ABSTRACT
This chapter starts with a discussion of the definition of corporate governance, in order to bring into focus a specific dimension of corporate governance, namely, the ownership structure. It discusses the issue of the ambiguous, possibly non-linear relationship between ownership concentration and performance. The chapter reviews various strategies of transition according to the importance attributed to corporate governance. It reports some of the results of our empirical work focusing on the interaction between product market competition and ownership concentration. The chapter gives some tentative conclusions concerning the relationship between corporate governance and firm performance. The argument for such a view could be traced back to the change in the theory of the firm. According to an older view, tangible assets were considered as critical resources of the firm. The new view of the firm emphasizes the role of human capital relative to that of inanimate tangible assets. The firm can no longer be defined by the common ownership of assets.
