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The Cadbury Code and Recurrent Crisis

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Abstract

The three issues debated intensely demonstrate how the process of codification revealed otherwise unstated logics and involved attempts to use the exercise of the debates to shift and embed power with central actors in the field. This chapter discusses how the process was enacted, how it articulates the ethics, politics, and institutionalisation of corporate governance, and with what implications for UK corporate governance and for all the other jurisdictions and organisation types that followed its lead. It then suggests that why the changing context of investment might undermine the legitimacy of the code.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This sub-section and the next are adapted from the article Nordberg (2017) and used with permission.

  2. 2.

    A table detailing the changes in owner-type over the period and an explanatory note is included in Appendix B.

  3. 3.

    The key individuals involved in Hermes Investment Management have long advocated investor stewardship as the only route for passive investors to improve performance (Butler & Wong, 2011; Davis, Lukomnik, & Pitt-Watson, 2006). In 2020 Hermes merged with an American investment firm and listed on the New York Stock Exchange as Federated Hermes Inc.

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  1. Bournemouth University Business School, Bournemouth, UK

    Donald Nordberg

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  1. Donald Nordberg
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Nordberg, D. (2020). Discussion. In: The Cadbury Code and Recurrent Crisis. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55222-0_8

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