mainly financial performance, under different theoretical perspectives, nevertheless the findings of the empirical studies are mixed1. A recent review (Bronzetti et al., 2016) hypothesize as likely causes of these no homogeneous results, beyond the different variables used to measure CG and FP, the missing consideration of the peculiarities of the context analyzed. […]
Key-Words: Rendicontazione sociale
