目前正写ＬＳＥ的毕业论文，突然发现自己找的东西都是关于corporate governance and financial performance 并不是financial distress.网上很多资料，但都不是这样比较的，因为马上要交了，十分着急，希望各位见仁见智，提点ＩＤＥＡ拉．
以下是我的dessertation proposal:
Corporate governance and financial distress: an international comparison
Dissertation Description
In general, there are two rival systems of ownership and control in the world: dispersed and concentrated ownership, and United States and U.K. are falls into the former class while Japan and Germany are belong to the latter category. The ownership structure is also characterised by corporate governance which can be thought as an interactive process involving shareholders and creditors to minimize agency conflicts involving manager, particular emphasizing on the legal mechanism that prevent the expropriation of minority shareholders.
Notice that there are still further differences in corporate governance need to be distinguished in each country. Control in the U.S., which is achieved by buying or assembling blocks or shares, rests mainly with banks and stockholders, not with ordinary stockholders. The separation of ownership and ownership is proposed by providing incentives for management, the legal duty requirements for managers and directors to act in shareholder’s interest and the threat of a takeover. By contrast, in Germany, the concentration of ownership is in the form of large blocks and several layers of owners. Its universal banking system allows equity investments by banking in non-financial corporation. Large German companies have tow boards of directors: the supervisory board (Aufsichtsrat) and management board (Vorstand). This two-tier governance structure reflects a belief that the firm should act in the interests of all its stakeholders. The most distinct feature of Japanese corporate finance is the Keiretsu that is a network of companies, usually organized around a major bank. Keiretsu enable firms receive additional internal financing from internal group.
Consequently, a large amount of researches and empirical studies have been carried out to investigate the impacts of different ownership corporate governance controls on financial performance. Results indicate that weak corporate governance tends to reduce firm’s value and corporate governance variables could provide some indications of financial distress, but these were came from comparison of firms’ ownership structures within the nation. Financial distress arises when promises to creditors are broken or honoured with difficulty that could result to bankruptcy, liquidation or significant changes in control. Obviously, the firm’s solvency of debts depends on its overall financial performance. It has been argued that because of close bank –firm relationships and concentrated ownership, the Japanese and German financial and governance systems could reduce agency problems and improve monitory of firm activities that lead to a higher performance level and increased chances of survival. However, whether concentrated ownership structure is actually superior to dispersed ownership structure is still an open question that is indeed hard to answer. A further question to ask is which system is more efficient to help firm overcome financial difficulties and can more effectively mitigate the problem on the whole.
This dissertation mainly carries out an international comparison of ownership structure and corporate control among US/UK, Japan and Germany with regards to financial distress. It aims to compare and contrast the influences of ownership structure and corporate governance in different countries by taking into account several issues.
