Costo degli organi societari e scelta dei sistemi di governance alternativi: l’evidenza empirica in Italia[Cost of corporate bodies and choice of alternative governance systems: empirical evidence in Italy]

The literature on corporate governance has investigated the relationship between the adoption of a corporate governance system and firms’ performance, but it seems to ignore the issue of costs of the body corporate members among different systems, i.e. the traditional and alternative models, with specific reference to unlisted companies. The paper aims to investigate to what extent the costs of each corporate body may affect the choice of a corporate governance system. The analysis, that is led on a sample of unlisted Italian corporations in 2008, shows that the one-tier system, characterizing firms not necessarily small, with more fragmented ownership structures and more likely to be under control and coordination, highlights lower costs than the traditional and the two-tier systems.