The Effect of Corporate Governance on Export Performance of Iranian Listed Companies

This research aims to investigate the effect of corporate governance mechanisms on export performance. The statistical population includes 98 export companies listed on the Tehran Stock Exchange from 2010 to 2016. Data mining and statistical analysis are used to test the research hypotheses. This paper operationalizes the corporate governance mechanisms by the board of directors' independence, the concentration of ownership, and institutional investors. It further operationalizes export performance by export sales, export sales intensity, and the volume of export sales. The results show that ownership concentration has a significant effect on export sales. Furthermore, institutional investors have a significant effect on the volume of export sales. The current study may give great direction to companies exporting their products. In addition, the results also give researchers a path to focus on the current subject, especially in a developing country like Iran.