A comparision of corporate governance systems in four countries

Companies in different countries are operating in different cultural, legal, social and economic environments. As a result, each country has developed its own corporate governance system that serves its business operations best. As the globalization of business speeds up in recent years, it is unknown whether there exists one best corporate governance system for all countries. The purpose of this study was to compare the corporate governance component factors in Germany, the United States of America, Switzerland and France. The four countries were selected because they are adopting different corporate governance models. Their corporate governance component factors can be classified into three groups: those related to top management organization, the board as whole, and individual board members. From these comparisons, we found that although these countries are adopting different corporate governance models, they have developed some mechanisms (such as committees) to narrow down the differences. Therefore, we may conclude that the corporate governance systems adopted by different countries are converging