Qualitative comparative analysis in corporate governance research: a systematic literature review of applications

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/CG-04-2018-0161
Pages717-734
Published date23 May 2019
Date23 May 2019
AuthorNicola Cucari
Subject MatterStrategy
Qualitative comparative analysis in
corporate governance research:
a systematic literature review of applications
Nicola Cucari
Abstract
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to providecomprehensive mapping of qualitative comparative
analysis (QCA) applications in business and management research and to examine the sub-fields of
corporategovernance research in this context.
Design/methodology/approach Through a systematic literature review of 22 articles, the paper
describes and analyses how QCA is used in the corporate governanc e field, what can be learned
from the methodology’s implementationin corporate governance studies and why authors justify its
use.
Findings The findings highlight that QCA in corporate governance is still at an early stage of
development. The paper encourages governance scholarsto use this method to transform QCA from a
niche intoa mainstream method because it is appropriatefor understanding both complexphenomena of
social realityand issues of corporate governance thatrequire an approach able to capture configurations
of conditions,asymmetric patterns and equifinalexplanations.
Originality/value This is the first complete overview of the existing literature concerning QCA’s
application in corporate governance research and reveals implications for its future use. In this way, it
extends the previous work on QCA’s benefits to management researchers and other critical reviewsof
applications in QCA. This study encourages scholars to renew their understanding of corporate
governance issues through a new analysis methodthat can help to discover conceptual and empirical
relations among case-oriented and variable-oriented analyses in terms of interrelations to examine
corporategovernance practices holistically.
Keywords Corporate governance, Qualitative comparative analysis, Conf‌igurational approach,
Bundle of mechanism, Review paper
Paper type Literature review
Introduction and research objective
One of the prevailing weaknesses in governancestudies is that “monitoring, incentives, and
other types of governance mechanisms are conceptualized and operationalized as
independent, each having its own, unique ability to influence the firm’s strategies and
performance” (Filatotchev and Wright, 2017, p. 4). In addition, research on corporate
governance has typically assumed linear relationships and clear, one-way directions of
causality (Goergen et al., 2010). However, in recent years, the field of corporate
governance studies has moved on from the point of view that corporate governance
mechanisms should not be seen or studied in isolation (Ward et al.,2009). These
developments have culminated in bundles of corporate governance approaches that
explicitly focus on how practices at the company and national levels are influenced by
contextual contingencies. Based on these assumptions, someresearchers have suggested
moving from a closed-system to an open-system approach, considering the influence of
organization-environment interdependencies on the effectiveness of corporate governance
Nicola Cucari is based at
the Department of
Management and
Innovation Systems,
University of Salerno,
Fisciano, Italy.
Received 30 April 2018
Revised 7 August 2018
8 October 2018
21 December 2018
30 January 2019
Accepted 9 February 2019
DOI 10.1108/CG-04-2018-0161 VOL. 19 NO. 4 2019, pp. 717-734, ©Emerald Publishing Limited, ISSN 1472-0701 jCORPORATE GOVERNANCE jPAGE 717
(Tosi, 2008). This has led to greater attention being paid to firms’ contingencies and the
complementarities between governance practices and the potential costs of corporate
governance (Aguilera et al.,2008;Filatotchev et al., 2006). As stated by Boyd et al. (2017),
addressing new questions may require the development of new methods and measures.
Therefore, to create a match between these issues and the research methods, scholars are
currently developing empirical papers using set-theoretic methods to uncover different
configurations of corporategovernance practices.
Indeed, the application of linear models seems to be inappropriate for addressing the
complexity of this new era, thus raising new questions regarding managerial roles,
organizational contexts and changes in governance over time (Tihanyi et al., 2014).
As noted by Rihoux et al. (2013, p. 182), “qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) has
entered over the past few years a phase of mainstreaming in quite a few disciplines”,
substituting traditionalregression-based methods to establish causal conditions related to a
particular result (Garcı
´a-Castroand Arin
˜o, 2016;Vis, 2012).
According to Kan et al. (2016, p. 1462). “QCA helps to highlight the asymmetric nature
(i.e. positive or negative instances of a management phenomenon that the same
determinants cannot explain), as well as the configurational (i.e. positive or negative
instances of a management phenomenon that isolated determinants do not explain)
and causal complexities (i.e. management phenomenon determinants that link with
complementarity and/or substitutability relations which vary according to the context) of
a management phenomenon”. Based on these insights, QCA is an appropriate method
to “explore and map the different existing configurations of corporate governance
within firms and in the insider-outsider governance models, and to evaluate their
relative efficiency” (Garcı
´a-Castro et al.,2013, p. 391). In addition, it is a suitable
technique for finding a balance between case-oriented and variable-oriented analysis
(Rihoux, 2006).
After more than three decades of technique (1987-2019), this seems an opportune time to
analyse and reflect on the QCA methodology application, with specific reference to
corporate governance research. Therefore, this paper is positioned as a contribution
alongside other reviews of the state of knowledge in corporate governance, such as those
by Ahrens et al. (2011) and McNultyet al. (2013).
While reviews of QCA applications in general (Rihoux et al., 2013) or in business and
management research (Kan et al.,2016;Kraus et al.,2018;Roig-Tierno et al.,2016;
Wagemann et al.,2016) have been conducted, therehas not yet been any investigation into
the intellectual structureof its knowledge base or the definition of the scope and evolution of
the research front of QCA in the corporategovernance field.
To accomplish this objective, somequestions arise:
How is qualitative comparative analysis used to study corporate governance?
What can be learned from the way in which the methodology has been implemented in
corporate governance studies?
Why do the authors justify the use of QCA?
To achieve these objectives, this paper analyses the state of the art of the application of
QCA in corporate governance research through a systematic literature review.
Undertaking a systematic review of the literature is a key research objective for academics
and practitioners (Tranfield et al.,2003), and it is even more important at a time of profound
change for corporate governance (Ahrens et al.,2011;Pugliese et al., 2009;Tihanyi et al.,
2014) that has questioned the validity of the approaches and mechanisms of good
corporate governance.
PAGE 718 jCORPORATE GOVERNANCE jVOL. 19 NO. 4 2019

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