*2.11. Corporate Governance Variables (Board Size, CEO Status)*

There is a positive relationship between board size and debt. Companies with large boards are much more capable to find external funds and at the same time, financial institutions are more confident while lending firms with large size boards. Sheikh and Wang (2012) obtained a positive and statistically significant relationship between board size and debt. CEO status refers to duality of the CEO, namely when the CEO of the company serve as chairman in the board. It is expected that there is a conflict of interest when the same person serves in both positions, because that gives too much power and control. Buvanendra et al. (2017) obtained a negative statistically significant relationship between CEO duality and debt.

In all the abovementioned studies, there can be observed a pattern to be observed, since all included independent variables are related to the structure of assets, profitability, taxation. Only in a few works there were macroeconomic variables included such as inflation rate, interest rate or even the gross domestic product. The results are similar and showed that the tangibility, the profitability, the increase in size, for example, are factors with a significant influence on the financial structure. There were also variables that proved to be insignificant, but these results are also influenced by the chosen database and the processing of data in advance. Theoretically, from a broader perspective, the choice of capital structure must be viewed from three perspectives: the advantage of tax exemption, the risk assumed and the quality and type of assets. This indicates that a low-risk, high-profit firm with few intangible assets and robust growth opportunities should find a relatively high ratio between debt and equity less attractive.

#### **3. Data and Methodology**

The process of forming the database for analyzing the influencing factors on the financial structure consisted in the initial collection of the financial data of 75 companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange, companies that are part of the technology industry. Because there was not enough data for the analyzed period, 2005–2018, the database consists of only 51 companies. The financial data was taken from the Thomson Reuters databases, respectively The World Bank, from which the independent variables such as inflation rate, interest rate, gross domestic product per capita were taken.
