Corporate governance and board practices by Greek shipping management companies

Abstract

Purpose – Corporate governance is an area of interest to researchers, stakeholders and the general public. In recent times, there has been an increased concern about the effectiveness of the board within corporate organizations due to corporate scandals and accounting irregularities of some well known firms, which highlighted the inefficiency of monitoring corporate boards and the overseeing of managerial decision making. This paper aims to investigate the effects that a number of factors such as organisational demography, organisational size, ownership type, board size, CEO duality and CEO dependence/independence have on board configuration.Design/methodology/approach – The paper reviews the literature on organisational demography and board structure characteristics. Primary data were gathered from 27 management shipping companies having their head office in Greece.Findings – Findings show high levels of influence of the CEOs on the Board of Directors, since in most cases the CEO is the Chairman of the B...