Institutional Characteristics and Outcomes of Corporate Governance in Bangladesh: Research Challenges

Abstract

We systematically review existing research on corporate governance (CG) in the context of emerging economies, using Bangladesh as a case study. Our review includes articles published in the UK's Association of Business Schools (ABS) or Australian Business Deans Council (ABCD) ranked journals between 2001 and 2018. The review focuses on the general trend of publications over the years, theoretical frameworks used and research methods deployed as well as the focus of the published articles. Regarding focus, we categorise all published papers into two broad groups: (1) institutions and CG in Bangladesh; and (2) CG and outcomes. The CG and outcomes studies are further divided into: (i) family firms and outcomes; (ii) other ownership and outcomes; (iii) CG mechanisms and outcomes; and (iv) external audit as CG and outcomes. The findings suggest that Bangladesh CG studies make a critical contribution to the broad domain of CG research in emerging economies while recognising the role of contextualised factors on CG practices. We highlight challenges associated with data collection, limited existing theory-building study and scope of future CG research. Given the lack of summarised literature on CG in Bangladesh, this chapter lays the foundation for further research on CG in Bangladesh in particular, and emerging economies in general.

Keywords: Corporate governance, Emerging economy, Institutions, Bangladesh

JEL Classification: M40; M41