Background:

Family-business is considered to be the most frequent and complex form of business

organization around the world. However, recently there has been a large number of

corporate scandals in such firms especially at the board level (e.g. Parmalat). Within the

framework of two corporate governance models characterized by the Continental European

and the Anglo-Saxon model, boards of directors hold a central position. This position

becomes of great importance when talking about public companies and more specifically in

public family-controlled companies. The concentration of ownership is the main

characteristic of the Continental European, which is the most workable form of corporate

governance for family-controlled business. Nevertheless, family-controlled companies acting

under the Anglo-Saxon model have also been able to operate successfully. Therefore, we

will investigate if there is a convergence of corporate governance in family-controlled

companies across frontiers focusing mainly on boards’ structures and composition as well as

ownership, and the sub-committees.

Purpose:

The overall purpose of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding of Corporate

Governance in public Family-controlled firms which are in the Swedish and United

Kingdom stock market. More specifically, investigate whether the boards’ structures and

composition, as well as ownership and the existence of sub-committees show similarities or

not in Family-controlled firms acting within the framework of an Anglo-Saxon and

Continental model of Corporate Governance

Method:

A quantitative approach was used to fulfill the purpose of this thesis. Furthermore, the top

10 family-controlled companies with highest market-capitalization have been selected from

both countries to constitute our sample. The empirical material was gathered mainly from

the annual reports of the companies but also by contacting the companies by email or from

articles in online newspapers.

Conclusion:

This study found that in some aspects of corporate governance convergence exists while in

others it does not. Regarding board structures and composition, there is a convergence to

“one tier board” and the presence of family members and employee representation in boards.

On the other hand, when it comes to the sizes of the boards and number of independent

directors in the boards we argue that convergence is not present.