Transformations  in
Business & Economics

Corporate Governance for European Small and Medium Size Enterprises: An Ambivalent Concept on Theoretical and Empirical Basis
Elisabeth Paulet

ABSTRACT. Corporate governance has been since the last decade a large subject of discussion. In its broader sense, the corporate governance could be understood through the different forms of decisions control existing inside a firm. This monitoring is hence absolutely necessary to ensure the achievement of the selected objectives fixed by the different partners (managers, shareholders, investors). It leads then to the two following questions:

• What is the impact of corporate governance on the economic performance of corporations in the broader application?
• What is the main objective to be privileged and how to prevent failure situations?

By using the agency paradigm, this paper intends to present the diverse situations that exist in Europe as regards corporate governance. It will discuss its adequacy to describe the industrial sector in the European context. Our conclusion will be the impossibility to distinguish for SME corporate governance from the classical management.

KEYWORDS: financial institutions and services, corporate finance and governance, SME, Eastern Europe, Western Europe.

JEL classification: G2, G3, G32, G34, P2.