An Institutional Configurational Approach to Cross‐National Diversity in Corporate Governance

Abstract

Corporate governance (CG) research has typically been studied from rather disparate disciplinary approaches, thereby offering myopic and often conflicting rationales. We develop an institutional configurational approach to integrate this ‘siloed’ field and explain CG patterns around the world. To do so, we draw on an inductive, theory‐building methodology based on fuzzy‐set logic to uncover the configurations across institutional actor‐centred domains and their impact on CG patterns. Empirically, we explore the necessary and sufficient causal conditions leading to different features of codes of good governance across 32 OECD countries. We generate propositions linking configurational institutional domains to code features. Our results show that a single institutional domain by itself is not sufficient to explain CG outcomes, and that these domains need to be considered in conjunction, leading, in turn, to the identification of four distinct configurational governance prototypes. Our study offers a comprehensive account of drivers of cross‐national differences in CG and yields useful insights for managing and regulating governance.

Corporate Governance in China: A Meta‐Analysis

“…A possible explanation for our findings may be the co‐evolution of market reforms and the adoption of standard corporate governance principles that over time complement each other (Haxhi and Aguilera, ). Specifically, given the more gradual nature of China's institutional transitions (as opposed to the more abrupt transitions in Central and Eastern Europe), the temporal effects of introducing ‘good’ governance outcomes are more likely to be observed.…”

“…Standard monitoring and alignment mechanisms are hinged upon the assumptions of self-orientation (Bruce et al, 2005;Davis, 2005) and market maturity (Young et al, 2008), which may not be a natural fit for economies characterized by relationship-based regimes and underdeveloped market institutions (Sundaramurthy and Lewis, 2003). Scholars, therefore, recommend invoking an institution-based view by incorporating institutional factors to better understand the contextual nature of corporate governance problems (Haxhi and Aguilera, 2017;Meyer and Peng, 2016;Peng and Jiang, 2010).…”

Packs, Troops and Herds: Prosocial Cooperatives and Innovation in the New Normal

“…The necessity test in fsQCA reveals whether one of the configurational enablers is individually enough to produce innovative outcomes (Haxhi and Aguilera, ). Our analyses of necessary conditions reveal two conditions with stronger fuzzy subset relationship with high innovation and its component parts, these are: workforce competency (WFC) and innovation orientation (IO).…”

A typology of board design for highly effective monitoring in intergovernmental organizations under the United Nations system

“…Our frequency threshold is 1, which is acceptable for a small N analysis (e.g. Haxhi & Aguilera 2017;Federo & Saz-Carranza 2018). Only the configurations that meet our consistency and frequency thresholds are presented with their respective coverage in a configuration table.…”

“…We refrain from advancing a priori propositions because our analysis is inductive and exploratory in nature (e.g. Haxhi & Aguilera 2017).…”