Corporate governance and effectiveness of a diversified company: Russian experience

Researchers come to controversial conclusions regarding the impact of corporate diversification on the company's value and performance. The diversification strategy itself has been subject to strong criticism in the past 20-30 years. There is an opinion, however, that in emerging markets diversification has a positive impact on companies' value and effectiveness. Despite the existing advantages of diversified companies, planning and budgeting various business areas not related to each other is a considerably difficult task that results in the agency problem between managers and stakeholders. This leads to corporate governance problems in companies that use the diversification strategy. Studying corporate governance in emerging countries is especially important, as they need to adjust their corporate governance standards to developed markets. The theory of corporate governance is now developing rapidly, especially in Russia, where researchers did not often turn to this subject. In the last decade, this issue has most often become a subject of research in China and India. The issue of corporate governance in Russia is relevant today due to the fact that it is a mechanism of managing a company which makes it possible to balance the interests of managers and stakeholders. Moreover, companies are interested in attracting foreign investors, who pay significant attention to the level of current corporate governance. However, unlike in developed countries, corporate governance in developing capital markets is only being introduced. Today a lot of Russian companies are engaged in the optimisation of corporate governance largely to build a good reputation and do not pay enough attention to corporate governance principles, which a company should follow. Thus, today the low level of corporate governance is a problem in Russian companies, as the companies' owners do not understand its significance. Moreover, the Russian business environment is rather specific and requires a certain approach in order to form an optimal corporate governance system. As far as research in this field is concerned, a positive impact of corporate governance on companies' effectiveness lacks empirical proof. A number of studies have not found a statistically significant positive correlation between the level of corporate governance in Russian companies and their effectiveness. With regard to the stated issue, the purpose of this paper is to discover to what extent corporate governance has an impact on the effectiveness of Russian diversified companies. Such companies are a subject of particular interest, as not only developed and emerging economies have different features of corporate governance, but within one country there are also companies whose development strategy and industry have a significant impact on the optimal corporate governance structure. The study suggests the following hypothesis: the corporate governance system has a positive impact on the effectiveness of Russian diversified companies. The study has been conducted on a sample of Russian diversified companies with an original corporate governance index created for this purpose, which had never been done previously. The study has a practical importance, because Russian diversified companies can use the corporate governance index devised during the study to assess their corporate governance level. Such procedure will make it possible to uncover the existing flaws and improve the corporate governance system in Russian companies. In their turn, the suggested methods and the resulting models of the correlation between market capitalisation, on the one hand, and fundamental factors and various factors of corporate governance, on the other, can be used in strategic planning and managing the value of diversified companies. In the paper, we also determine the impact of corporate governance on companies' performance, which enables us to suggest recommendations on enhancing the governance system in Russian companies.