Corporate governance includes legal, contractual, and market mechanisms that structure decision-making within business corporations. Most attention has focused on corporate governance in large U.S. public corporations with dispersed shareholding. The separation of ownership from control in those corporations creates a unique problem, as shareholders typically have weak individual incentive to monitor managers. Mechanisms that have been developed to address this agency problem include independent directors, fiduciary duty, securities law disclosure, executive compensation, various professional gatekeepers, the market for corporate control, and shareholder activism. In most countries outside the United States, there are few companies with dispersed shareholding. Instead, most companies have a controlling shareholder or group. These companies face a different agency problem, the possibility that controlling shareholders may use their power to gain at the expense of minority shareholders.
Enterprise governance refers to mechanisms aimed at related agency problems that occur in closely held companies without publicly traded equity interests. Here too the agency problem typically encountered is the potential conflict between controllers and minority investors, with the added twist that share illiquidity removes an important protection for the minority. Closely held companies have adopted a variety of contractual mechanisms to address these concerns. Other than the important but special cases of venture capital and private equity fund investments, there is less empirical evidence on governance in closely held companies because information is generally much harder to find.
Corporate Governance: Changing Trends in Interpreting Fiduciary Duty
