Martin Hilb presents an innovative and integrated approach to the theory and practice of corporate governance. Central to this approach is a set of instruments - developed and tested by the author - that can be used by boards to offer effective strategic direction and control to their organizations. The board instruments can be readily applied to the selection, review, remuneration and development of board members, and for conducting board self-evaluations. This new approach to corporate governance is based on four guiding principles: keep it situational, keep it strategic, keep it integrated, and keep it controlled. Together, these principles form the basis of an integrated approach to all key aspects of corporate governance. The main arguments in each section are supported by conceptual models, practical board tools or case studies, making the book ideally suited to board members, senior managers and post-graduate students.

Why does corporate governance--front page news with the collapse of Enron, WorldCom, and Parmalat--vary so dramatically around the world? This book explains how politics shapes corporate governance--how managers, shareholders, and workers jockey for advantage in setting the rules by which companies are run, and for whom they are run. It combines a clear theoretical model on this political interaction, with statistical evidence from thirty-nine countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America and detailed narratives of country cases. This book differs sharply from most treatments by explaining differences in minority shareholder protections and ownership concentration among countries in terms of the interaction of economic preferences and political institutions. It explores in particular the crucial role of pension plans and financial intermediaries in shaping political preferences for different rules of corporate governance. The countries examined sort into two distinct groups: diffuse shareholding by external investors who pick a board that monitors the managers, and concentrated blockholding by insiders who monitor managers directly. Examining the political coalitions that form among or across management, owners, and workers, the authors find that certain coalitions encourage policies that promote diffuse shareholding, while other coalitions yield blockholding-oriented policies. Political institutions influence the probability of one coalition defeating another.

Corporate Governance Matters gives corporate board members, officers, directors, and other stakeholders the full spectrum of knowledge they need to implement and sustain superior governance. Authored by two leading experts, this comprehensive reference thoroughly addresses every component of governance. The authors carefully synthesize current academic and professional research, summarizing what is known, what is unknown, and where the evidence remains inconclusive. Along the way, they illuminate many key topics overlooked in previous books on the subject. Coverage includes: International corporate governance. Compensation, equity ownership, incentives, and the labor market for CEOs. Optimal board structure, tradeoffs, and consequences. Governance, organizational strategy, business models, and risk management. Succession planning. Financial reporting and external audit. The market for corporate control. Roles of institutional and activist shareholders. Governance ratings. The authors offer models and frameworks demonstrating how the components of governance fit together, with concrete examples illustrating key points. Throughout, their balanced approach is focused strictly on two goals: to “get the story straight,” and to provide useful tools for making better, more informed decisions.

For the past two decades corporate governance reform in Europe has been guided by the ‘shareholder value’ model of the firm. That model has been discredited as one of the major causes of the financial and economic crisis. In a new book published by the ETUI an alternative approach to corporate governance is presented by members of the GOODCORP network of researchers and trade unionists. This new approach, entitled the Sustainable Company, draws on both traditional ‘stakeholder’ models of the firm and newer concerns with sustainability. The main elements of the Sustainable Company and the institutions needed to support it are presented. Key themes in the book are the need for worker ‘voice’ in corporate governance and for a binding legislative framework to promote sustainability. Individual chapters deal with the issues of worker involvement, employee shareholding, sustainability-oriented remuneration, international framework agreements, NGO-trade union relationships, reforming financial regulation and carbon taxes and emissions-trading schemes.

"The book links studies of corporate governance with surveys of efficiencies and failures in international financial markets, as well as examining aspects of corporate governance systems that have special significance for the management of economic policies as globalization continues. The contributors advocate increased international cooperation to promote more structural complementarities in the world economy."--BOOK JACKET.

This unique open access book features a selection of Living Cases on Corporate Governance, which were developed and compiled by chairpersons, members of the board of directors, and CEOs in various countries, working in close collaboration with prominent researchers. Each Living Case addresses a current issue that a given company or institution needs to resolve. For every Case, the goal is formulated by the researcher, in consultation with the client. The participants of internal or external board seminars, or university students, then work in teams to analyze the problem, develop an innovative and feasible solution, and summarize the most important lessons learned.

Forty years ago, managerialism dominated corporate governance. In both theory and practice, a team of senior managers ran the corporation with little or no interference from other stakeholders. Shareholders were essentially powerless and typically quiescent. Boards of directors were little more than rubber stamps. Today, the corporate governance landscape looks vastly different. The fall-out from the post-Enron scandal and implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act have resulted in shareholder activism becoming more widespread, while many observers call for even greater empowerment. The notion that the board of directors is a mere pawn of top management is increasingly invalid, and as a result, modern boards of directors typically are smaller than their antecedents, meet more often, are more independent from management, own more stock, and have better access to information. The New Corporate Governance in Theory and Practice offers an interdisciplinary analysis of the emerging board-centered system of corporate governance. It draws on doctrinal legal analysis, behavioral economic insights into how individuals and groups make decisions, the work of new institutional economics on organizational structure, and management studies of corporate governance. Using those tools, Stephen Bainbridge traces the process by which this new corporate governance system emerged, and explores whether such changes are desirable or effective.