Board governance and company performance: any correlations?

There persists the belief that a firm’s only responsibility to society is to maximize profits without breaking the law, hence the role of corporate governance is to provide appropriate corporate control. Research suggests that there is a growing perception that corporations are social entities overall, answerable to social constituencies and that the role of corporate governance is to understand and adequately address the interest of such social and political constituents. A review of research studies in the area of corporate governance’s contribution to corporate performance reveals that there is no conclusive evidence of contribution. Moreover, it illuminates the need for a boarder criteria of performance and for the adoption of a political model of corporate governance in order to facilitate a corporation’s external accountabilities.