Maturation of Corporate Governance Research, 1993 – 2007: An Assessment

Governance is exposed to criticism. In situations of corporate and political failure, criticisms of governance failure abound and calls for new oversight often follow promptly. Similarly, the field of corporate governance research is exposed to criticism, too. While encompassing contributions from many disciplines, including economics, management, finance, law, and accounting, some doubt whether corporate governance research in fact is a discipline in and of itself; in this view, corporate governance research is rather the subject of multi-disciplinary research than a discipline. Thus, while the relevance of corporate governance research is not questioned, there are reservations about its intellectual structure. The paper addresses this issue. It examines the common body of knowledge of corporate governance research – its existence and evolution. The study does not contribute to a specific topic of the field of corporate governance; it aims contributing to the discipline of corporate governance research. It does so by analyzing the first fifteen years of Corporate Governance – An International Review from 1993 to 2007 and the works on corporate governance research in other academic journals (AMR, AMJ, AR, ASQ, IJA, JAE, JAR, JoB, JF, JFE, MS, OS, RES, RFS, and SMJ) during the same period. The study does not assess the evolution and influence of a certain field of corporate governance research; it assesses the evolution of corporate governance research as a discipline. If there is an established common body of knowledge influential across contributions from economics, management, finance, law, and accounting, scholars who do not consider it in their research projects do so at the peril of the advancement of corporate governance matters in society. The study investigates whether there’s common agreement on the topics that are at the core of corporate governance research, how the topics evolved over time, whether new topics emerged, and if works related to specific topics are increasingly grouped in common intellectual repositories. It contributes to address the kind of criticisms that questions corporate governance research as a discipline.