Corporate governance and performance of Indian companies: the effect of board size and ownership structure

Abstract

The frequently identified failures of big corporates in the last two decades have increased the interest of all stakeholders in corporate governance issues. This requires significant changes to be made in this area so that the performance of the companies can be upgraded. The current study has tried to accomplish this by scrutinising the effect of board size as well as ownership structure on the performance of 229 Indian companies out of S&P BSE 500 Index over the duration of 16 years (2001-2017). Panel data regression is applied to analyse data and various dummy/control variables are also used in the study. The above association is further checked via moderating variables i.e., firm size, board size and size of promoter holdings. The study found affirmative effect of board size, promoter and institutional holdings on the performance of the companies. The study has implications for companies, institutions and regulators.