When a company suffers a major governance failure, whether it’s due to an ethical or accounting violation, faulty risk management and oversight or ineffective board decision-making, the effects can be far-reaching.

The share price can fall sharply, affecting shareholders and sometimes even the industry sector in which the company operates. The company might ultimately fail, leading to job losses and other harmful consequences for the region where it operates.

In some extreme cases such as government bailouts, taxpayers can be left repaying the costs. The government bailout of Bank of Moscow in 2011 — reputedly because of questionable loans — cost $14 billion, equivalent to 1 percent of Russia’s economic output.

The stories are often full of interesting personalities. Reporters may find themselves writing about highly secretive and powerful business families or former state ministers who run their countries’ largest corporations. In these stories, the issue of succession — who will take over the reins — is critically important.

The Indian and foreign press followed closely the question of who would replace the 75-year-old Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Group, the country’s largest global conglomerate. The question of succession affects not only the company itself, with its huge impact on the national economy, but 100 Tata subsidiaries that are themselves major drivers of jobs and the economy worldwide.

Once the decision was announced, in November 2011, it set off many speculative stories about the strengths and weaknesses of the new leader — Cyrus Mistry, son of Tata’s largest individual shareholder.

Often corporate governance stories are full of intrigue, such as the feud between the Ambanis, two Indian brothers whose dispute over how to divide their late father’s Reliance business empire threatened to endanger the country’s economy.

See an example of a story about the Ambani brothers at: http://tgr.ph/I73Ail