Does Corporate Financial Architecture Contribute to Sustainable Corporate Growth? The Evidence from Russian Companies

Journal of Corporate Finance Research / Корпоративные финансы. 2014. Vol. 8. No. 4. P. 11–33.

Ivashkovskaya I., Stepanova A., Eliseeva N.

In this research the analysis of the impact of corporate financial architecture on company’s performance is conducted for a sample of large Russian companies. We focus on sustainable growth identified  thru the application of intrinsic value change criteria.  We employ integrated approach to understand the determinants of the sustainable growth based on key structural characteristics of a company. The financial architecture is represented by ownership structure (managerial ownership, foreign ownership and ownership concentration), corporate governance (the structure of the board of directors and internal control) and capital structure. We examine the difference in characteristics of growth sustainability of Russian companies representing three different types of financial architecture of more than 50 large Russian firms. Our results indicate that corporate financial architecture has a significant impact on the sustainable corporate growth in the Russian market. More importantly, we show that the nature of the influence depends on the type of financial architecture.

Keywords: corporate governance, performance, ownership structure, corporate growth, residual income, emerging markets, total shareholder return