The Fields of Supervisory Boards Activities in Different Kinds of Subsidiaries: The Case of Polish Business Groups

Abstract:

The business group is a specific type of an economic entity, because subsidiaries must achieve goals, which are a consequence of their role in the group and their supervisory board (board of directors), in addition to obligations under the law, may engage to the management of subsidiary in many different ways. There are three generic types of subsidiaries: operational, cooperative and conglomerate. The results of the research conducted by the author show that depending on the type of the subsidiary, the supervisory board differently affects the management process in the subsidiary. In the case of operational subsidiary in the largest number of cases the supervisory board was identified as an industry-oriented type, in the case of cooperative type it was the active board type and in the case of the conglomerate type – finance-oriented type.