Modern comparative law scholarship has been concerned with determining the effects of globalisation on legal development. One of the current discussion topics in the field is whether, with globalising economies, legal systems converge. The focus of this discussion is corporate governance.

The debate starts from the premise that there currently exist, roughly speaking, two types of corporate governance models. The two models differ in the way in which firms are owned and in the way in which the law allocates influence between shareholders, the board of directors, employees, creditors and the general public.

Scholars distinguish between jurisdictions with relative dispersion of ownership of public companies (such as the US and the UK) and jurisdictions with relative concentrated ownership of public companies (such as Germany). In the US and UK, public companies have a large number of shareholders who each hold small fractions of the company's capital. Company law tends to favour shareholder interests. In Germany, public companies have one shareholder (or a small group of shareholders) who holds a significant stake in the company. German company law looks after shareholders, but also protects the interests of employees, creditors and the general public.

The question that scholars are trying to solve is whether globalisation has an effect on these governance models.