International Corporate Governance: Post-Covid-19 Prospects for “The 21st Century Revolution” and “The Global Compromise”

The paper speculates on possible post-COVID developments in two prospects for evolution of international corporate governance. The first, labelled “the 21st century revolution in ownership” would acknowledge the supremacy of a successful national model of corporate governance based on an emerging allegedly new type of ownership, which might be introduced worldwide. The second option, named “the global compromise” implies combining “good practice” elements from different national models into a commonly accepted global model. The economic impact of the recent crisis might accelerate trends that were present already in the pre-COVID-19 period. Rapid digitalization of society would help increase transparency in corporate governance and contribute to higher shareholder participation. The need for resilience would encourage corporate governance reforms leading to convergence to a more stakeholder-oriented model. However, differences among national models are likely to persist, so neither of the two options will be fully realized in the immediate aftermath of the crisis.