Corporate ownership and control in an emerging market: A review

The corporate ownership and control literature (Dai & Helfrich, 2016; Aminadav & Papaioannou, 2016) has reported inconsistent findings in varieties of capitalism. The limited scholarship in developing economies has contributed to this problem, as much of the research in this field focus on developed economies. Thus, this paper primarily reviews the corporate ownership and control literature in Africa’s largest economy (Nigeria) and identifies future research directions. The article commences by undertaking an overview of corporations in Nigeria, followed by a discussion of corporate ownership in the country. The paper then assesses the market for corporate control in Nigeria, unpacking the major issues that frustrate the protection of minority shareholders’ rights in the country. The paper concludes by evaluating the relationship between corporate ownership and firm performance to promote a better understanding of the prevalence of concentrated ownership in the country’s corporate environment. In summary, this article recaps past works, integrates contemporary thoughts, and proposes new scholarly and contextual directions that researchers could explore to deepen the existing knowledge about corporate ownership and control.