Governance and Ownership: Theoretical Framework of Research

This article reviews practical and theoretical aspects of ownership research and corporate governance in a historical view. Whom and what is a business for? The answer once seemed clear, but no longer. Jyrki Veranen (1996) argues that the governing of the company should be based on a model that allows the owners to control and support the management. Martin Hilb (2006) argues that ownership has been replaced by investment, and a company’s assets are increasingly found in its people. Ownership history and knowledge of relevant contextual factors help to frame the “right ” questions to ask in our research efforts. An historical summary of ownership research is given. The term “corporate governance” has come to mean many things; it involves various problems of asymmetric information and incomplete contracts that generate a need for public policy responses to mitigate market failures and ensuring that companies move towards “good ” corporate governance. It seems that all research on corporate governance is actually research on ownership. Ownership research needs delicate and sensitive information. This author is further developing a typology of capital company owners in Estonia, using cluster analysis