Informal Institutions in the Corporate Governance System in Russia

The corporate governance system in Russia, having evolved through years, can be characterized by the following features: the dominant role of the concentrated ownership structure, corporate supervision relying on a combination of ownership function and company management, the significant role of the state as the owner, and the fairly marginal relevance of external market mechanisms. Those features result partly from particular legal solutions and partly from the unwritten, informal customs or patterns of behaviour of the so-called informal institutions. The article’s main thrust is to analyse selected informal institutions which were considered the most significant from the Russian corporate governance system point of view. These are, among others: the tendency not to obey the rights of minority shareholders, informal relationships of enterprises with authorities of various levels, and corruption. The author assumes that informal institutions decide upon the specificity of the corporate governance system in Russia and its particular elements, and upon the efficient functioning of supervisory mechanisms.