Abstract. The various companies, originating in different countries, have been approaching the corporate governance issues starting early in time. Nowdays, these issues have changed in dimension due to an exponential growth of the financial globalization, the involved companies' faith being directly linked to the stock market support or critics. Whenever corporate governance is being mentioned within a conference, a paper, or generally in media, each one of us knows that it concerns a company's control and leadership mechanisms, also concerning the investors' trust, the accountability and behaviour of the entity's managers within the social affairs. The capitalism hasn't stopped evolving during its long history. The last decade corresponds to the transition towards a new type of capitalism, marked by the domination of the finance and knowledge-based economy. During the last years, corporate governance has been the center of a passionate debate. The governance codes and policies have been adopted both at a national and international level, with the purpose of better protecting the shareholders' interests and/or the involvement of the stakeholders. The good corporate governance practice lays within the answer to a fundamental question: "which is the path for a company x, in a y business environment, to be able to accomplish, in a optimal manner, its main objective: generating and distributing wealth?".

Keywords: the way in which shareholders act to encourage best practice; corporate governance failure; ethical behaviour in business; shareholder activism; hedge funds.