The decade since the publication of the Cadbury Report in1992 has seen growing interest in corporate governance. This growth has recently become an explosion with major corporate scandals such as WorldCom and Enron in the US, the international diffusion of corporate governance codes and wider interest in researching corporate governance in different institutional contexts and through different subject lenses.

In view of these developments, this book will be a rigorous update and development of the editor's earlier work, "Corporate Governance: Economic, Management and Financial Issues." Each chapter, written by an expert in the subject offers a high level review of the topic, embracing material from financial accounting, strategy and economic perspectives.

This unique text focuses upon the inherent difficulties associated with small firm contractual relationships.
The authors investigate:
* The economic interests and incentives associated with various small firm ownership and financial structures.
* The difficulties in monitoring and enforcing contractual obligations.
* The problems of obtaining reliable information on firm performance.
* The importance of internal decision making and the management of change.
* The impact of legislation and other non-governmental forms of regulation in small business relationships.
The analysis and discussion of these issues draws together for the first time recent theoretical and empirical developments from the economics of industrial organization and labour and financial economics.