Title: Corporate governance in real estate investment trusts: a systematic literature review and ideas for future research

Authors: Michail Pazarskis; Stergios Galanis; Andreas G. Koutoupis; Athina Stavrou

Addresses: Department of Economics, International Hellenic University, Terma Magnesias, 62100, Serres, Greece ' Department of Economics, International Hellenic University, Terma Magnesias, 62100, Serres, Greece ' Department of Accounting and Finance, University of Thessaly, Gaiopolis, 41110, Larisa, Greece ' Department of Business Administration, International Hellenic University, Terma Magnesias, 62100, Serres, Greece

Abstract: Although much has been written globally about the key issues of corporate governance in REITs, there are not enough studies inspired by the systematic literature review method. This study reviews the literature on corporate governance in real estate investment trusts (REITs) published after 2004 and addresses three interrelated research questions. We examined 77 peer-reviewed journal articles using a systematic literature review approach. We found that there has been a rise in studies since 2010, with a brief decrease in 2015 and 2017 before increasing again in 2016. Moreover, the vast majority of the studies were published in the areas of economics/econometrics/finance and business/management/accounting. In addition, most of the papers are single-country studies, and the minority are multi-country. The majority of the papers are focused on the USA and Asia. Similarly, the majority of these analyses concentrate on developed countries and ignore emerging and frontier markets.

Keywords: corporate governance; real estate investment trusts; REITs; systematic literature review; SLR.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBGE.2024.135074

International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics, 2024 Vol.18 No.1, pp.1 - 26

Received: 13 Apr 2022
Accepted: 22 Jul 2022
Published online: 30 Nov 2023 *