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The aim of this study is to investigate the role of board independence on environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance and the moderating role of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) committee on the relationship between these variables. The sample includes 2,925 companies from 18 industries and 38 countries for the period of 2002–2020. To test our hypotheses, we developed a regression model based on the panel data dependence technique. The results confirm that the establishment of a CSR committee within the board moderates the relationship between board independence and ESG performance. A CSR committee acts as a booster into enhancing the effectiveness of the board as a corporate governance mechanism. This article contributes to the academic literature evidencing the importance of establishing a sub-committee within the board of directors delegated to CSR issues. It provides also interesting insights for companies and policy makers for formulating future guidelines on corporate governance.

Voluntary disclosure and corporate governance variables are considered important mechanisms for the reduction of the information asymmetries and conflicts of interest potentially arising between competing parties of the firms. This paper aims at investigating the relationship between board independence and quality of voluntary financial disclosure and how previous relationship is moderated by the level of ownership concentration. The analysis has been conducted on a sample of Italian non-financial listed companies and the results show that there is a significant positive relationship between board independence and the quality of voluntary financial disclosure. Moreover, our findings reveal that ownership concentration plays a relevant moderating role in that relationship, highlighting the necessity to consider the interaction effects of different governance mechanisms when studying corporate governance effectiveness

In the last decades, the phenomenon of separation between ownership and control has attracted the most attention from researchers and professionals. Indeed, proprietary concentration can play an asymmetrical role in helping to influence corporate performance, whereby large shareholders can use their power both to expropriate wealth due to minority shareholders and to benefit minority shareholders, controlling the discretion of the management. However, there is still a lack of research that has integrated and systematized the empirical research carried out on the relationship between proprietary concentration and company performance given that there is still no convergence of results regarding the sign and the form of this relationship. Therefore, the purpose of this work is to present the results of a systematic review of the literature on the subject, proposing a possible innovative interpretation of the relationship mentioned above that takes into account additional interaction variables linked to the institutional structures of the countries in which the investigated companies operate

The aim of the paper is to analyse the interaction effect corruption play in the relation between ownership structure and firm performance. This paper analyses whether and how the Corruption Perception Index affects the relationship between corporate performance and ownership structure in 2,035 firms operating in eight European countries (Denmark, Sweden, Germany, France, Finland, The Netherland, Italy, and Spain) during 2010-2017 period (10,915 firm year observations). Our findings show that level of corruption perceived by investors is relevant to the relationship between ownership concentration and firm performance. This result suggests that institutional context variables should be taken into consideration from corporate governance scholars in their empirical investigations. The contribution of the paper is twofold: first, our results evidence the relevant role played by the interaction effects between firm-level and country-level variables; second, it suggests important managerial and policy implications related to the interaction between internal and external corporate governance mechanisms.

This review covers the book titled “CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN ITALIAN CORPORATE GOVERNANCE”, which was written by Salvatore Esposito De Falco, Federico Alvino, Nicola Cucari, Luigi Lepore (Virtus Interpress, 2019; ISBN: 978-617-7309-07-8). The review shortly outlines the structure of the book, pays attention to its strong sides and issues that will be, by the reviewer’s point of view, most interesting for the reader.

his review covers the book titled “CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN ITALIAN CORPORATE GOVERNANCE”, which was written by Salvatore Esposito De Falco, Federico Alvino, Nicola Cucari, Luigi Lepore (Virtus Interpress, 2019; ISBN: 978-617-7309-07-8). The review shortly outlines the structure of the book, pays attention to its strong sides and issues that will be, by the reviewers’ point of view, most interesting for the reader.