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Relying on insights from the comparative capitalism debate, this article compares the industrial policy strategies implemented by the Italian and Spanish governments to favor the internationalization of domestic electricity and telecommunications incumbents. It is shown how the cross‐sectoral and cross‐country variation in the outcome of their industrial policy efforts—that is, successful or unsuccessful internationalization—is explained by the reciprocal power relationship between governments and domestic large shareholders ("blockholders"). Successful internationalization is conditional on the availability of two power resources the government can use to influence blockholders' behavior: ownership power and regulatory power. When these resources were available, governments were able to impose a stable ownership structure on national champions, leading to successful internationalization. When they were not available, ownership instability led to failure. The findings presented here contribute to the debate on new forms of state involvement in the economy in the neoliberal era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explains the impact of liberalizing legal reforms on corporate practices. The cross-country comparison of five corporate governance indicators shows how the implementation of a similar set of liberalizing reforms had a puzzlingly divergent impact in France, Italy and Spain. An actor-centred coalitional approach is applied to demonstrate how such divergence was created by the same dynamic: the exploitation of liberalization by domestic corporate insiders. Leveraging their unparalleled power resources, corporate insiders mediate the effects of liberalizing legal reforms on corporate outcomes. Hence, liberalization, rather than favouring outsiders' contention, further strengthened the insider nature of French, Italian and Spanish corporate governance. The validity of these claims is tested by looking at the impact of the Eurozone crisis on the power of corporate insiders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explains the process of change in domestic corporate governance. An actor-centred coalitional approach is applied to the Italian case to show how the main features of domestic corporate governance are a product of behavioural patterns (i.e. informal institutions), rather than formal legislation. Leveraging their superior financial means, business elites act as institutional incumbents shaping these informal institutions according to their preferences. It is argued that a change in corporate practices is more likely to be triggered by a socio-economic crisis, which weakens the domestic elite’s influence, rather than a legal reform. These findings call into question the excessively formalistic approach of many corporate governance scholars, and are confirmed by the Italian trajectory. After having resisted 20 years of liberalising legal reforms aimed at eroding their power, Italian blockholders are now being forced, as a consequence of the Eurozone sovereign debt crisis, to dismantle their cross-shareholding networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]