Gobierno corporativo y sector públicoun estudio bibliométrico en las principales revistas ISI

Zusammenfassung

This article analyzes Corporate Governance (CG) in the public sector. The concept of CG has become increasingly important in recent years especially in the private sector and has been subject to a wide range of differently-focused research. This growing interest is reflected in the proliferation of papers appearing in international journals. Detailed research into CG in the public sector is important because of the differences with the private sector, resulting from the nature of public sector organizations and the different role played by interest groups. This article contributes to the literature by carrying out a bibliometric analysis covering the 2000-2008 period. It focuses on the most significant topics covered by the research, the most cited authors and the the commonest theoretical approaches. The article analyzes approaches to CG from different disciplines published in 26 journals included in the Social Science Citation Index (SSCI). Firstly, it presents the principal areas of research interest in this still incipient area and secondly it ilustrates the ways in which public sector approaches to codes of good practice, corporate ethics and social responsibility differ from their equivalents in the private sector. It is interesting that these pioneering studies principally employ agency theory rather than other focuses that might have been thought more appropriate, such as stakeholder or stewardship theory.