International Theories of Corporate Governance: Critical Analysis and Evidence of the Italian Model

The corporate governance is an international topic deeply studied in accounting management and economic literature, but a unique and agreed definition of governance is not achieved yet, because every firm has its own features so it is difficult to define in general terms. Literature agrees that two archetypes exist: the Anglo-Saxon and German-Japanese models that focus on agency and stakeholder theories respectively. It is relevant to notice that the Italian model does not belong to the two previous archetypes, because some features completely differ from them. In addition, the relationship between the Italian case and the international corporate governance theories is not clear. Thus, the aim of this paper is to understand the connection between the Italian model and the international theories of corporate governance.