Robert A.G. Monks, concerned with shameful corporate behavior today blogged When a Child Rules the Parent: The Problem of Corporate Domicile in a Global World. Corporations are creatures of the state but the social contracts that made them attractive in serving human interests are breaking down… Either we need to reign corporate operations in within […]
Governance Reimagined: Organizational Design, Risk, and Value Creation (Wiley Finance) by David R. Koenig envisions a fundamental redesign based on a networked/distributive model centered around risk capital viewed as a “commons.” Like Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared M. Diamond, Koenig weaves together ideas from a wide variety of sources, exploding many myths […]
Corporate Governance and the Business Life Cycle (Corporate Governance in the New Global Economy), Igor Filatotchev (Editor) Most of the empirical literature on corporate governance is rooted in agency theory. While the principle-agent relationship and monitoring play a central role, governance is also concerned with entrepreneurship and contextual issues. The editor has chosen a good […]
Regarding CEO pay, Nell Minow recently wrote, “there is a little flicker of light at the end of the long, dark tunnel of outrageous pay.” Her signs of hope: Required advisory “say on pay” (SOP) vote. Last year after a “no” vote, Occidental Petroleum’s board reduced the pay package for CEO Ray Irani and announced […]
You want to win elections, you bang on the jailable class. You build prisons and fill them with people for selling dime bags and stealing CD players. But for stealing a billion dollars? For fraud that puts a million people into foreclosure? Pass… make them pay a fine instead. But don’t make them pay it […]
The Rising Tension between Shareholder and Director Power in the Common Law World by Jennifer G. Hill, available at SSRN, explores the rising tension between shareholder and director power in the common law world. First the article analyzes key arguments in the shareholder empowerment debate, and current US reform proposals to grant shareholders stronger rights, […]
This new reader, edited by Thomas Clarke and Jean-Francois Chanlat offers up one of the first critiques of the subprime financial crisis within a framework that compares Anglo-American governance features with those of Europe. At the heart of the collapse was the growth of the derivatives market that was supposed to hedge against losses. Settlements […]
According to Gourevitch and Shinn, “corporate governance – the authority structure of a firm – lies at the heart of the most important issues of society”… such as “who has claim to the cash flow of the firm, who has a say in its strategy and its allocation of resources.” The corporate governance framework shapes […]
Much has been written about the role of directors and boards but far too little on the how shareholders can add value. Carolyn Kay Brancato did so in her excellent book, Institutional Investors and Corporate Governance: Best Practices for Increasing Corporate Value. However, Brancato was primarily writing from the perspective of managers. Although there was […]