ABSTRACT
The long-term success of a company is necessarily influenced by factors such as the ownership structure and the corporate governance mechanisms which emanate therefrom. In Anglo-American jurisdictions, there is a huge emphasis on the agency theory because share ownership patterns are dispersed. In these developed jurisdictions, corporate governance mechanisms aim to ensure that managers as agents would act in accordance with the interests of the principal owners. Therefore, the major corporate governance issue is principal-agent conflicts. Interestingly, a large number of emerging economies have adopted the corporate governance principles developed in Anglo-American jurisdictions. However, the share ownership patterns in these emerging economies differ, with ownership structures being largely concentrated upon family owned corporate groups, dominant manager owners or the State (Mallin 2013). Also, in these developing economies, the rights of shareholders are inadequately protected and the major corporate governance problem is principal-principal conflicts, which is the expropriation of minority shareholders by the majority controlling shareholders (Tricker 2015).
