This book begins by analysing the various corporate governance mechanisms explored in the extant literature and determining their effectiveness in enhancing the firm value using multivariate analysis. The findings are of global relevance as the corporate governance regulations of most countries focus on independent directors as the mainstay of good governance. The empirical evidence from the first objective of this study corroborates the claim that independent directors do not strengthen the firms governance quality. The book is one of the few works to have analysed the possible reasons behind the ineffectiveness of the independent directors. Also, in view of the famous concept of the bundle of governance mechanisms, it might be possible that the independent directors strengthen the firms governance quality indirectly by strengthening other governance mechanisms. This aspect too has little precedence. This study adopts a novel moderation and mediation approach to analyse the monitoring behaviour of independent directors in relation to other governance mechanisms. The work is a must read for corporate players as well as researchers and scholars studying this discipline.

Shveta Singh is a Professor and the Area Chair of Finance at the Department of Management Studies (DMS), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Delhi), India. She is also the co-coordinator of the National Centre on Corporate Governance (accredited by the National Foundation on Corporate Governance (NFCG)) at DMS. Overall, she has nearly 20 years of professional experience, having spent three years in the corporate sector prior to joining academics. She has published more than 150 research papers in journals of national and international repute. She has an h-index of 10 and around 400 citations. She has co-authored a text-book titled Security Analysis and Portfolio Management published by Springer. She has also co-authored three research monographs titled "Financial Management Practices: An Empirical Study of Indian Corporates" and Equity Market in India: Returns, Risk and Price Multiples, both published by Springer and Cash Dividend and Shares Repurchase Announcements: Impact On Returns, Liquidity and Risk in The Indian Context published by Hamilton, UK. She has been the recipient of the Lok Sabha Fellowship and the Fetzer Fellowship from the Academy of Management, USA, for her work on CSR, as well as the National Stock Exchange Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (NSE-IGIDR) Corporate Governance Research Initiative Grant. She has been honored by the Leadership award in research, which she accepted on behalf of IIT Delhi from the Institute of Business and Finance Research at the Global Conference on Business and Finance in USA. She has been honored twice with the Literati award for outstanding research by Emerald Publishing Inc.

Monika Singla is working with TD Bank in Toronto in the Big Data Analytics domain. She is helping the bank to develop machine learning and other analytical models/processes to facilitate business decision-making. She is a Ph.D. graduate from theDepartment of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT Delhi), India. Her research work has been published in journals of national and international repute. She is a recipient of the Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) from the University Grants Commission (UGC) of India. She is also the recipient of a research award from the National Stock Exchange of India in collaboration with IGIDR, a research wing of the Reserve Bank of India for conducting research in the corporate governance domain. Prior to joining the Ph.D. programme, she was working as an Associate Consultant at Infosys Ltd.

Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Evolution of Corporate Governance in India.- Chapter 3: Research Methodology.- Chapter 4: Corporate Governance Mechanisms and Firm Performance.- Chapter 5: Performance Enhancement Effect of Board Independence.- Chapter 6: Constraints Diluting the Effectiveness of Board Independence.- Chapter 7: Concluding Observations.