The modern corporation has developed on the basis of ongoing debates on its status, architecture, governance, and purpose. Considering the central role that corporations now play in our world, it is not surprising that those ideas have been the object of ongoing academic, practitioner, and societal debates. This article intends to provide an overview of the main elements, concepts, and logics involved in the ongoing discussion of the role of corporate governance in society. Notably, it charts how some long-standing societal debates are finding their way into the field of corporate governance, including the rise of social movements, the salience of grand challenges such as global inequality and climate change, the rapid development of emerging economies, and the occurrence of corporate scandals. These factors, among others, have contributed to pivot the debate on corporate governance, from a conventional focus on agency theory and shareholder value maximization, to a revised perspective in governing the corporation for a wider set of stakeholder interests. Starting with critiques of agency theory and its key propositions, this article explains that stakeholders and their interests have become more central than ever to the corporate governance debate, and that corporate governance is increasingly embedded in a changing institutional environment. The article also explores the promising role of other theoretical approaches beyond the well-trodden path of agency theory, such as stakeholder theory, stewardship theory, behavioral agency theory, and resource dependence theory.