THEORETICAL AND COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVES ON CORPORATE ORGANIZATION

The study of corporate governance has expanded both its theoretical an d its empirical scope. We define governance broadly to include the soc ial organization of firms and their relations to their suppliers, cust omers, competitors, and states. This review examines both economic and sociological theories to evaluate their efficacy at accounting for th e comparative data on firms. Our review of the comparative literature suggests that there is no evidence of convergence across societies tow ard a single form of governance, and that this is mainly a function of three factors: the timing of entry into industrialization and the ins titutionalization of that process, the role of states in regulating pr operty rights and rules of cooperation and competition between firms, and the social organization of national elites. The theories that func tion best are those that consider political, institutional, and evolut ionary factors as causal. This is a cautious conclusion as many of the theories have not been evaluated because of the difficulty in produci ng comparative measures.