Editorial: Advances in corporate governance practices

Abstract

Corporate governance has gone through three decades of profound changes in terms of new regulations, new practices, and environmental conditions. Many countries drafted guidelines for best corporate governance practices following Cadbury report (Cadbury, 1992). These practices were mainly related to the board of directors (composition and functioning), internal controls, and internal audit. The Enron scandal followed by the collapse of Arthur Andersen, one of the big five audit firms, and the enactment of the “Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act” (Sarbanes-Oxley law) in 2002 were other milestones in the evolution of corporate governance. This law brought about significant changes related to public company accounting oversight, auditor independence, financial disclosure, and corporate responsibility. The financial crisis in 2008 started in the United States and has shaken the world economy. This crisis was due to weak corporate governance that led to fraudulent financial reporting and excessive risk-taking. Grove and Victoravich (2012) consider CEO duality, lack of board independence, weak management control systems, short-termism, weak codes of ethics, and opaque disclosures among the main drivers of this crisis. The COVID-19 has consistently shown that firms with better corporate governance and corporate social responsibility practices were the most resilient entities during the first quarter of the pandemic (Ramelli & Wagner, 2020). All these topics are addressed in this collection of high-quality research papers of this year’s first issue of Corporate Board: Role, Duties, and Composition.