This thesis concerns corporate governance, a field that has attracted attention from a wide range of academic disciplines and evoking the often competing interests of corporations and investors. Interest in the field grew over the past three decades in response to recurrent corporate and market failures, through which it became a focal point of public policy debate as well. The complexity makes analysis both difficult and deeply rewarding. Scholars approach it from a wide variety of often conflicting theoretical perspectives, which ironically results in a field that can seem under-theorized. Studies of the field take a number of directions, presenting a challenge to all those who study it. This thesis addresses that challenge by adopting three different stances and then bringing them together under a framework based in institutional theory. An introductory chapter outlines the work, while the concluding chapter then articulates the links further and points towards an agenda for further research