Accounting for Citizenship: Best Practices of Corporate Governance in Portugal

Accounting for citizenship focuses on citizens’ best interest to include both protecting their future financial well-being and ameliorating some of the harsh projections of what the world might look like for future retirees (Williams and Conley, Cornell Int Law J 38:493–551, 2005) and increasingly pressure the company strategic decisions to invest in sustainable practices (Aguilera et al., Corp Gov 14:147–158, 2006) and the better functioning of corporate governance (Aguilera and Cuervo-Cazurra, Corp Gov Int Rev 17:376–387, 2009). The theoretical part of the research presents a comparative synopsis of the organizational and legal issues of corporate governance in Portugal. Also, different research streams have been investigated to show the role of corporate governance in the citizens’ perception. The empirical part of the research is centered on the annual inquiry of the Portuguese Securities Market Commission, since 1999 till 2011, and on the disclosure of annual reports of listed companies. The results show an important impulse of the disclosure as well as exploration of convergence and divergence on recommendations. Also, it has been noted that better information reduces the asymmetric information and allows each citizen to understand accounting and corporate governance better. But, this evidence did not establish causality and much more work needs to be done because multiple issues will update recommendations of codes of corporate governance. In this sense, this research demonstrates that monitoring the disclosure practices is an essential task to ensure the informative value of corporate governance report and, thus, the corresponding added value for investor protection. The findings are consistent and it is urgent that the company, in general, and the citizen, in particular, must promote corporate governance report with full citizenship rights, fighting anomalies or misunderstandings, and encouraging appropriate corporate behavior. However, to the best of the understanding of these authors, the role of corporate governance has not been previously emphasized in accounting for citizenship.