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In recent enforcement actions by several capital market regulators in some common law jurisdictions, the issue of directors' reliance on legal advice in relation to compliance with their statutory duties has been raised. This paper aims to discuss the dilemma faced by directors and regulators in assessing the extent to which reliance on legal advice can provide sufficient protection against allegation of breach of directors' duties and the disclosure obligation.

This paper discusses recent case studies that highlight the often conflicting regulatory stance.

These cases indicate that the disclosure conundrum is a real challenge to regulators and directors alike. These enforcement activities have resulted in mixed views as to whether these decisions have rightly upheld the standard of care expected to be exercised by directors or are unduly burdensome and not pragmatic for honest and well‐meaning directors.

The legal position is still evolving in view of the numerous regulatory actions in various jurisdictions regarding financial reporting and disclosure obligation of directors and corporations.

Given the numerous disclosure and reporting obligations that a listed company must comply with and the regulatory enforcement actions that may be taken against the directors, it is important for directors to understand the implication of this case and similar enforcement activities on directors' oversight duty.

In this article, we discuss an innovative audience research methodology developed for the AHRC-funded “Beyond the Multiplex: Audiences for Specialised Film in English Regions” project (BtM). The project combines a computational ontology with a mixed-methods approach drawn from both the social sciences and the humanities, enabling research to be conducted both at scale and in depth, producing complex relational analyses of audiences. BtM aims to understand how we might enable a wide range of audiences to participate in a more diverse film culture, and embrace the wealth of films beyond the mainstream in order to optimise the cultural value of engaging with less familiar films. BtM collects data through a three-wave survey of film audience members’ practices, semi-structured interviews and film-elicitation groups with audience members alongside interviews with policy and industry experts, and analyses of key policy and industry documents. Bringing each of these datasets together within our ontology enables us to map relationships between them across a variety of different concerns. For instance, how cultural engagement in general relates to engagement with specialised films; how different audiences access and/or share films across different platforms and venues; how their engagement with those films enables them to make meaning and generate value; and how all of this is shaped by national and regional policy, film industry practices, and the decisions of cultural intermediaries across the fields of film production, distribution and exhibition. Alongside our analyses, the ontology enables us to produce data visualisations and a suite of analytical tools for audience development studies that stakeholders can use, ensuring the research has impact beyond the academy. This paper sets out our methodology for developing the BtM ontology, so that others may adapt it and develop their own ontologies from mixed-methods empirical data in their studies of other knowledge domains.

An interview with one of the UK′s outstanding businesswomen. The fact that she was unable to go to university made her achieve her goals by different means from those attained by academic qualifications. The formation of her company is her prime achievement, and the level of professional management in her company is one of the reasons for its success. The company spent £1m in 1991 on training in such areas as assertiveness training for the salesforce and also a large amount of management development. People are regarded as the major asset of the company.

Rankings are widely regarded as particularly well-suited for capturing the public eye, which is considered a reason why they have become ubiquitous. However, we know little about how rankings direct media attention, as well as how media in turn shape and help sustain careers of specific rankings in the public over longer periods of time. To advance our understanding of the discursive dynamics at the intersection of rankings and the press, this study examines the media career of the Global Slavery Index (GSI) by analyzing 361 newspaper and magazine articles, published between the release of index’s inaugural edition in 2013 and until the end of 2019. To interpret the media coverage, the study draws attention to GSI’s universality, highly rationalized character, and a pledge to spotlight violation of the global moral order. The examination of the media coverage points to the following properties of the index as having shaped and helped sustain its career in the public: (1) repeated publication; (2) broad conceptualization of modern slavery; and (3) the construction thereof as a measurable global burden. The study finds that, throughout the period, the media were remarkably consistent in amplifying the most dramatic elements of the index. Over time, however, the index was increasingly more invoked for other purposes, usually either to lend credibility to a story or as a way of embedding local and situational concerns into global narratives.

SOME twenty years gone by I was inspanned into a movement to explain automation to the nation which was said to be apprehensive of its effects on full employment. In vain I explained that automation was industry's response to labour shortage and that unemployment was a consequence of economic not technical policies; that it was impossible to start new industries with an only marginally increasing work force, unless it could be staffed by those deployed from industries whose productivity was rising.

Modern slavery, one of the most abhorrent crimes against humanity, is a profitable international business (IB). It often operates in a hidden form in the global value chains (GVCs) governed by multinational corporations (MNCs). The purpose of this paper is to examine why slavery exists in GVCs and what this means for MNCs.

The paper borrows insights from the GVC literature to conceptually link MNCs and modern slavery. Different from the IB literature that predominantly focusses on the MNC as a single firm, the paper emphasizes the importance of paying attention to the MNC value chains and their complexity and fragmentation.

Three factors which help explain modern slavery in GVCs are examined: the complexity of GVCs and the challenges this poses to their governance, the business case for slavery and the conditions that enable modern slavery. These factors, taken together, provide an explanation why modern slavery can creep into, persist and thrive in MNCs’ GVCs.

The argument is put forward for the need for IB scholars to borrow from the GVC literature to help understand why slavery can exist in the GVCs of MNCs. This opens the opportunity for examining the MNC in ways not considered by IB scholars so far.

The paper addresses an issue long ignored in IB research and issues a call for IB scholars to study MNCs in a new way, namely, linking MNCs’ activities with modern slavery.

What proof have the public, independent of the assertions of the makers, that all the firms whose products are sold indifferently by the shopkeepers use only the best materials; or, indeed, that a large number of the articles sold are not mixtures more or less objectionable or fraudulent ? This, in effect, is the question put by a writer in a West of England newspaper, and it might be used as a text upon which to write a lengthy homily on the adulteration question and on the astonishing gullibility of the public. As a matter of fact the only evidence of the character and quality of food and other products, in regard to which there is no independent guarantee, is that which is afforded by the standing of the makers, and to some extent of the firms which offer them for sale. And this evidence cannot, under any circumstances, be looked upon as constituting proof. The startling allegations so commonly put forward by advertisers with respect to their wares, while they may be ineffective in so far as thinking people are concerned, must nevertheless be found pecuniarily advantageous since the expense involved in placing them under the eyes of the public would otherwise hardly be incurred. Many of these advertised allegations are, of course, entirely unjustifiable, or are incapable of proof. It may be hoped that the lavish manner in which they are set out, and their very extravagance, may, in time, result in producing a general effect not contemplated by the advertisers. In the meantime it cannot be too often pointed out that proof, such as that which is required for the satisfaction of the retailer and for the protection of the public, can only be obtained by the exercise of an independent control, and, in certain cases, by the maintenance of efficient independent inspection in addition, so that a guarantee of a character entirely different to that which may be offered, even by a firm of the highest eminence, may be supplied.