On February 7, 2013 Harvard Business School published a working paper entitled, “Which Does More to Determine the Quality of Corporate Governance in Emerging Economies, Firms or Countries?”
According to the executive summary, “Results of analysis in this paper provide evidence that many emerging economy firms distinguished themselves above and beyond their home country peers in corporate governance ratings during the last decade. This rise was due primarily to firm-level characteristics. The fact that firm characteristics, and especially fixed effects, played a substantially greater role in emerging economies suggests that there is something happening inside these firms that allowed them to differentiate themselves from their home institutions and peer firms. These findings are important for both investors and firms in emerging economies. Investors will be able to observe corporate governance variance within countries and identify valuable investment opportunities. Also, firms should enjoy a sense of agency in their prospects for growth, unhampered by an environment with weak and incomplete governance institutions or low financial market development.”
You may download the article from the Working Papers page of the Harvard Business School internet site.