The Effect of Capitalism on Corporate Governance: Legal Transplantation in a Globalized World

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to examine the relationship between corporate governance and capitalism and the potential effect of this relationship on the legal transplantation of corporate governance rules. The thesis aims to take the question of legal transplantations one step beyond the dominant ‘cultural diversity’ discourse. It seeks to ascertain whether cultural diversity, or for that matter legal origins and political theory, can per se provide a reliable answer to the legal transplantation dilemma in the field of corporate governance. It argues that corporate governance is a field inextricably linked with capitalism and presumes that any approach toward the problem of legal transplantation in the context of corporate governance that does not take into account the link between the capitalist economy and corporate governance probably will not provide adequate analytical tools for the problem. Thus, this thesis aims to provide a new analytical framework to address the problem of corporate governance convergence based upon the potential link between capitalism and corporate governance.