IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jbuset/v150y2018i2d10.1007_s10551-016-3188-5.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Corporate Governance Systems Diversity: A Coasian Perspective on Stakeholder Rights

Author

Listed:
  • Dorothee Feils

    (University of Alberta)

  • Manzur Rahman

    (University of San Diego)

  • Florin Şabac

    (University of Alberta)

Abstract

We examine corporate governance diversity within a Coasian framework of stakeholder rights, where the central role of governance is to ensure that necessary firm-specific investments are made. This Coasian perspective on stakeholder theory offers a unifying framework towards a global theory of comparative corporate governance, bridging the gap between economic theories of the firm and stakeholder theory, also offering an economics-based alternative to agency theory that explicitly accounts for stakeholder rights. The Coasian perspective encompasses a diversity of corporate governance systems, but does not imply a unique global corporate governance benchmark. We posit that governance is firm dependent and endogenous conditional on the constraints imposed by a national governance system; consequently, there should be no systematic relationship between governance and firm performance once the national constraints are controlled for. However, the same national corporate governance system constraints confer comparative advantages to firms whose efficient levels of firm-specific investments are favored.

Suggested Citation

  • Dorothee Feils & Manzur Rahman & Florin Şabac, 2018. "Corporate Governance Systems Diversity: A Coasian Perspective on Stakeholder Rights," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 150(2), pages 451-466, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:150:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s10551-016-3188-5
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-016-3188-5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-016-3188-5
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10551-016-3188-5?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alchian, Armen A & Demsetz, Harold, 1972. "Production , Information Costs, and Economic Organization," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 62(5), pages 777-795, December.
    2. Alessandro Zattoni, 2011. "Who Should Control a Corporation? Toward a Contingency Stakeholder Model for Allocating Ownership Rights," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 103(2), pages 255-274, October.
    3. Jensen, Michael C & Meckling, William H, 1979. "Rights and Production Functions: An Application to Labor-managed Firms and Codetermination," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(4), pages 469-506, October.
    4. Goergen, Marc & Manjon, Miguel C. & Renneboog, Luc, 2008. "Recent developments in German corporate governance," International Review of Law and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 175-193, September.
    5. Costinot, Arnaud, 2009. "On the origins of comparative advantage," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 255-264, April.
    6. Hart, Oliver & Moore, John, 1990. "Property Rights and the Nature of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(6), pages 1119-1158, December.
    7. Renee B. Adams & Benjamin E. Hermalin & Michael S. Weisbach, 2010. "The Role of Boards of Directors in Corporate Governance: A Conceptual Framework and Survey," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 48(1), pages 58-107, March.
    8. Steve Letza & Xiuping Sun & James Kirkbride, 2004. "Shareholding Versus Stakeholding: a critical review of corporate governance," Corporate Governance: An International Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(3), pages 242-262, July.
    9. Michael C. Jensen, 2010. "Value Maximization, Stakeholder Theory, and the Corporate Objective Function," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 22(1), pages 32-42, January.
    10. Nathan Nunn, 2007. "Relationship-Specificity, Incomplete Contracts, and the Pattern of Trade," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 122(2), pages 569-600.
    11. Bebchuk, Lucian Arye & Fried, Jesse & Walker, David I, 2002. "Managerial Power and Rent Extraction in the Design of Executive Compensation," CEPR Discussion Papers 3558, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Tang, Heiwai, 2012. "Labor market institutions, firm-specific skills, and trade patterns," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 337-351.
    13. ., 2001. "Corporate Governance in Islamic Banking," Chapters, in: Islamic Banking, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Williamson, Oliver E, 1979. "Transaction-Cost Economics: The Governance of Contractural Relations," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 22(2), pages 233-261, October.
    15. Simon Renaud, 2007. "Dynamic Efficiency of Supervisory Board Codetermination in Germany," LABOUR, CEIS, vol. 21(4‐5), pages 689-712, December.
    16. Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W, 1997. "A Survey of Corporate Governance," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(2), pages 737-783, June.
    17. Ram Mudambi & Carmela Nicosia, 1998. "Ownership structure and firm performance: evidence from the UK financial services industry," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(2), pages 175-180.
    18. Stuart L. Gillan & Jay C. Hartzell & Robert Parrino, 2009. "Explicit versus Implicit Contracts: Evidence from CEO Employment Agreements," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 64(4), pages 1629-1655, August.
    19. Jensen, Michael C. & Meckling, William H., 1976. "Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 305-360, October.
    20. Grossman, Sanford J & Hart, Oliver D, 1986. "The Costs and Benefits of Ownership: A Theory of Vertical and Lateral Integration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(4), pages 691-719, August.
    21. Faleye, Olubunmi & Mehrotra, Vikas & Morck, Randall, 2006. "When Labor Has a Voice in Corporate Governance," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(3), pages 489-510, September.
    22. Paul Gompers & Joy Ishii & Andrew Metrick, 2003. "Corporate Governance and Equity Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(1), pages 107-156.
    23. Morck, Randall & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1988. "Management ownership and market valuation," Scholarly Articles 29407535, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    24. Luigi Zingales, 1997. "Corporate Governance," NBER Working Papers 6309, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Tirole, Jean, 2001. "Corporate Governance," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 69(1), pages 1-35, January.
    26. Reena Aggarwal & Isil Erel & René Stulz & Rohan Williamson, 2010. "Differences in Governance Practices between U.S. and Foreign Firms: Measurement, Causes, and Consequences," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 23(3), pages 3131-3169, March.
    27. Luigi Zingales, 2000. "In Search of New Foundations," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1623-1653, August.
    28. Henry Hansmann & Reinier Kraakman, 2000. "The End Of History For Corporate Law," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm136, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Feb 2001.
    29. Robert M. Bushman & Abbie Smith, 2003. "Transparency, financial accounting information, and corporate governance," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 9(Apr), pages 65-87.
    30. Klein, Benjamin, 1996. "Why Hold-Ups Occur: The Self-Enforcing Range of Contractual Relationships," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 34(3), pages 444-463, July.
    31. Denis, Diane K. & McConnell, John J., 2003. "International Corporate Governance," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(1), pages 1-36, March.
    32. repec:dau:papers:123456789/7306 is not listed on IDEAS
    33. R. Edward Freeman & Andrew C. Wicks & Bidhan Parmar, 2004. "Stakeholder Theory and “The Corporate Objective Revisited”," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 15(3), pages 364-369, June.
    34. Armstrong, Christopher S. & Guay, Wayne R. & Weber, Joseph P., 2010. "The role of information and financial reporting in corporate governance and debt contracting," Journal of Accounting and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2-3), pages 179-234, December.
    35. Wintoki, M. Babajide & Linck, James S. & Netter, Jeffry M., 2012. "Endogeneity and the dynamics of internal corporate governance," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 105(3), pages 581-606.
    36. Ginglinger, Edith & Megginson, William & Waxin, Timothée, 2011. "Employee ownership, board representation, and corporate financial policies," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 868-887, September.
    37. Fauver, Larry & Fuerst, Michael E., 2006. "Does good corporate governance include employee representation? Evidence from German corporate boards," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(3), pages 673-710, December.
    38. Gregory Jackson & Richard Deeg, 2008. "Comparing capitalisms: understanding institutional diversity and its implications for international business," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 39(4), pages 540-561, June.
    39. Thomas Clarke, 2005. "Accounting for Enron: shareholder value and stakeholder interests," Corporate Governance: An International Review, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 13(5), pages 598-612, September.
    40. Klein, Benjamin & Crawford, Robert G & Alchian, Armen A, 1978. "Vertical Integration, Appropriable Rents, and the Competitive Contracting Process," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(2), pages 297-326, October.
    41. Morck, Randall & Shleifer, Andrei & Vishny, Robert W., 1988. "Management ownership and market valuation : An empirical analysis," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 20(1-2), pages 293-315, January.
    42. Roberts, John & Van den Steen, Eric, 2000. "Shareholder Interests, Human Capital Investment and Corporate Governance," Research Papers 1631, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    43. Russell W. Coff, 1999. "When Competitive Advantage Doesn't Lead to Performance: The Resource-Based View and Stakeholder Bargaining Power," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 10(2), pages 119-133, April.
    44. Afzalur Rashid, 2015. "Revisiting Agency Theory: Evidence of Board Independence and Agency Cost from Bangladesh," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 130(1), pages 181-198, August.
    45. Oliver Hart, 2008. "Economica Coase Lecture: Reference Points and the Theory of the Firm," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 75(299), pages 404-411, August.
    46. Clive Bull, 1987. "The Existence of Self-Enforcing Implicit Contracts," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(1), pages 147-159.
    47. Fama, Eugene F, 1980. "Agency Problems and the Theory of the Firm," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(2), pages 288-307, April.
    48. Rubach, Michael J. & Sebora, Terrence C., 1998. "Comparative corporate governance: Competitive implications of an emerging convergence," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 167-184, July.
    49. Runjuan Liu & Dorothee J Feils & Barry Scholnick, 2011. "Why are different services outsourced to different countries?," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 42(4), pages 558-571, May.
    50. Bhagat, Sanjai & Bolton, Brian, 2008. "Corporate governance and firm performance," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 257-273, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Theo Renou & René Carraz & Thierry Burger-Helmchen, 2023. "Japan’s Corporate Governance Transformation: Convergence or Reconfiguration?," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-17, May.
    2. Theo Renou & René Carrraz & Thierry Burger-Helmchen, 2023. "Japan’s Corporate Governance Transformation: Convergence or Reconfiguration? », Administrative sciences," Post-Print hal-04110803, HAL.
    3. Ozdemir, Sena & Kandemir, Destan & Eng, Teck-Yong & Gupta, Suraksha, 2020. "Vertical stakeholder collaborations for firm innovativeness in new product development: The moderating roles of legal bonds and operational linkages," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 172-184.
    4. Bin Luo & Zhenhai Liu & Sichao Mai, 2023. "The Impact and Internal Mechanism of Environmental Decentralization on Green Total Factor Production," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, January.
    5. Ernest Ezeani & Rami Salem & Frank Kwabi & Khalid Boutaine & Bilal & Bushra Komal, 2022. "Board monitoring and capital structure dynamics: evidence from bank-based economies," Review of Quantitative Finance and Accounting, Springer, vol. 58(2), pages 473-498, February.
    6. Boqiang Lin & Yongjing Xie, 2024. "Impacts of digital transformation on corporate green technology innovation: Do board characteristics play a role?," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(3), pages 1741-1755, May.
    7. Aryestantya Fikri Dewanta & Johan Arifin, 2020. "Corporate Risk-Taking Behaviour: Corporate Governance Perspective," Journal of Contemporary Accounting, Master in Accounting Program, Faculty of Business & Economics, Universitas Islam Indonesia, Yogyakarta, Indonesia, vol. 2(1), pages 1, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Naeem Tabassum & Satwinder Singh, 2020. "Corporate Governance and Organisational Performance," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-030-48527-6, June.
    2. Forcillo, Donato, 2017. "Codetermination: the Presence of Workers on the Board. A Depth Analysis," MPRA Paper 81936, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Marc van Essen & J. (Hans) van Oosterhout & Pursey P. M. A. R. Heugens, 2013. "Competition and Cooperation in Corporate Governance: The Effects of Labor Institutions on Blockholder Effectiveness in 23 European Countries," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(2), pages 530-551, April.
    4. Matthias Kiefer & Edward Jones & Andrew Adams, 2016. "Principals, Agents and Incomplete Contracts: Are Surrender of Control and Renegotiation the Solution?," CFI Discussion Papers 1603, Centre for Finance and Investment, Heriot Watt University.
    5. Ormazabal, Gaizka, 2018. "The Role of Stakeholders in Corporate Governance: A View from Accounting Research," CEPR Discussion Papers 12775, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Mahoney, Joseph T., 2012. "Towards a Stakeholder Theory of Strategic Management," Working Papers 12-0100, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, College of Business.
    7. Jiao, Yawen, 2010. "Stakeholder welfare and firm value," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(10), pages 2549-2561, October.
    8. Ding, Wenzhi & Levine, Ross & Lin, Chen & Xie, Wensi, 2021. "Corporate immunity to the COVID-19 pandemic," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(2), pages 802-830.
    9. ATM Adnan & Nisar Ahmed, 2019. "The Transformation Of The Corporate Governance Model: A Literature Review," Copernican Journal of Finance & Accounting, Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika, vol. 8(3), pages 7-47.
    10. Ginglinger, Edith & Megginson, William & Waxin, Timothée, 2011. "Employee ownership, board representation, and corporate financial policies," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 868-887, September.
    11. Weiß, Christian, 2010. "The Ownership Concentration of Firms: Three Essays on the Determinants and Effects," EconStor Theses, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, number 30247, March.
    12. Cecile Cezanne-Sintes, 2008. "Modern corporate changes: reinstating the link between the nature, boundaries and governance of the firm," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 447-461.
    13. Amitava Roy, 2014. "Corporate Governance and Firm Performance: An Exploratory Analysis of Indian Listed Companies," Jindal Journal of Business Research, , vol. 3(1-2), pages 93-120, June.
    14. Chenglong Zheng & Roy Kouwenberg, 2019. "A Bibliometric Review of Global Research on Corporate Governance and Board Attributes," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-25, June.
    15. Lehmann, Erik, 2018. "Corporate governance," UO Working Papers 01-18, University of Augsburg, Chair of Management and Organization.
    16. Gibbons, Robert, 2005. "Four forma(lizable) theories of the firm?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 200-245, October.
    17. Gérard Hirigoyen & Thierry Poulain-Rehm, 2017. "Comparative approach of governance models: an empirical study [Approche comparative des modèles de gouvernance : Une étude empirique]," Post-Print hal-02521878, HAL.
    18. Raghuram G. Rajan & Luigi Zingales, 1998. "The Governance of the New Enterprise," CRSP working papers 487, Center for Research in Security Prices, Graduate School of Business, University of Chicago.
    19. Gary Gorton & Frank Schmid, 2000. "Class Struggle Inside the Firm: A Study of German Codetermination," NBER Working Papers 7945, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Guidi, Marco G.D. & Hillier, Joe & Tarbert, Heather, 2010. "Successfully reshaping the ownership relationship by reducing ‘moral debt’ and justly distributing residual claims: The cases from Scott Bader Commonwealth and the John Lewis Partnership," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 318-328.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:150:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s10551-016-3188-5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.