Corporate Governance Lessons from Transition Economy Reforms explores a timely topic at the intersection of economics, law, and policy reform. To date, most sophisticated theoretical work on corporate governance has focused on advanced market economies. In post-socialist countries, corporate finance and transition economics scholars have often done little more than convey the received theory to transition policymakers. This volume focuses, for the first time, on the reverse concern: what, if anything, do the reform experiences of transition countries teach about corporate governance theory more generally? To investigate this question, Merritt Fox and Michael Heller have assembled a stellar group of corporate governance theorists. The answers are startling. The principal essays approach the problem from three complementary perspectives that form the organizing themes of the book. The first part refines core corporate theory terms. The second presents important empirical work that explores the channels through which "good corporate governance" may link to the real economy. The final part links corporate governance theory to practical reforms. After fifteen years of experience, practice can now inform theory. Together, these essays present a comprehensive new view on a provocative theme. Written in an accessible style, they will be of interest to a broad range of scholars, commentators, and policymakers.

The world economy is facing unprecedented challenges brought by the still unfolding global financial crisis. At this critical juncture in history, China's economic performance and financial stability are closely watched across the world. The current global economic downturn and the rigidities it poses on the growth prospects of any individual economy are a testing ground for the effects of China's corporate governance reform and financial reform that have been taking place in recent years. It is now a proper time to assess whether these reforms have yielded meaningful results which can help China withstand and navigate through the most severe economic difficulties of our times. This book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date review and critique of corporate governance reforms and related financial reforms in China during the country's transition to a market economy, involving its enterprise, banking and capital markets sectors. China's participation in economic globalization, symbolized by its accession to the World Trade Organization, is taken as a broad background to the country's domestic reform agenda. By exploring the dynamics of China's evolving corporate governance regime, this book presents an important country study of corporate governance reforms in developing and post-communist transition economies to show the possibility of alternative paths to the market.

Climate change represents the most important environmental challenge of our time. Organisations are responding by implementing governance processes and taking action to reduce their own emissions and the emissions from their supply chains and value chains. Yet very little is known about how these efforts contribute to reducing greenhouse gas emissions (if, indeed, they make any substantive contribution at all) or about how they might be harnessed to deliver more ambitious reductions in emissions. This book explains when and where particular forms of governance intervention – including internal governance processes and external governance pressures – are likely to impact climate change. From this analysis, it offers practical proposals on the climate policy frameworks that need to be in place to facilitate or accelerate changes in corporate behaviour. The book is truly global: it focuses on the world’s 25 largest retailers (including Walmart, Tesco, Carrefour, Sears and Aldi) and is based on detailed interviews with senior managers from these corporations, and with key global and national NGOs, corporate responsibility experts, politicians and regulators. These interviews provide clear insights into how external governance pressures and actions (public opinion, regulation, incentives) interact with internal governance conditions (management systems and processes, corporate policies, board/CEO leadership) to change and shape corporate actions on climate change and, in turn, the climate change impacts of these corporations. This book can be used as a core reference for any courses dealing with corporate governance and business strategy, in particular those relating to climate change and to environmental management more generally. It is also of relevance to business practitioners, public policy makers, investors and NGOs interested in ensuring that companies play a constructive role in the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Few economic events have caused such controversy as the privatization process in Russia. Some see it as the foundation of political and economic freedom. For others it was economics gone wrong, and ended in "Russians stealing money from their own country". As Russia reasserts itself, and its new brand of capitalism, it is ever more important that policy makers and scholars understand the roots of the economic structure and governance of that country; what was decided, who made the decisions and why, what actually transpired, and what implications this has for the future of Russia. This work, written by two senior advisors to the Russian government, has unique access to documentation, tracking the decision making process in the Russian Mass Privatization process. By close reference to events, and supplemented by interviews with many of the key participants, it shows that the policies adopted were often influenced and shaped by different forces than those cited by current popular accounts. The book challenges the interpretation of Russian privatization by some of the West’s most eminent economists. It underlines that economists of all schools, who bring assumptions from the West to the analysis of Russia, may reach false or misleading conclusions. It is an essential guide for anyone interested in Russian economic reform, and anyone who seeks to understand this enigmatic country, and its actions today.

This book examines the development of big business in Russia since the onset of market oriented reform in the early 1990s. It explains how privatized post-Soviet enterprises, many of which made little sense as business units, were transformed into functional firms able to operate in the environment of a market economy. It provides detailed case studies of three key companies – Yukos Oil Company, Siberian (Russian) Aluminium and Norilsk Nickel – all of which played a key role in Russia’s economic recovery after 1998, describing how these companies were created, run and have developed. It shows how Russian businesses during the 1990s routinely relied on practices not entirely compatible with formal rules, in particular in the area of corporate governance. The book fully explores the critical role played by informal corporate governance practices - such as share dilution, transfer pricing, asset stripping, limiting shareholders access to votes, and 'bankruptcy to order’ - as Russian big business developed during the 1990s. Unlike other studies on Russian corporate governance, this book highlights the ambiguous impact of informal corporate governance practices on the companies involved as commercial entities, and suggests that although their use proved costly to Russia’s business reputation, they helped core groups of owners/managers at the time to establish coherent business firms. Overall, the book shows that we cannot understand the nature of current economic changes in Russia without recognising the crucial role played by informal corporate governance practices in the creation and development of big business in post-Soviet Russia.