Corporate Governance, Ownership Structure and Bank Performance in Jordan

This study set out with the aim of investigating the effect of ownership structure and corporate governance on bank performance (profitability and operating efficiency). The study relied much on publicly available data for a sample of the thirteen listed banks in Jordan for the years 2000 to 2012. The study has shown that ownership concentration has a positive and significant effect of bank performance (profitability) while foreign ownership positively affects the bank performance (operating efficiency). Another important finding is that as board size increases the bank performance (profitability) increase, suggesting that good corporate governance standards are imperative to every bank and important to investors and other stakeholders.