Ownership and corporate governance across institutional contexts

Abstract

Research Question/Issue: The purpose of this special issue (SI) is to encourage research examining the effect of different ownership types in and from different countries on corporate governance and objectives. Research Findings/Insights: The articles included in this SI provide novel insights as to the influence of different types of owners, including states and sovereign wealth funds, families, and different types of institutional investors, as well as of other features of ownership structures, on various aspects of corporate governance, in a variety of institutional contexts. Theoretical/Academic Implications: As companies face different institutional contexts when they operate internationally, and shareholders have become increasingly global, the resulting heterogeneity of shareholder types poses new challenges in our understanding of their behavior. This SI is a step in the direction of disentangling the complex implications of ownership for corporate governance across institutional contexts. Practitioner/Policy Implications: Together with other owner types, the ever-increasing $100 trillion global asset management industry representing 40% of global market capitalization (PwC, 2020) fuels corporate governance and performance pressures on portfolio companies. The articles included in the SI provide useful insights as to the new ownership landscape and its consequences for operating firms in different countries.

Acquisition Relatedness in Family Firms: Do the Environment and the Institutional Context Matter?

“…However, this effect varies highly (being positive or negative) between different types of owners, depending on the acquirer's environmental uncertainty (see Figure 2). Therefore, our work contributes to advancing our knowledge on how the ownership type, environmental uncertainty and institutional context influence corporate strategies and behaviour (Castañer et al, 2022). It is also worth mentioning that our theory and theoretical predictions are tested through a strong international database across multiple countries and continents that is much more developed and sophisticated than existing datasets used in prior family firm research on this topic (King et al, 2022).…”

Sustainable value creation in multinational enterprises: The role of corporate governance actors

“…Furthermore, while prior research on MNEs has mostly focused on the managerial and/or board level, we suggest that an investigation of owners' inclinations (e.g., values) may hold the promise to increase our understanding of decision-making in view of an effective transition to sustainable operations and value creation (see, e.g., Kavadis & Thomsen, 2023, for a review). For example, do institutional investors in an MNE differ in terms of sustainable policy preferences according to their country of origin (see also, e.g., Castañer et al, 2022)? Countries do not only have unequal levels of development in addressing social and environmental challenges, but they also have different institutional dispositions, pointing to different levels of potential for firms to act as substitutes to regulatory efforts.…”

“…The fact that country differences are important in terms of, e.g., legal system and consequent variation in the protection of the interests of various types of actors (e.g., investor protection, labor protection), may increase complexity in the study of these questions at the MNE level, but perhaps also the interest of the questions. MNEs may have several blockholders, which may come from countries with different institutional systems, in both formal (e.g., legal) and informal (cultural) terms (e.g., Castañer et al, 2022;Kavadis & Castañer, 2019;. Does this heterogeneity in a firm's ownership structure influence the pursuit of sustainability objectives, and if so, in what way?…”

The case for robust academic research on corporate governance

“…There was no Editor's Pick article in issue 6 since that issue was dedicated to the special issue on “Ownership and Corporate Governance across Institutional Contexts.” It contains an article‐long editorial by the guest editors that explains the rationale and the contribution of this special issue (Castañer et al, 2022).…”