CHAPTER ONE Introduction 1.1 Motivation 1.2 Research questions 1.3 Method 1.4 Results 1.5 Contribution CHAPTER TWO Hypotheses 2.1 Board of directors and internal control 2.2 Individual characteristics of board members and internal control 2.3 Hypothesis 1 to 5 2.3.1 H1 2.3.2 H2 2.3.3 H3 2.3.4 H4 2.3.5 H5 2.4 Board chairman and internal control 2.5 The moderating impact of the nature of the dominant shareholder 2.6 The mediating impact of board behaviors CHAPTER THREE Research design 3.1 Models 3.2 Variables 3.2.1 Dependent variables 3.2.2 Independent variables 3.2.3 Control variables 3.5 Data and Sample CHAPTER FOUR Results 4.1 Comparison between firms with and without internal control problems 4.2 Main multivariate regression analysis 4.2.1 Regression analyses for full samples 4.2.2 Regression analysis for firms disclosing weaknesses 4.2.3 Board behavior 4.2.4 Dominant shareholder nature 4.2.5 Conclusion 4.3 Additional analyses 4.3.1 Regression analysis by year, industry, ownership, exchanges, locations and size 4.3.2 Firms that changed board members 4.3.3 The impact of fixed effects at the firm-level 4.3.4 Internal control team 4.3.5 The impact of China SOX 4.3.6 Comparison between finan weaknesses and non-finan weaknesses 4.3.7 The impact of an audit committee 4.3.8 The impact of internal auditors 4.3.9 Specific internal control weakness 4.3.10 Alternative measures 4.3.11 Conclusion of additional analyses 4.4 Summary CHAPTER FIVE Conclusion 5.1 Limitations 5.2 Future research 5.3 Implications 5.4 Conclusion References