Skip to main content

Codes of Good Governance

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Sustainable Management

Synonyms

Best practices recommendations; Code of Best Practices for Corporate Governance; Guidelines for good corporate governance; Principles of good corporate governance

Definition

Codes of good governance are sets of recommendations and principles about the appropriate structure of the governing bodies of organizations and the proper behavior of the members of those governing bodies (Aguilera and Cuervo-Cazurra 2004; Cuomo et al. 2016). Their purpose is to recover the confidence of shareholders and investors in the transparency and efficiency of financial markets and in the governance systems of companies (Aguilera et al. 2016; Berglöf and Claessens 2006; Hermes et al. 2006).

Introduction

Over the past decades, the concern to find optimal models of corporate governance has resulted in the publication, both at a national level individually by each country and at an international level through various international bodies, of several codes of good governance.

Although codes of good...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Adams, R. B. (2017). Boards, and the directors who sit on them. In The handbook of the economics of corporate governance (Vol. 1, pp. 291–382). North-Holland.

    Google Scholar 

  • Aguilera, R. V., & Cuervo-Cazurra, A. (2004). Codes of good governance worldwide: What is the trigger? Organization Studies, 25(3), 415–443.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aguilera, R. V., & Cuervo-Cazurra, A. (2009). Codes of good governance. Corporate Governance: An International Review, 17(3), 376–387.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Aguilera, R. V., Florackis, C., & Kim, H. (2016). Advancing the corporate governance research agenda. Corporate Governance: An International Review, 24(3), 172–180.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Andrés, P., & Santamaría, M. (2018). Del consejo de administración a los códigos de buen gobierno: un paseo por la literatura académica. The Economist, 158, 106–125.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berglöf, E., & Claessens, S. (2006). Enforcement and good corporate governance in developing countries and transition economies. The World Bank Research Observer, 21(1), 123–150.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bosáková, I., Kubíček, A., & Strouhal, J. (2019). Governance codes in the developing and emerging countries: Do they look for the international role model? Economics & Sociology, 12(3), 251–272.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cadbury, A. (1992). The financial aspects of corporate governance – A report of the committee on corporate governance. London: Gee and Co.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cicon, J. E., Ferris, S. P., Kammel, A. J., & Noronha, G. (2012). European corporate governance: a thematic analysis of national codes of governance. European Financial Management, 18(4), 620–648.

    Google Scholar 

  • Coombes, P., & Wong, S. C. Y. (2004). Why codes of governance work. The McKinsey Quarterly, 2, 48–53.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cuomo, F., Mallin, C., & Zattoni, A. (2016). Corporate governance codes: A review and research agenda. Corporate Governance: An International Review, 24(3), 222–241.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dodd-Frank Act, United States. Congress. (2010). Dodd-frank wall street reform and consumer protection act: conference report (to Accompany HR 4173) (Vol. 111, No. 517). US Government Printing Office.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fama, E. F., & Jensen, M. C. (1983). Separation of ownership and control. The Journal of Law and Economics, 26(2), 301–325.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gregory, J. H. & Simmelkjaer, T. R. (2002). Comparative study of corporate governance codes relevant to the European Union and its member states. New York: Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP.

    Google Scholar 

  • Haxhi, I., & Aguilera, R. V. (2012). Are codes fostering convergence in corporate governance? An institutional perspective. In The convergence of corporate governance (pp. 234–248). London: Palgrave Macmillan.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Hermes, N., Postma, T. J., & Zivkov, O. (2006). Corporate governance codes in the European Union: Are they driven by external or domestic forces? International Journal of Managerial Finance, 2(4), 280–301.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hermes, N., Postma, T. J., & Zivkov, O. (2007). Corporate governance codes and their contents: An analysis of eastern European codes. Journal for East European Management Studies, 12, 53–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jensen, M. C., & Meckling, W. H. (1976). Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure. Journal of Financial Economics, 3(4), 305–360.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kabach-Castro, L. R., & Crespí-Cladera, R. (2011). Understanding non-compliance with corporate governance codes: Evidence from Europe. In Academy of management proceedings (Vol. 2011, no. 1, pp. 1–7). New York: Academy of Management.

    Google Scholar 

  • La Porta, R., Lopez-de-Silanes, F., Shleifer, A., & Vishny, R. (1998). Law and finance. Journal of Political Economy, 106(6), 1113–1155.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • López, F. J. I., & Pereira, M. L. (2006). Análisis internacional de los códigos de buen gobierno. Universia Business Review, 11, 10–21.

    Google Scholar 

  • OECD. (2019). OECD Corporate Governance Factbook 2019. www.oecd.org/corporate/corporate-governance-factbook.htm

  • Reddy, B. V. (2019). Thinking outside the box–eliminating the perniciousness of box-ticking in the new corporate governance code. The Modern Law Review, 82(4), 692–726.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Reid, A. S. (2003). The internationalization of corporate governance codes of conduct. Business Law Review, 24, 233–238.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sarbanes, P. (2002). Sarbanes-Oxley act of 2002. In The public company accounting reform and investor protection act. Washington, DC: US Congress.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wymeersch, E. (2006). Corporate governance codes and their implementation. Working Paper Nº 10, Financial Law Institute, Universiteit Gent.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zattoni, A., & Cuomo, F. (2008). Why adopt codes of good governance? A comparison of institutional and efficiency perspectives. Corporate Governance: An International Review, 16(1), 1–15.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rebeca García-Ramos .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Section Editor information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

García-Ramos, R., Díaz Díaz, B. (2020). Codes of Good Governance. In: Idowu, S., Schmidpeter, R., Capaldi, N., Zu, L., Del Baldo, M., Abreu, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Sustainable Management. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02006-4_488-1

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02006-4_488-1

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-02006-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02006-4

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Business and ManagementReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

Publish with us

Policies and ethics