Sub-theme 31:
Regulating organizations through codes of corporate governance

Convenors:

Call for papers

In the wake of corporate scandals like Polly Peck, BBCI, Maxwell, Mirror Group, Enron and World Com there have been increasing calls for more effective regulation of corporate behavior in general and the actions of company directors in particular. In response to that, various laws on issues of corporate governance have been passed in several countries around the world. In addition to that, there has been a strong trend towards the adoption of self regulation in the form of codes of corporate governance. The first code of this kind came in the so-called Cadbury Report in the UK issued in 1992 and it was subsequently imitated in many economies around world. Up to now similar codes have been implemented in over fifty countries. In addition to that there are several transnational codes, e.g. the OECD code.

Despite the pervasiveness of codes of corporate governance and the propagation of code regulation by transnational actors, e.g. by the EU, there is still surprisingly little research on the functioning of code regulation. Studies are only just beginning to appear that track the implementation of codes. Such research is important, yet we believe that it is time to move the research agenda on codes forward. This, first of all, means studying the entire process from the development of the code, to the dissemination of the code, to the interpretation of the code by various stakeholders, to the implementation of the code by individual companies, to the reaction by the various stakeholders to deviations from the code and to the processes of revising the code. In addition to that it also seems necessary to delve deeper into the different elements of this process. For example, rather than just analyzing public compliance statements, as most surveys do, it seems necessary to study also the concrete governance practices in the individual organizations. Another important concern is to compare the intellectual and institutional foundations for code formulation and application across different countries.

In this subtheme we call for papers that explore various aspects of corporate governance code regulation. We are interested both in conceptual and empirical papers – both qualitative and quantitative. Of particular interest are papers with a comparative perspective. Submissions from scholars working in all areas of the social sciences are welcome. Possible topics for contributions are:

• What theoretical perspectives can usefully be applied for studying code regulation, e.g. Institutional Theory, Agency Theory?

• What is the relation between code regulation and statuary laws?

• What effect does the introduction of codes have on the organizational field, for example, the emergence of new types of organization (e.g. corporate governance rating agencies) or new types of practices?

• What do the processes of code formulation look like? What interests are involved? How are conflicts of interest resolved?

• What assumptions, e.g. about human behavior or about the interaction between organizations and their stakeholders, are the codes based on?

• How do companies respond to code regulation? How are codes implemented?

• How are compliance statements linked to actual practices in the respective organizations?

• Which stakeholders look at compliance statements and what relevance do the statements have for them?

• How ‘voluntary’ are the codes in practice?

• Are similar codes emerging also in other fields, e.g. the public sector, or on other topics, e.g. corporate social responsibility? How do they compare?

• Finally, critical reviews that take stock of the emerging literatures on corporate governance codes are also welcomed.

About the convenors

David Seidl (University of Munich): Assistant Professor of Organization and Strategy at the University of Munich, Germany; research, various publications and special issues on organization theory, strategy and corporate governance (incl. Journal of Management Studies, Organization, Organization Studies, and Human Relations); coordinator of the EGOS Standing Working Group "Strategizing: Activity and Practice".

John Roberts (Cambridge University): Reader at the Judge Institute of Business Studies, University of Cambridge, UK; research for the Higgs review on the work of the non-executive; research and various publications on organization behavior, business ethics and corporate governance (incl. Accounting, Organizations and Society, Journal of Management Studies, Human Relations Organization, Organization Studies).

Jaan Grünberg (Uppsala University): Assistant Professor at the Department of Business Studies, Uppsala University, Sweden; research and various publications on management and corporate governance.