This paper, therefore, sought to explore whether or not gaps exist between the corporate governance policy and practices in Ghana and extant literature. This paper achieves this by examining characteristics of the board as they exist in Ghana in relations to the literature. | Appraisal of corporate governance in a lower middle income country The case of Ghana Accounting 2 2016 37 44 Contents lists available at GrowingScience Accounting homepage ac Appraisal of corporate governance in a lower middle income country The case of Ghana Seth Opponga b Rajesh Arorac Paul R. Sachsd and Mamuda T. Seidue a PhD Candidate University of Ghana Legon Ghana b Lecturer at African University College of Communications c President and CEO TQMS Mumbai India d Exexutive Director NHS Human Services Philadelphia Philadelphia PA USA e Director African Institute of Management Science Accra Ghana CHRONICLE ABSTRACT Article history Accountability is instrumental for ensuring that a trusting relationship exists between Received December 17 2015 shareholders and management of corporations in order that there will be enhanced investor Received in revised format confidence. Towards this end corporate governance measures are instituted to make the December 18 2015 executives or management of business organizations accountable for their stewardships of the Accepted December 21 2015 Available online organizational resources or shareholders investments. It is against that backdrop that the December 23 2015 Securities and Exchange Commission in Ghana has also developed a code on best practices on Keywords corporate governance. However the extent to which the provisions in the code are consistent Corporate governance with the theoretical and empirical literature is unknown. This paper therefore sought to Accountability explore whether or not gaps exist between the corporate governance policy and practices in Ghana Ghana and extant literature. This paper achieves this by examining characteristics of the board Board of directors as they exist in Ghana in relations to the literature. The characteristics examined in this paper Board size include responsibilities optimal size independence board composition and audit and Board composition .
