Corporate governance of German growth companies. Empirical analysis of the corporate governance quality and the structure of supervisory boards of companies listed on TEC-DAX

Abstract

This article analyses the importance of corporate governance for growth companies, derives specific requirements for them and evaluates the corporate governance quality for companies listed on TecDax. Growth companies’ characteristics imply a comparatively high importance of corporate governance due to a high level of business and agency risk. Several corporate governance elements are therefore particularly important for growth companies. Overall, the empirical results imply a high conformity of the Tec-Dax companies with the GCGC criteria with some exceptions for specific companies and criteria. But the analysis of the quality of their supervisory boards delivers a differentiated result as in some of the analysed companies the effectiveness of the supervisory board is questionable.