Creating Bridges between Corporate Governance and Innovation

Abstract

The issues studied by the corporate governance research stream, such as control and ownership structure, board composition, monitoring mechanisms and shareholders' protection, among others, seem not to relate to further matters examined by other research streams in the fields of innovation and regional studies, despite they all can fit in the business and economics subject and, furthermore, they all make part of the social science discipline. Phenomena such as regional innovation systems and university-firm collaboration, which innovation studies have taken care of so far, are influenced by the governance and control of firms and institutions; additionally, the dynamics among different stakeholders (firm managers, investors, institutions, etc.), in terms of corporate governance and innovation, have a relevant impact on firms and regions. This paper attempts to explore the links between these two research streams, considering a more holistic view of their interest matters, in order to better understand how they jointly influence firm performance and regional development. This is an exploratory and introductory piece of research that aims to discuss the links between corporate governance and innovation, exploring valuable ideas and matters to be more deeply studied in future research.