The board of directors as one of the mechanisms of corporate governance and its impact on the performance of Turkish family companies: A survey

Board of directors, one of the four structural elements of corporate governance, has attracted a great deal of attention in the past fifteen years due to corporate failures, concerns about the performance of corporations and the way they are governed. Inefficient government of companies was shown as one of the main reasons of the ongoing international and domestic financial crisis, bankruptcies and company frauds.As an emerging market, Turkey?s ability to attract international capital is relatively low. Analysis of the extant literature on Turkish companies indicate that a majority were founded and governed by families where only a small percent can survive into the third generation. This brings the necessity to examine the management and control systems and the board of directors in detail to achieve sustainable development in family companies.The main purpose of this study is to empirically analyze the relationship between the company performance of Turkish listed companies in Istanbul Stock Exchange and the compliance levels of the board processes to the corporate governance principles issued by Capital Markets Board of Turkey.