Die Corporate Governance-Berichterstattung des Aufsichtsrats: Eine empirische Untersuchung im deutschen Prime Standard zum Einfluss auf die Unternehmensperformance

This paper presents the findings from a study, based on the annual reports’ analysis of German corporations listed in the DAX30, MDAX and SDAX, that investigates the supervisory board reporting in the Corporate Governance System with regard to the external auditor. The article contains material information of the supervisory boards’ composition and member specifications. Furthermore, the supervisory boards’ reporting concerning the audit’s objects, benchmarks, and methods will be shown. The descriptive statistic stated that essential deficits exist in the supervisory boards’ reporting on their independence, financial expertise and audit methods in the analyzed indices of the German Prime Standard. A positive link between companies’ order book turnover, free float market capitalization and the Corporate Governance-Reporting was found for only a few variables. The analysis of correlation stated a significant positive link between the reporting of the job profile of the supervisory board (independence and financial expertise) and selective performance measures (earnings per share, price-earnings-ratio, Tobin’s Q, return on assets). In general the correlation of the variables of the Corporate Governance-Reporting is rather low especially in the DAX30.