Conclusion and implications
This study examines the relationship between corporate governance and capital structure decisions of listed firms in Ghana. The characteristics of corporate governance used for this study include board size, board composition, CEO duality and tenure of the CEO. The empirical results show statistically significant and positive associations between capital structure and board size, board composition, and CEO duality.
This study results indicate that Ghanaian listed firms pursue high debt policy with a larger board size, higher percentage of outside or non-executive directors, and CEO duality. The results of this study also show a negative (though statistically insignificant) relationship between the tenure of the CEO and capital structure, suggesting that, entrenched CEOs employ lower debt in order to reduce the performance pressures associated with high debt capital.
The issue of corporate governance has important implications on the financing decisions of Ghanaian firms. เท order to access more debt instrument, firms may have to increase their board size. A relatively larger board size puts pressure on managers, through stringent monitoring and regulatory mechanism, to pursue high debt policy to increase the value of the firm. However beyond a certain level, further increase in board size could lead to undesirable effect. This is due to the semi log linear relationship between capital structure and board size. The increase in board size should also be complimented with having more non-executive directors. Indeed the existence of non-executive directors could lead to better management decisions and help firms in attracting better resources given that external board members may have good knowledge or useful information on financing facilities. The overall average board size is nine with non-executive directors representing 73 per cent of board membership. This is in line with the recommendations by the Cadbury Committee, that the board of directors should include non-executive directors of sufficient calibre and number for their views to carry significant weight in the board’s decisions (Cadbury, 1992). As shown by the results of this study, it appears the one-tier board structure is more appropriate for Ghanaian firms in gaining access to debt financing. Contrary to results of other studies, this result suggests the importance of avoiding conflict between a CEO and a board chairman, where the two personalities are different. The absence of this conflict enables the CEO in a one-tier system to pursue an effective debt strategy based on the advice of the board.
Generally, a well-established corporate governance system suggests effective control and accounting systems, stringent monitoring, effective regulatory mechanism and efficient utilisation of firms’ resources resulting in improved performance. Firms with well-established corporate governance structures are able to gain easier access to debt financing at lower cost since such firms are able to repay their debt on time. This means the ability of the firm to
access debt capital at lower cost could be dictated to a large extent by how the market gauges its corporate governance system. Easier access to debt capital at lower cost, ultimately leads to improved company performance. The area of corporate governance and capital structure decisions still needs further research in order to further develop some of the insights delivered by this study.