Boardroom myths: reconciling prescription and research guidance

Not since the passage of the Securities and Exchange Commission Act of 1934 have matters of corporate governance received such concentrated attention. The failures of a series of notable US companies, beginning with Enron Corporation, have reignited attention toward effective corporate governance. The single most remarkable governance‐related outcome of the Enron failure is the passage of the Sarbanes‐Oxley Act of 2002. Congress passed this legislation as a means for remedying the types of governance failures that are believed to have significantly contributed to Enron’s downfall.