ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book provides a critical and comparative view of the international development of corporate governance. It examines the essential political mechanisms of corporate governance. The book then explores the institutional elements of corporate governance, looking at different governance regimes with contrasting approaches to finance and legal and market regulation. It also analyses the nature and development of governance in the Anglo-American, European and Asia Pacific regions, respectively. The book focuses on the unlimited potential of the emerging economies which compose the majority of the world's population and land mass and with their present economic growth are demonstrating distinctive approaches to business and governance. It then examines the growing materiality of corporate social and environmental responsibility and how corporate reporting is developing to encompass these new responsibilities.
