Ownership Pattern and Its Impact on Board Structure and CEO-Chairman Role Duality in Pharmaceutical Companies in India

Indian corporate sector is predominantly characterized by family and controlled ownership, restricting scope for minority shareholders’ activism. BOD and CEO- Chairman role separation are the important mechanisms governing the company practices. Previous studies in countries like China and India shown mixed results about the impact of ownership structure on above mentioned governance mechanisms. These mechanisms help to ensure transparency and fairness in the way company managed. This paper made an attempt to study the interaction between ownership structure (specifically promoters), board's attributes and CEO-Chairman role duality in the context of pharmaceutical industry in India. It is found that, shareholding is concentrated in the hands of the promoters and this has low to moderate relationship with size of the board. However, concentration of ownership in the hands of promoters has significant inverse relationship with independent directors on the board.