Call for papers "Connecting the Dots between Management and Governance: A Comparative Corporate Governance Mechanism"

For a special issue of the International Journal of Comparative Management.

The purpose of this special issue will be to contribute to comparative corporate governance dynamics and mechanisms by exploring contemporary research questions on the relationship between management and governance of the firm.

Nowadays, the way organisations are governed has become more important than the way they are managed. However, some people fail to make the distinction between governance and management and understand their connection, since management and governance are not mutually incompatible (Bovaird and Löffler, 2009: 11; Tricker, 2009: 35) ; indicating that their combined organisational impact makes them stringently related to one another (Capasso and Dagnino, 2014: 929 ).

Trying to define governance and/or corporate governance seems to open Pandora’s box since literature offers a plethora of definitions (e.g. Kooiman, 1993; Daily et al., 2003; Aguilera and Jackson, 2010; Nerantzidis et al., 2012). For instance, “governance is the process whereby societies or organizations make important decisions, determine whom they involve and how they render account” (Graham et al., 2003). This illustrate that governance is not a static action, but rather a dynamic process in which practices are revised and enhanced contingent on new organisational realities (Aguilera and Cuervo-Cazurra, 2004: 436). On the other hand, management is “the process of administering and coordinating resources effectively and efficiently is an effort to achieve the goals of the organization” (Lewis et al., 2007: 5). This means that management runs the organisation while governance ensures that it is being well run and run in the right direction. Taking into consideration all management disciplines (strategic management, risk management, impression management etc.), it is obvious that the relationship between management and governance is even more complicated.

For this reason, this special issue will aim to explore the links between management and governance to better understand the systems, practices, mechanisms, compensations, risks, disclosures, diversity and relationships affecting the way companies and organisations are directed and controlled. This interdisciplinary theme is motivated by various theoretical underpinnings explored in governance, management, organisational theory, and accounting and finance.

Inspired by these factors, we welcome studies that conduct critical analysis, comparative observation, empirical testing and longitudinal case investigations relating to the special issue theme. Importantly, submissions must establish a coherent relation between management and governance as broadly has been defined. We also expect that submissions make contributions to extant theories such as agency theory, stewardship theory, managerial hubris, institutional theory, RBV, and TCE, among others by crafting comparative corporate governance typologies with a view to “connecting the dots between management and governance of the firm”.

This special issue aims to explore, for example,

• Does ownership structure play a significant role to better understand the cross-national diversity of governance and management ?
• Do governance regimes encourage a balance between diversity and the need for cohesion that best serves the firm’s purpose?
• Does labour management (i.e. employment relationships, pay systems) interact with corporate governance quality ?
• Do board and audit committee activities are important factors in constraining the propensity of managers to engage in earnings management ?
• How does a corporate governance mechanism affect the selected information that managers release and present (known as impression management) ? 

Suitable topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The relationship between corporate governance and strategic management
• Connecting the history between management and governance
• The role of management in improving governance of the firm
• Firm performance, governance and CEO compensation (e.g. Petra and Dorata, 2008; Aguilera and Jackson, 2010)
• Gender diversity in corporate governance and top management team-TMT (e.g. Francoeur et al., 2008; Ben ‐ Amar et al., 2013)
• Governance and management in non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
• Ethical issues of management and governance (e.g. Huang et al., 2008)
• Corporate governance and earning management (e.g. Xie et al., 2003 )
• Corporate governance and risk management (e.g. Tao and Hutchinson, 2013)
• Corporate governance and impression management (e.g. Osma and Guillamón-Saorín, 2011; Benson et al., 2015)
• Governing and managing firms in crisis (e.g. Sun et al., 2012)
• The cost of monitoring management and the cost of corporate governance in relation with its benefits
• Ownership, governance and management issues in family business and SME firms (e.g. Corbetta and Montemerlo, 1999; Brunninge et al., 2007; Siebels and zu Knyphausen ‐ Aufseß, 2012)
• Macroeconomic environment, firm performance and corporate governance ratings
• Corporate governance, policy reforms and firm value in emerging economies (e.g. Young et al., 2008; Claessens and Yurtoglu, 2013)
• International corporate governance and theory of the firm (e.g. Aguilera and Crespi-Cladera, 2016)
• Emerging issues in management and governance (e.g. Filatotchev and Boyd, 2009; Filatotchev et al., 2013; Boyd et al., 2017)

Important Dates

Manuscripts due by: 20 January, 2018
Notification to authors: 20 April, 2018
Final versions due by: 31 May, 2018