With the increasing awareness that mere economic and production-based explanations do not adequately describe the motivations for governance, researchers have focused on the behavioral side of the firm performance to justify the economic rationale of their typical behaviours. This book describes the concept of corporate governance, its emergence and the contemporary thinking around it.

With emphasis on "conflicts of interests" assumed to be related to the theory of separation of ownership and control, the book delves into topics such as insider trading, excessive executive compensation, managerial, expropriation of shareholders’ wealth, false reporting, accounting non-disclosures and self dealing.