Governance and Regulations’ Contemporary Issues

Despite being the dominant form of business globally, it is widely recognised that research focused on the governance of small family-owned entities has been largely overlooked. The benefits of sound governance practices are deemed salutary for small business prosperity; however, these enterprises are confronted with significant governance issues and unique concerns of their own. One particular issue concerns the compliance costs of governance for family-owned businesses and the extent to which the regulatory environment actually encourages an evolvement towards an improvement in governance practices in smaller businesses. Reconciling decision speed, flexibility and entrepreneurial innovation to necessary enhanced governance practices and procedures remains problematic. It is argued that a proper balance between the costs and benefits of proper governance codes and structures for smaller firms can only be achieved with a strong emphasis on flexibility to take account of myriad types of governance requirements of firms. This would entail the development of an evolutionary view Governance and regulations: contemporary issues contemporary studies in economic and Financial analysis, volume 99, 1–18 copyright © 2018 by emerald publishing limited all rights of reproduction in any form reserved issn: 1569-3759/doi:10.1108/s1569-375920180000099001