Who does the company exist for? The shareholders or stakeholders such as employees, customers and suppliers?The answers are by no means clear if a new paper co-authored by Wharton finance professor...
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Last month, I did a blog on how Rupert Murdoch was facing a challenge from an Australian shareholder activist Stephen Mayne who had put a motion for News Corp to ditch its system of Class A and Class...
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Rupert Murdoch has to deal with a persistent and effective Australian shareholder activist in Stephen Mayne.News Corp tried unsuccessfully to stop a proposal from Mayne that the company scrap its...
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In their books Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths and Total Nonsense, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Bob Sutton argue that leadership is not all it's cracked up to be. They show how change at the top has...
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This week I interviewed Professor Sydney Finkelstein who teaches at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. Finkelstein is best known for his superb book Why Smart Executives Fail which identifies blind...
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When BusinessWeek and Forbes name their lists of "Best Managers" or "Best Performing CEOs", it could be the kiss of death. Not only for the CEO but the company and investors. That...
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Last month, the Australian Council of Super Investors, which represents the country's big industry super funds, had an interesting conference on corporate governance. One their guests, Stuart...
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At the beginning of this month, I raised the question of whether the private equity party is over. But the events of the past week have shown me that the reports of private equity's death are...
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How big a role does the media play in keeping companies honest?According to some academics, it plays an important function. Professor Alexander Dyck from the University of Toronto presented a paper...
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CEO turnover seems to have peaked but boards are becoming increasingly ruthless and are more prepared to give bosses the chop, according to a new survey.The latest Booz Allen Hamilton study into CEO...
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Much has been said about shareholder rights to exercise their views. But companies are not democracies and management has enormous power to get its way when it comes to pulling in votes for issues...
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The preoccupation with independent directors under Sarbanes-Oxley is misguided, says Wayne State University law professor Erica Beecher-Monas. After all, Enron and WorldCom had independent directors...
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The story about the resignation of BP chief executive Lord Browne has rattled the business world.Lord Browne is not the first, and no doubt he won't be the last person destroyed by the British...
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The dog's breakfast that is German corporate governance continues.Just days after Siemens chairman Heinrich Von Pierer announced he was stepping down in the wake of investigations into bribery...
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Protecting and encouraging whistleblowers is now the big governance issue. You can bring in laws like Sarbanes-Oxley but they have a limited impact. In fact, they might even make it worse, something...
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More fallout from the Siemens bribery scandal. The heat is on former Siemens chief executive Heinrich von Pierer to step down as chairman, according to the latest news reports.The pressure is coming...
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After a hellish few months, Hewlett-Packard chief executive Mark Hurd and former chairwoman Patricia Dunn have had huge boosts.First, HP shareholders have come out with a huge vote of confidence in...
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Hat tip to Ohio State University's Professor Dale Oesterle for alerting us in his Business Law Prof Blog to how Stanford University president John L Hennessy has made a killing from his...
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Last week, I chewed the fat with Professor Paul Healy, the James R. Williston Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Professor Healy specialises in disclosure, corporate...
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