I've just finished reading David Erdal's book about corporate governance and specifically the merits of employee ownership, Beyond the Corporation: Humanity Working. I'll be reviewing it for The Independent so will post a link in due course. Here are a few thoughts prompted by reading it, however.

The first was that either there are few good books about governance, or I know few of them. In particular, reading this made me want to turn to a comparison of different models of governance in order to evaluate some of the arguments Erdal makes. Surely there must be some robust social science research into the merits and demerits of different governance models – or has the Anglo-Saxon market for control model swept all before it?

I know of the Robert Monks book, Corporate Governance, and recently sent out for review in the forthcoming issue of The Business Economist Bob Garratt's The Fish Rots from the Head. Of course, there are tons of management and leadership books, and inspirational stuff by Maverick! Ricardo Semler. But none of these is quite the cool empirical comparison that I want. Perhaps I just need to go back to Oliver Williamson on the Economic Institutions of Capitalism? Or maybe someone can recommend a source to me?

The second thought is that there's something about corporate governance that turns people into evangelists for one form or another, whether it be ESOPs, mutuals, continental dual boards and stakeholder engagement, or red-blooded pursuit of stakeholder value through a unitary board. Surely it's possible that different models might suit different contexts – and even that a healthy economy will have a mix of structures, including all of the above plus partnerships, plus non-profits, plus others we haven't yet thought of?