Pioneering Research in Comparative Corporate Governance: The Role of Special Issues

• Date: 01 January 2012
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8683.2011.00890.x
• Published date: 01 January 2012
• Author: William Judge

Editorial

Pioneering Research in Comparative Corporate

Governance: The Role of Special Issues

William Judge

Editor in Chief

Over the past several years, we have been devoting a

considerable amount of space to special issues here at

CGIR. Specifically, we have sponsored two special issues

(out of six annual issues) every year since 2008 under the

current editorial team. Special issues open up new lines of

scholarly inquiry, deepen existing research streams, and

broaden the engagement and contributions of different dis-

ciplines throughout the scholarly community. I am con-

vinced that this is one of the reasons why our number of

submissions, downloads, citations, and selectivity continues

to increase, and it is why so many scholars share their pre-

cious time and expertise with us so generously.

In this first issue of our 20th year of operation, it was

interesting for me to note that each article accepted for pub-

lication related to a previous or a future special issue under

development for CGIR. For example, our lead article seeks

to understand how national creditor rights influence R&D

intensity at the firm level. In their examination of 21,000

firms operating in 41 countries, Seifert and Gonenc find that

the stronger the creditor rights operating within a country,

the lower the R&D investments made. Furthermore, they

report that this relationship is stronger in market-based

economies, but weaker in bank-based economies. Also, they

find that the relationship is stronger when the firm is in

financial distress (i.e., negative cash flow). Overall, this

study demonstrates how national- and firm-level gover-

nance mechanisms can interact to influence firm outcomes.

As such, it highlights the importance of our upcoming

special conference on national governance bundles to be

held at Cambridge University in September, 2012.

Our second article also addresses the interaction between

national- and firm-level governance mechanisms. Bonini,

Alkan, and Salvi seek to understand how venture capital

ownership influences a wide variety of corporate gover-

nance decisions. Using primary data, they examined 164

firms operating in five different economies in North

America and Europe. In general, they found that the greater

the level of venture capital ownership,the more involved the

board is in making governance decisions (e.g., CEO hiring

influence, director selections, and executive compensation

determination). However, they did not find that venture

capital ownership was systematically related to strategic

decisions (e.g., determining strategic direction, allocating

strategic investments). Interestingly, they found that these

relationships were much stronger in the United States than

they were in European economies. As such, this study again

highlights the importance of understanding how national-

and firm-level governance mechanisms interact if we want

to move towards a global theory of corporate governance.

The next article lays some interesting groundwork for our

upcoming special issue on executive compensation. Specifi-

cally, Vieito provides a fascinating study on how CEO

gender influences executive compensation within the top

management team, and how both of these constructs influ-

ence firm performance. This ground-breaking study reveals

that female CEOs are associated with higher levels of firm

performance than their male counterparts. Furthermore, it

empirically demonstrates that female CEOs, in general, dis-

courage large compensation gaps within their top manage-

ment teams. Professor Vieito takes an elegant competing

theoretical approach to reveal that behavioral theory best

explains the results for female CEOs, while tournament

theory best explains the firm outcomes for male CEOs.

While this study only considers firms within the United

States, the theoretical and empirical outcomes provide major

new insights for executive compensation, gender diversity,

group dynamics, and firm performance.

Our fourth article also focuses on executive compensation.

Notably, Kostiander and Ikäheimo conduct an in-depth field

study of the role of compensation consultants in helping

to determine the compensation scheme in a “highly

constrained” governance environment. Specifically, they

examine the compensation determination process in five

state-owned firms in Finland which are under considerable

public scrutiny and subject to fairly tight and very public

compensation guidelines. Interestingly, they find that the

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Corporate Governance: An International Review, 2012, 20(1): 1–2

© 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

doi:10.1111/j.1467-8683.2011.00890.x