Ownership and Corporate Governance across Institutional Contexts

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.