Governance codes and types of issuer: a global study

We study the relationship between the types of issuer and the contents of the governance codes in the new-institutional theory, using a global sample of over 70 national governance codes. We hypothesise that the code recommendations are influenced by the isomorphic pressure to embrace new social practices, exerted by the different types of issuer. The findings show that codes issued involving multiple stakeholder groups and organisations in hybrid committees are more likely to: 1) include recommendations that take into account multiple political and social institutional demands; 2) adapt the mainstream agency-theory-based governance model to the national setting. Overall, the policy-making negotiations among different stakeholder groups in the local institutional setting appear to be determinant in shaping the recommendations of the code and in improving the promotion of good governance among firms. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to systematically investigate the relationship between the types of issuer and the contents of codes, in a global sample.