Corporate Governance Convergence and Divergence among Countries and Companies: A Conceptual Analysis

Abstract

The Cadbury Committee (1992, cited in Mintz, 2005, p. 584) defines corporate governance as the system by which companies are directed and controlled. Countries and companies alike have real-ized that corporate governance has become center stage. The prominent driver of change to cor-porate governance codes has been due to corporate collapse (United Nations, cited, 1999, cited in Davies, 2008, p. 533). In addition, the growing number of institutional ownership and the internation-alization of capital markets (Elsayed, 2007) have made corporate governance to become very criti-cal. Many countries have adopted corporate governance practices and while there are similarities in their approaches, there are also differences. This article provides a conceptual analysis of their simi-larities and differences. This article serves to enlighten undergraduate students studying corporate governance, students of ACCA studying the Strategic Business Leader subject, post-graduate stu-dents and practitioners on the foundations of convergence and divergence of corporate governance.

The next section of this article will provide the reasons why there are similarities in countries’ corpo-rate governance. This is followed by reasons, that despite some similarities, there are also factors that results in differences in corporate governance. The last section wraps up with a conclusion of the article.