The culimination of a year-long effort to contribute to the global understanding of how institutional investors view and practice corporate governance. The study reflects the collective voice of institutional investors worldwide and is unprecedented in scale and scope, with over 300 institutions across 18 countries participating. To download the study, please visit here.

Findings from the ISS Global Investor Study wrap around five key themes, with an additional special report on investor views on corporate governance in China. The study data and commentary not only demonstrate investors' diversity but also the overriding universality of their concerns and objectives regarding corporate governance.

In the coming days, we will post the findings from the study on the blog. The first chapter of the study focuses on how corporate governance has shifted from a compliance obligation to a business imperative. Compliance provided the catalyst for the increased importance of corporate governance in recent years, with 94 percent of investors globally saying that corporate governance is important to their firms. Yet investors are now seeing corporate governance in a new light, recognizing it not only as an externally imposed obligation, but as an ownership responsibility, or "the right thing to do" in their words.

Increasingly, investors are also transforming corporate governance issues and activities into a competitive and portfolio advantage - some are using their corporate governance focus as a competitive advantage to differentiate their firms or funds, while others call corporate governance a competitive necessity "just to get in the game." Investors also are leveraging corporate governance to build portfolio value by enhancing long-term investment returns, mitigating risks, and providing a better picture of portfolio companies. And far from subsiding, 63 percent of investors globally believe corporate governance will become even more important over the next three years. Stay tuned for more...