Facing economic and business complexity: An analysis of the evolving features of the board of directors’ meetings in Italy

This study analyzes how corporate governance practices evolve to keep up with external complexities. The analysis is carried out on all Italian listed companies in the period 2018–2020. The findings suggest that Committees of the Board of Directors increased in number during the period, and the frequency of their meetings also increased. There was little variation in the frequency of the Board of Directors’ (BoD) meetings. The paper provides empirical evidence on the current trend for establishing smaller working parties that do not burden the whole BoD when the firm faces issues for which specialized skills and greater attention are required. Our study contributes to previous literature on corporate governance by jointly analyzing different mechanisms of BoD. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, it explores for the first time the duration of the meetings of the BoD and its Committees.