Essays on corporate governance in Sri Lanka

This thesis comprises three essays, all with a different focus that is of interest from a diversity and inclusion perspective in Sri Lanka. These studies argue that among the three factors of ESG, its G-factor (governance) plays a vital role at every level of firms on meeting the needs of shareholders as well as other stakeholders. Firm-level diversity during the post-civil war period is assumed to be a good laboratory as governance reforms focusing reconciliation and efforts to stimulating ethnolinguistic diversity may generate conspicuous positive outcomes for firms. The first essay explores how unique institutional and social characteristics of the country associate with the most important corporate governance issues. The second essay explains how social diversity and inclusiveness of corporate boards affect corporate performance, monitoring of top management, and board’s functioning. The third essay examines whether to what extent various power dimensions of the CEO affect firm’s agency costs, corporate performance, and financial stability.