Mike Franz Wahl () (School of Economics and Business Administration, Tallinn University of Technology)
Abstract
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 Martin Hilb (2006) argues that ownership has been replaced by investment, and a company’s assets are increasingly found in its people.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.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Publisher Info
Paper provided by School of Economics and Business Administration, Tallinn University of Technology in its series Working Papers with number
179.
Length: 14 Date of creation: 2008 Date of revision: Publication status: Published in Working Papers in Economics.School of Economics and Business Administration,Tallinn University of Technology (TUTWPE), Pages 149-162 Handle: RePEc:ttu:wpaper:179