Corporate Governance and Company Performance in Italy

The issue of corporate governance in Italy is particularly interesting because main problems are linked to the potential conflicts of interest between principal and principal. Indeed, these conflicts arise because the controlling and the minority shareholders have different information and aims (Melis & Zattoni, 2017). Italy adopted the Code of SelfRegulations set by the Corporate Governance Committee of the Italian Stock Exchange in 1999 (Elshandidy & Neri, 2015). The changes that affected the Italian laws emphasized the relevance of the corporate governance and independent directors in order to reduce the concentrated ownership and other weaknesses in the Italian firms. Furthermore, the laws introduced for regulating limited liability companies and limited companies, demonstrate the high attention paid by regulators to these two types of companies, with the aim to promote and stimulate the entrepreneurial activities in Italy and to protect the investors and the stakeholders’ interest. However, the choice between a classic, a monistic or a dualistic model, introduced by the law, raises some questions about the effective adoption of these systems in Italy. However, very few studies are carried out on this issue in the Italian setting and there is room for further investigations. This chapter analyses the corporate board in the Italian setting, therefore, its aim is to shed some lights on the laws and regulations that affect the corporate board and the corporate board practices in Italy.