High-Power Distance Culture & Challenges of Corporate Governance: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Nigeria’s Experience

Abstract

Corporate governance (CG) has matured over the course of many years since inception – covering definitions, evolving nature, theories, fundamentals and principles among other components that are helping to enrich the discipline. Following Caren Legge’s call to expand the topology of social science studies – to be multidisciplinary and less prescriptive, this current research aims to continue this enrichment process of CG by incorporating the interface of cultural context. By incorporating high power distance (HPD) – the prevailing, dominant cultural context in most developing countries such as Nigeria – the context of this study, we propose that HPD index has a negative implication on stakeholder’s ability to challenge corporate mal (practices) including lack of transparency, accountability, autonomy, ethics, integrity and stakeholder’s engagement, which are the core of CG principles. To empirically support this contention, the study employs critical discourse analysis (CDA) of interview data drawn from 29 managerial and non-managerial staff across 2 Nigerian banking and petroleum firms. The findings and scope for further research will be presented following analysis of the empirical data.