This thesis represents a scholarly journey towards an understanding of
corporate governance. Unlike the vast majority of writings on governance, this
work attempts to take a step back, and to consider why and how we should
study corporate governance. These critical questions have been largely
ignored during the frenzy of governance research in the past few decades.
The thesis argues that corporate governance theory and practice reflects a
Tower of Academic Babel¹ reality as writers from diverse backgrounds use
different approaches, invent terminology and proclaim a new 'theory'. The
thesis analyses the extent of this conceptual confusion about corporate
governance and why this arises. It also considers some possible reasons for
the increasing disillusionment with the legal, ethical, cultural, institutional,
regulatory and other contexts of corporate governance.
The corporate governance literature indicates that much uncertainty has
arisen over the nature of corporate governance. Both, denotative and
connotative meanings of corporate governance have been ambiguous, often
because of poorly defined concepts. This ambiguity is compounded by
confusion over methodological concepts such as "paradigm", "system",
"model" and "theory", the key constructs employed by many legal, and other,
writers. Moreover, much of the literature on corporate governance is founded
on ethnocentric concepts that are often "chauvinistic in the extreme".² This
confusion has been intensified by the added complexity of unique
phenomenology, demonstrated by numerous writers with "scholarship and
advocacy that is culturally and economically insensitive"³
This thesis argues that the search for corporate efficiency and effectiveness
is often misguided, both because of biased performance criteria and a lack of
a clear conceptual domain. Consequently, the corporate governance
discourse fails meaningfully to address the enigma of what is the range of
corporate governance influence on corporate activities? The overarching
argument made in this thesis is that our understanding of corporate
governance requires a clarification of methodological approach and a
comparative perspective.
By recasting corporate governance research within consistent models,
theories and applications this thesis lays the foundation for future research by
which we may investigate the causal relationships that determine corporate
efficiency, effectiveness and the optimum structures for good corporate
governance.
practitioners from most cultures.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/218715 |
| Date | January 2005 |
| Creators | Ziolkowski, Richard, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Law |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Richard Ziolkowski |
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