Enhanced Corporate Governance for Restaurant Companies: The Role of Well Performing Audit Committees

Authors

James Damitio, Central Michigan UniversityFollow
Philip Kintzele
Vernon Kwiatkowski
Marilyn Kintzele

Type of Submission

Refereed Article

Abstract

Corporate governance is a popular topic these days among public companies. The board of directors of McDonald’s Corporation in their statement of corporate governance states that “good governance is a journey, not a destination.” An important piece of baggage for this journey is a solid corporate audit committee policy, which fosters a well performing audit committee. In the 2009 corporate governance guidelines of Ruby Tuesday, the audit committee is one of three important committees listed to assist the board in fulfilling its responsibilities. In Burger King’s Fiscal 2009 Corporate Responsibility Report, they indicate that their auditing and compliance initiatives are integral in assuring that their extensive code of business ethics is maintained. This article examines the evolution, composition and duties of audit committees over the past thirty years. In addition it compares the basic audit committee policies and procedures of the Standard and Poor’s 100 Index (S&P 100) companies with those of the top fifty one restaurant companies from Value Line, Inc.

Recommended Citation

Damitio, James; Kintzele, Philip; Kwiatkowski, Vernon; and Kintzele, Marilyn (2010) "Enhanced Corporate Governance for Restaurant Companies: The Role of Well Performing Audit Committees," Journal of Hospitality Financial Management: Vol. 18: Iss. 1, Article 4.
Available at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/jhfm/vol18/iss1/4