This manuscript summarises the UK Institutional Framework. In particular, the document traces back the evolution of Corporate Governance in the UK. It further describes the transformation of corporate ownership structure in the UK since 1963 to 2008. All the way throughout 20th century there was a dramatic change in ownership trends in the UK equity market. Individual shareholdings continued to decrease while institutional ownership kept on climbing mountains as reported by the ownership survey for 2008 by the UK Office for National Statistics.

This book highlights the theoretical aspects of Corporate Governance. Of all other Corporate Governance theories such as resource dependence and institutional theory, the epistemological basis of these theories remains to be agency theory. This has, therefore, been pointed out by some literatures to be the source of inconclusive results regarding what ought to be best practices and desirable firm's corporate governance characteristics. The fundamental argument here is that, relying completely on a single theoretical approach will not provide an adequate understanding of the corporate...

The distribution of equity holdings, which relates to corporate control power, serves as a control mechanism to optimise the allocation of corporate resources. Therefore, through control power granted to a firm's equity holders, ownership affects productivity by influencing the company's financial policies and thus its performance. Equity owners use their voting power to limit selfish managerial behaviour patterns, which impacts on company performance. Regarding the influence of ownership on capital structure and performance, it is suggested that larger block-holders tend to monitor managers...