Davis Global Advisers Inc. is a consulting firm in the US carrying out research in corporate governance across countries. It prepares a score-card for different countries by comparing their record against the following 10 indicators:

A. Board Structure

1. Code of best practices

2. Non-executive directors

3. Separation between positions of Chairman and CEO

4. Board committees

B. Voting Rights

1. 5 Voting procedure

2. 6 Voting rights

3. 7 Voting issues

C. Disclosure

1. 8 Accounting standards

2. 9 Executive pay disclosure

D. Takeover Defenses

1. 10 Takeover barriers

The firm has compared corporate governance practices in France, Germany, the UK and the USA and has consistently given the highest rank to the UK for her more balanced boards and high level of shareholder rights. British managers also experience the greatest difficulty in erecting takeover defenses which is a point in favour of their corporate governance system. The USA ranks second and France, third. France has recorded the highest score on voting rights. Very powerful CEOs and comparatively fewer investor rights are problems of the USA, according to this study. More details of the firm's assessment of German and Japanese corporate governance systems were not available but their comparison with the above countries would not be easy. The systems differ in important respects.

In the USA, shareholders have a big say in the running of the firms which they own and workers who are weakly organized have little influence. In Germany, on the other hand, workers enjoy much greater influence as compared to shareholders. In Japanese corporate governance system, shareholders have had no role beyond providing capital and company executives enjoy a good deal of autonomy.