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.