Global Strategy and Leadership Review

This is a review of the international experience with the interrelationship between corporate governance mechanisms i.e. board designs and ownership patterns and firm performance. Based on a large pool of theoretical and empirical literature, the paper explores essential governance aspects like size, independence, diversity, and duality of CEO and committee structures, and ownership types including institutional, managerial, and family ownership and foreign ownership. There is a uniformity and disagreement that appear in the findings, depending largely on national legal regimes, cultures and economical stages of development. The analysis of the new tendencies, including environmental, social and governance (ESG) integration, digitalization of the board activities, and stakeholder-based governance patterns are also considered in their expanding role in corporate decisions and responsibility. There is still a significant research gap, especially in under-represented regions (Africa and Central Asia) and methodological challenges (endogeneity and access to data) are still commonplace to stall the field. The conclusion of the review is the recommendation to take a more context-sensitive, interdisciplinary, research work with the support of technology. It is also providing practical relevance to various policy makers, investors, corporate leaders who want to develop governance models that accommodate sustainable, inclusive and high performing organizations within various global settings.