Corporate governance and remuneration: a bibliometric analysis

Jinnatul Raihan Mumu,Paolo Saona,Hasibul Islam Russell,Md Abul Kalam Azad

doi:10.1108/jabes-03-2021-0025

Abstract

PurposeThis study aims to pinpoint gaps in the literature on corporate governance and remuneration by producing a comprehensive bibliometric review for the period 1990–2020.Design/methodology/approachBibliometric analysis is the quantitative study of the bibliographic material in a specific research field. It allows an analyst to classify that material by paper, journal, author, indexation, institution or country, among other possibilities. This study reviews a total of 298 Web of Science–indexed journal articles on corporate governance and top-management remuneration schemes.FindingsThe authors find five distinct research strands: (1) firm performance and remuneration of top management, (2) the remuneration and independence of boards of directors and the efficiency of boards of directors as a governance system, (3) outside-director remuneration and the efficiency of outside directors as a monitoring system, (4) director remuneration and the corporate governance of companies and (5) the role of ownership structure and top managers' compensation schemes as corporate-governance tools. The authors identify gaps in the literature and avenues for future research for each of these strands.Practical implicationsThe authors’ findings have implications for board diversity (e.g. gender diversity), remuneration policy for top-level managers and governance issues (independent directors, separation of ownership with control). This study is the only one to summarize the key topics on which top research has been focused and can be broadly used for corporate governance management perspective.Originality/valueThis paper provides an overview of how the literature on corporate governance and remuneration has developed and a synopsis of the most influential and most productive authors, countries and journal sources. It creates an opportunity for other researchers to focus on this area. This study will also serve as a foundation for future meta-analyses.

Highlights

The term “corporate governance” was first used in economics about forty years ago
No single journal led on all measures, such as impact factor, total publications, total local citations and total global citations; rather, a variety of journals in diverse fields were influential, which proves that the scope of the topic is vast
Through Constant Iterative Analysis of the 34 articles using HistCite, we identified five key streams of literature: (1) firm performance and remuneration of top management, (2) remuneration and independence of boards of directors, (3) outside director remuneration, (4) director remuneration and (5) ownership structure

Summary

Introduction

The term “corporate governance” was first used in economics about forty years ago. Since the literature on the subject has grown exponentially. We do not yet have a clear understanding of whether remuneration schemes lead to better economic outcomes for corporations On this topic, Berle (1932) pioneered the idea that the separation between a firm’s ownership and its control deserved to be rigorously analyzed. This separation causes the widely known agency conflict that is generated when management does not maximize the owners’ utility. It was not until the work of Jensen and Meckling (1979) that a theory of the contractual relations between managers and shareholders was formalized and agency theory was born. This theoretical approach has been used to analyze multiple angles of corporate governance and to reshape the field of corporate governance and executive remuneration (Edmans, 2014; Hermalin and Weisbach, 1991)

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