Description:
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<jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Purpose</jats:title>
<jats:p>This study investigates the connection between corporate governance and zombie firm’s exit time.</jats:p>
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<jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Design/methodology/approach</jats:title>
<jats:p>With a sample of 2,794 French zombie firms, the analysis focuses on four aspects of corporate governance: board size (BS), managerial ownership (MO), director turnover (DT) and ownership concentration, using tobit regression.</jats:p>
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<jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Findings</jats:title>
<jats:p>Dimensions of corporate governance have an important role in determining zombie firms’ exit time. MO and ownership concentration increase zombie firm exit time, whereas larger BSs and DT reduce it.</jats:p>
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<jats:title content-type="abstract-subheading">Originality/value</jats:title>
<jats:p>To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to include corporate governance as a characteristic relevant to zombie firms’ exit time. It provides new insights on why some zombie firms remain in the market longer than expected.</jats:p>
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