Contribution towards Understanding of Corporate Governance: Thematic Analysis of Review Papers on Corporate Governance

The purpose of the study was to assemble knowledge, to understand the nuances of corporate governance as it is widely dispersed having multiple dimensions, to organize and categorize review papers on corporate governance under specific subjects, fields, areas of research. Thematic classification of review papers provided insight and spectra about corporate governance. The research study was confined to review of review papers on Corporate Governance downloaded through Google Scholar and focuses only on abstracts of these reviews and determines the intensity of respective research published/ undertaken on specific category and subcategories during the period 1988 to 2017. Document analysis was used to gather information on the (Valiente & González, n.d.) themes, providing break-up into individual sub-categories and identifying an array of research topics. The themes were formulated from six hundred and sixty-five (665) review papers, classified into nineteen (19) categories, 177 sub-categories comprising 476 review papers. On the basis of classifications significance of Corporate Governance has been observed for firm performance (5th category 71 papers); legislative & regulatory requirement (7th category 64 papers); executive governance (2nd category 59 papers) these three categories have contributed maximum number of review papers. The above three categories have mostly published review papers on the Impact of Corporate Governance Variables on Firm Performance: Country-wise comparison (19 papers), Corporate Governance Effects on/ Relationship with Firm/Corporate Performance (15 papers) and Review of Corporate Governance Reforms Country wise (16 papers). The research study (1) highlights existing research undertaken (2) identifies avenues for future research beneficial for the research scholars & academics to explore potential research areas in context to Pakistan. It will also enhance the acumen, awareness of practitioners and policymakers regarding the vitality of corporate governance for quality decision-making.