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1 Introduction
Corporate governance is an eclectic subject but for the purposes of this Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal special issue the focus is exclusively on corporate governance research within the accounting and finance discipline, given the nature of the journal. In this editorial, first the traditional body of research in corporate governance within accounting and finance is reviewed. Then, the ways in which corporate governance and accountability research is expanding are discussed, providing a frame of reference depicting the frontiers of research into corporate governance. This frame of reference is used to show how each paper in the special issue represents a significant contribution to corporate governance research, and the ways in which each paper is adding to knowledge on the frontiers of the discipline. The special issue fills a gap in the academic literature by building on existing work in order to extend the boundaries of corporate governance research along a number of dimensions.
The paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, the traditional body of corporate governance research is summarised. The extent to which corporate governance research is broadening away from the traditional body of work is shown in Section 3. Also, it highlights how the frame of reference depicting the frontiers of work in the area emerges from the discussion. Section 4 locates the papers included in this special issue within the frame of reference. The discussion in Section 5 concludes with a summary of main themes arising from the special issue as well as some suggestions for future research in corporate governance.
2 Corporate governance research: the nature of prior research
Excellent reviews of corporate governance have been published (Shleifer and Vishny, 1997; Becht et al., 2002; Huse, 2005). In this section, prior corporate governance research is reviewed, from an accountability perspective – the theoretical perspectives adopted, the mechanisms of accountability studied, the methodologies applied, and the sectors/contexts, countries and time horizons considered.
2.1 Theoretical framework and accountability
Traditionally, research into corporate governance has adopted an agency theory approach, focusing exclusively on resolving conflicts of interest (agency problems) between corporate management and the shareholder (Jensen and Meckling, 1976; Fama, 1980; Fama and Jensen, 1983; Eisenhardt, 1989). This finance paradigm dominating corporate governance research emanated from the USA, arising...