Developing Corporate Governance Theory through Qualitative Research

• Author: William Judge,Alessandro Zattoni,Thomas Douglas,
• Date: 01 March 2013
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/corg.12016
• Published date: 01 March 2013

Guest Editorial

Developing Corporate Governance Theory

through Qualitative Research

Alessandro Zattoni, Thomas Douglas, and William Judge

Corporate governance research has historically focused

on testing predictions based on agency theory through

the use of quantitative methods (Daily, Dalton, & Cannella,

2003; Dalton, Hitt, Certo, & Daily, 2007). A recent review of

articles published in CGIR supported this conclusion,

showing that the large majority of the articles published in

2008–10 (1) have been developed using agency theory or

other economic-related perspectives, and (2) adopt a rigor-

ous explanatory approach characterized by deductively

testing theoretical predictions (Zattoni & van Ees, 2012).

These studies have greatly contributed to enrich our

knowledge of corporate governance issues, and have helped

governance practitioners to strengthen the effectiveness of

governancemechanisms aimed at protecting investors. Atthe

same time, the empirical evidence provided by these studies

is mixed at best, and several recent meta-analyses have

revealed that agency-based prescriptions generally have

equivocal impactson governance behaviorsand performance

outcomes (Dalton, Daily, Ellstrand, & Johnson, 1998; Dalton,

Daily,Johnson, & Ellstrand, 1999; Dalton et al., 2007; Deutsch,

2005; Rhoades,Rechner, & Sundaramurthy, 2000). As a result,

the f‌ield of corporate governance has begun to move away

from agency theory and consider other theoretical frame-

works and methodologies (Durisin & Puzone, 2009).

Logical positivism, the scientif‌ic philosophy that agency

theory embraces, is the dominant paradigmwithin the social

sciences today with its focus on parsimonious theory that

is generalizable and gleaned through a separation of the

observer from the observation (Carnap, 1928). However,

logical positivism and deductive theory-testing studies have

their strengths and weaknesses. Qualitative research, with

its philosophical grounding in phenomenology, addresses

the weaknesses of logical positivism by focusing on the

accuracy and contextual nature of social science at the sacri-

f‌ice of generalizability (Kuhn, 1962). According to Karl

Weick (1979), the aim of all social science is to generate

theory that is accurate, parsimonious, and generalizable, but

no theory or empirical method can embrace all three criteria

at one time.

The mixed f‌indings of previous studies based on agency

theory encouraged governance scholars aff‌iliated with this

journal to raise a call towards the use of alternative or

complementary theories, and to explore real-life governance

issues using data collected through a direct interaction with

key governance actors. For example, the editors of recent

special issues that focused on boards and governance

emphasized that, to enhance our understanding of the

effectiveness of governance mechanisms, scholars should

gain access to process-oriented data, go beyond the almost

exclusive use of agency theory, and overcome empirical dog-

matisms and narrow conceptualizations of corporate gover-

nance (e.g., Daily et al., 2003; Hambrick, von Werder, &

Zajac; 2008; Huse, Hoskisson, Zattoni, & Viganò; 2011).

Consequently, the goal of this special issue is to break new

methodological and theoretical ground in corporate gover-

nance research. In particular, our purpose is to incentivize

governance scholars to use qualitative methods, and to gen-

erate fresh new theoretical insights about corporate gover-

nance practices that are both rigorous and relevant. In order

to raise interest in the special issue, we posted the call for

papers on this journal’s website and in various newsletters

(i.e., European Academy of Management and the Academy

of Management), we circulated calls among corporate gov-

ernance colleagues, and we advertised the special issue in

our print journal and on our website. In response to this call,

we received 27 submissions that we screened to evaluate

their f‌it with the journal and the call for papers.Interestingly,

the large majority of the articles (i.e., 21) came from Euro-

pean scholars, four from scholars located in Oceania, and

one from scholars located in Africa and in the US. Within the

European scholars, the UK scholars played a prominentrole,

with eight submissions.

We screened all articles for consistency with journal

guidelines (Zattoni & van Ees, 2012), and based on this cri-

teria, we rejected seven of them. The remaining 20 articles

were sent to reviewers. Wechose a mix of reviewers (most of

them from institutions outside the US) who were familiar

with qualitative methods and approaches in governance

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Corporate Governance: An International Review, 2013, 21(2): 119–122

© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

doi:10.1111/corg.12016