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Corporate Governance in Public Companies

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Corporate Governance in Transition

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Abstract

The corporate governance agenda can be summarised as follows: when ownership of a company is separate from control and professional managers are employed to direct a company, mechanisms are needed to ensure that decisions are ultimately made in the interests of the shareholding investors. A broader view of governance also includes the interests of other stakeholders including employees, suppliers and the general public. Such mechanisms (governance processes) should work collectively to ensure that shareholder interests (and potentially the interests of a wider range of stakeholders), rather than managerial interests, are the primary focus of decision-making. This chapter reviews the governance mechanisms that have emerged to protect such interests. These include specific direct obligations prescribed by common law and statute and recommended in governance codes as well as indirect influences such as those exerted by external markets and credit rating agencies (CRAs).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    A history of the UK Corporate Governance Code setting out the stages in its development, and the inputs from various enquiries between 1992 and 2017, is available from the Financial Reporting Council at https://www.frc.org.uk/directors/corporate-governance-and-stewardship/uk-corporate-governance-code/history-of-the-uk-corporate-governance-code

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Governance, Leadership and Global Responsibility, Leeds, UK

    Marjan Marandi Parkinson

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Parkinson, M.M. (2018). Corporate Governance in Public Companies. In: Corporate Governance in Transition. Palgrave Studies in Governance, Leadership and Responsibility. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77110-6_2

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