Publishing corporate governance research during a pandemic

• Published date: 01 May 2021
• Author: Konstantinos Stathopoulos,Till Talaulicar
• Date: 01 May 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/corg.12378

EDITORIAL

Publishing corporate governance research during a pandemic

1|INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this editorial is to reflect on recent global develop-

ments in corporate governance and report on Corporate Governance:

An International Review's published content and editorial performance

during 2020. As the world comes steadily, and hopefully irreversibly,

out of the grip of the Covid pandemic, it mourns its losses but also

celebrates its resilience. In the face of unprecedented disruptions to

our daily lives, there is ample evidence of the work ethic, innovation,

and commitment of the global corporate governance scholarly and

business communities.

The impact of the pandemic has brought the debate over the role

of corporations in societies back into prominence. Both practitioners

and academics are hard-pressed to addressing important questions:

Do corporations cater sufficiently to the needs of their stakeholders

and societies at large? Are manager incentives too shareholder-centric

and how do we focus minds on creating corporate purpose that can

advance stakeholder interests without compromising shareholder

value? Do we need more regulation or will market participants change

long-established paradigms and practices themselves to address

current as well as future challenges? Are the emerging Environmental,

Social, and Governance (ESG) frameworks fit for purpose and how do

we create meaningful metrics that would lead to more transparency,

comparability, and, eventually, consequential accountability?

There have been certain trends in 2020 that indicate corporate

governance practices are shifting in the right direction. Still, there is a

long way ahead until one can unequivocally claim a paradigm swift.

For example, ESG-friendly funds experienced record levels of capital

inflows driven by unprecedented investor demand for environmen-

tally and socially sustainable investments. However, most market

outperforming ESG funds held significant long positions on technol-

ogy stocks,

1

which nominally meet basic sustainability criteria on, for

example, greenhouse emissions and employee welfare, but have been

accused of ignoring important questions over their societal role.

Furthermore, 2020 was supposed to be the year when corporate

managers would embrace “stakeholder capitalism”and redefine cor-

porate purpose to promote the interests of all stakeholders while

moving away from the shareholder primacy paradigm. We were led to

believe this by the August 2019 Business Roundtable Statement,

2

which was signed by 181 CEOs of some of the largest US

corporations and hailed as groundbreaking by market participants.

Early academic evidence though appears to suggest that the firms of

the signatory CEOs do not walk the talk in terms of adopting

stakeholder-centric practices (Raghunandan & Rajgopal, 2021).

Surprisingly, most CEOs had not sought or got board approval before

signing the Business Roundtable Statement, which raises important

governance questions assuming there was truly an intention to

change corporate purpose in the first place (Bebchuk &

Tallarita, 2020). Finally, record numbers of assets managers are

adapting their investment processes to adhere to the rules for sustain-

able investing promoted by transnational organizations such as the

United Nations and OECD. Still, some of the largest and most vocal

asset managers on ESG issues routinely avoided supporting share-

holder resolutions that tried to advance climate and social issues in

2020.

3

Against this backdrop of mixed signals, the need for rigorous and

relevant academic work on corporate governance issues remains high.

Thus, it is no surprise that, despite the challenges caused by the

pandemic, Corporate Governance: An International Review (CGIR)

experienced a record level of submissions during 2020 totaling

796 manuscripts, of which 685 were original submissions and

111 revisions. This constitutes an increase of 50% in original submis-

sions relative to 2019. As we report in Section 4 of this editorial, the

global community of corporate governance scholars supporting

the journal rose to the occasion and processed all submissions in an

efficient, timely, and friendly manner maintaining or even improving

key turnaround times. We are grateful to our Editors, Editorial Board

members, and reviewers for their excellent service to corporate

governance scholarship in what has been one of the most challenging

years in recent memory.

Our robust screening and review processes led to the publication

of 23 excellent studies, including six review articles. All of them are in

line with our mission to publish cutting-edge research on the phenom-

ena of comparative corporate governance throughout the global

economy and our key objective for the journal to act as the knowl-

edge center for consultants, practitioners, and public policymakers

engaged with corporate governance throughout the world. We briefly

present key highlights from the six issues of Volume 28 in Section 2.

It is a long CGIR tradition to recognize the best papers published

in a particular volume as well as the most dedicated referees in a

specific year. Section 3 offers details on these awards and the selec-

tion processes behind them. We are indebted to the members of our

Advisory Board for their continuous support of the journal in general

and the best paper selection process in particular. Above all, we are

grateful to all authors for submitting their academic work to CGIR.

As the journal moves closer to 30 years of service to the global

corporate governance community, we can all be proud of its contribu-

tions to the continuous development of corporate governance

practice and theory. We are humbled by the significant increase in our

readership base in recent years. In 2020, the journal's outputs were

DOI: 10.1111/corg.12378

216 © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Corp Govern Int Rev. 2021;29:216–221.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/corg