Explaining Corporate Governance Using Contingency Theory: A Direction for Future Research

Over the years, corporate governance research has been working to develop a model that is compatible for all companies and for various purposes. The focus of these research was minimizing agency conflict between owners and managers. One important characteristic of the traditional agency literature is to search for universal relationships between corporate governance and outcomes based on a “closed systems” logic centered on agency costs. In recent decades, many researchers have focused on the need to provide a view of corporate governance by arguing that agency theory less addresses the context of an organizational environment. The present paper, with descriptive and analytic approach, has explained corporate governance through contingency theory. In this regard, in first step, it explains agency theory and its criticisms and then presents the theoretical foundations of contingency theory and corporate governance literature using this theory. In the end, it will also provide suggestions on the direction of future research in this area.