Towards a new corporate governance in the digital age – an expanded stakeholder approach?

Corporate governance debates have shifted their primary focus from a stockholder primacy approach to a more stakeholder primacy approach. They have also increasingly emphasised the importance of long-term corporate wealth maximisation and sustainability. This article will mainly address the benefits of a broader stakeholder focus in governance with the rapid development of digital technology. We have seen the growing influence of digital technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, and the development of digital technology has promoted the expansion of many companies with digital platforms. These companies take advantage of their digital platforms to collect data and use this data in the provision of their services. At the same time, the rise of large companies with digital platforms poses a challenge to narrower stakeholder-focused corporate governance ideas; while their platforms can involve a variety of stakeholders, these have not usually been viewed as stakeholders. This article seeks to analyse the extent to which the stakeholderfocused approach can be extended to deal with challenges in corporate governance in companies whose business has a heavy reliance upon digital platforms; it argues that this approach to corporate governance can be widened to embrace other stakeholders who use these digital platforms.