Can we learn lessons from the past? COVID-19 crisis and corporate governance responses

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has seriously threatened the lives of the people. The pandemic has also threatened the survival of the firms, which has drawn the attention of policymakers and corporate governance practitioners around the world. In this study, we focus on how corporate governance practices can help firms to survive during COVID-19 crisis. For this purpose, we take insights from prior crises by reviewing leading business journals articles and identify key corporate governance mechanisms that could potentially be effective in the ongoing COVID-19 crisis. Our review of a large body of literature highlights several governance mechanisms that may help firms to cope with COVID-19 crisis. These governance attributes include risk management committees, board diversity, independent directors, foreign investors, institutional ownership, ownership concentration, CEO's dual roles, block ownership, and family ownership. We provide several policy implications after reviewing the corporate governance literature. Our review illustrates that firms may be subject to at least one of the identified governance mechanisms and they may learn how these governance attributes can be effective in the COVID-19 crisis. Our review illustrates that independent risk management committees, institutional ownership, board independence, blockholders, and family ownership are some of the essential and effective governance mechanisms compared to other governance attributes during COVID-19 crisis.