An Organizational Approach to Comparative Corporate Governance: Costs, Contingencies, and Complementarities

King's College London Management Research Paper No. 41

45 Pages Posted: 5 Jun 2006

See all articles by Ruth V. Aguilera

Ruth V. Aguilera

Northeastern University - Department of International Business and Strategy

Igor Filatotchev

City University London - The Business School

Howard Gospel

King's College London - The Management Centre

Gregory Jackson

Freie Universität Berlin

Date Written: May 2007

Abstract

This paper develops an organizational approach to corporate governance and assesses the effectiveness of corporate governance and implications for policy. Most corporate governance research focuses on a universal link between corporate governance practices (e.g. shareholder activism, board independence) and performance outcomes, but neglects how interdependences between the organization and diverse environments lead to variations in the effectiveness of different corporate governance practices. In contrast to such 'closed systems' approaches, we propose a framework based on 'open systems' approaches to organizations which examines these organizational interdependencies in terms of the costs, contingencies and complementarities of different corporate governance practices. These three sets of organizational factors are useful in analyzing the effectiveness of corporate governance in diverse organizational environments. We also explore how costs, contingencies and complementarities impact approaches to policy such as 'soft-law' or 'hard law', and their effectiveness in different contexts.

Keywords: corporate governance, international comparison, organization theory

JEL Classification: G43, J50, L20, P50

Suggested Citation

Aguilera, Ruth V. and Filatotchev, Igor and Gospel, Howard and Jackson, Gregory, An Organizational Approach to Comparative Corporate Governance: Costs, Contingencies, and Complementarities (May 2007). King's College London Management Research Paper No. 41, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=955043 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.955043

Ruth V. Aguilera

Northeastern University - Department of International Business and Strategy ( email )

Boston, MA 02115
United States

Igor Filatotchev

City University London - The Business School ( email )

106 Bunhill Row
London, EC1Y 8TZ
United Kingdom

Howard Gospel

King's College London - The Management Centre ( email )

150 Stamford Street
London, SE1 9NN
United Kingdom
44 020 78484121 (Phone)

Gregory Jackson (Contact Author)

Freie Universität Berlin ( email )

Boltzmannstrasse 20
D-14195 Berlin, 14195
Germany

HOME PAGE: http://www.wiwiss.fu-berlin.de/institute/management/jackson/team/gjackson/index.html

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