Hardly surprising but Exxon Mobil's leaders have defeated the descendents of Standard Oil's founder John D Rockefeller. For anyone wanting a bit of history, Exxon and Mobil were the bastard...
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Call it the Sarbanes-Oxley effect.With Westinghouse Air Brake Technologies Corporation, Flowserve Corporation and AB Volvo coming to grief over the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act - that's three...
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Chinese stock markets seem to be headed for free fall. The bubble is deflating and the losses for investors make what's happening in the US look like a picnic, reports the Los Angeles Times'...
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Late last year, I looked at the concept of Groupthink, the term coined by Yale psychologist Irving Janis that describes the situation when people act like sheep and just follow the crowd. No-one...
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More evidence that good governance delivers results.Portfolios with companies that have good corporate governance deliver 18% higher average share-price returns to investors than those without,...
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Late last year, I did a blog entry on how media mogul Rupert Murdoch was rewriting the rules of corporate governance by appointing Natalie Bancroft, a 27-year old opera singer with little experience...
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Corporate raider and shareholder activist Carl Icahn plans to set up a corporate governance blog, according to news reports. There is nothing on The Icahn Report yet but Icahn says he plans to use...
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In the past, I have done entries here and here looking at why Sarbanes-Oxley wouldn't work for non-profits and examining their governance challenges.But there are signs that non-profits are...
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Who is the youngest director in the US? And who is the oldest?The Corporate Library has an interesting breakdown of the demographics of US boards. As a snapshot of corporate governance, US style, its...
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How is it that despite all the focus on corporate governance and diversity, corporate boards all look and sound the same? Why do some directors get more board seats than others, and as a result have...
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Last week, I did a blog entry talking about the problems charities and other non-profit agencies face with governance.Now a new book Forces for Good by Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant...
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So Coca Cola has announced that it's President and Chief Operating Officer Muhtar Kent will succeed Neville Isdell as chief executive.For the record, it's worth noting that in the 1990s, Kent...
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On one reading, not-for-profit have really lifted their governance since the implementation of Sarbanes-Oxley.According to Grant Thornton's fifth annual National Board Governance Survey for...
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The fallout from the Enron trial continues. The case was so big, the malfeasance so horrifying in its depth and pathology, that one suspects the fallout will be around for some time. It resulted in...
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With serious questions around the Securities and Exchange Commission's plans to revamp board election, as reported in The Wall Street Journal, it's worth looking at alternative proposals to...
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Rupert Murdoch continues to rewrite the rules of corporate governance by appointing Natalie Bancroft, a 27-year old opera singer, to the board of his global media empire. A mezzo-soprano who lives in...
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Good news and bad news for CEOs. The level of CEO turnover has eased back slightly but it's still insecure times for the top brass, according to the latest Booz Allen Hamilton study.CEO turnover...
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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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