This article illustrates that contemporary literature on organisation and leadership attributes little attention to the topic of corporate governance. Textbooks on organisation and leadership theory yield no or few listings of corporate governance and owner (ownership). This paper does not deal with corporate governance and the agency theory as such, but rather the way in which these theories are linked to organisation and leadership theory. Additionally, several incidents from business and private organisations have shown the problems and dramatic consequences of inadequate corporate governance, which in itself call for more research on this topic. The main reason why corporate governance has been marginalised in the literature appears to be the prevalence of the open system theory, in which ownership and organisational goals are not essential theoretical concepts. According to this theory the owners are but one of many stakeholders. Some scholars even claim that organisations do not have any owners. Moreover, the organisational goals are not the goals of the owners, but the goals of the stakeholders or goals of the managers. In order to promote corporate governance a sound theoretical foundation is called for. The rationalistic organisation theory constitutes a sound theoretical foundation for the principal agency theory and thus for the study of corporate governance. In the rationalistic theory the owners and their goals are given as the reason for the establishment of an organisation. The chief execute officer is hired to run the organisation on behalf of the owners in order to achieve organisational goals as decided by the owners. The principal and agency theory is based on the rationalistic organisation theory in which owners play a central role in the formulation of goals and establishing as well as controlling the organisation and its managers. Both corporate governance and agency theory need to regain a dominant place in organisation theory textbooks and in organisation, management, and leadership research. In present-day literature on organisation, management and leadership theories - based on the open system theory - the owner has disappeared. The time has come to reinstate the owner.