Corporate governance includes business, investment and financial decisions in the company. Corporate governance in the context of business development is an increasingly topical issue in the corporate world. The main role and goal of corporate governance is to optimize the operation and increase the profitability of the company that implements it in a responsible, transparent and fair manner. Although the role and objective are the same all over the world, the corporate governance of different companies in different parts of the world differs according to certain characteristics, laws and management structures. The main objective of this thesis was to make a comparative analysis of corporate governance practices in several selected countries. Based on the analysis, a conclusion was drawn on the main features, principles and structures that characterize corporate governance in the selected countries and to what extent and in what way they are similar or different from each other. In the thesis, the comparative analysis was conducted using corporate examples from the United States of America, Japan and Germany as examples of countries with leading and developed economies, Malaysia as an example of a developing country, and Croatia to see whether it can keep up with the most developed economies in the world or is more similar to a developing country in terms of corporate governance. In this work, an analysis of corporate governance was made using the specific example of companies from selected countries whose shares are traded on the stock exchange, have approximately the same number of employees and belong to the same industry - the oil and gas industry. These companies are the American company HF Sinclair, the Japanese company INPEX CORPORATION, the German company Wintershall Dea, the Malaysian company Wah Seong Corporation Berhad and the Croatian company INA d.d. The focus of this thesis is on the management and ownership structure of the selected companies, i.e. on the importance and influence of shareholders on the decisionmaking and management of the company, as well as on their relationship with the governing bodies.