Search results

The purpose of this paper is to trace the evolution of corporate governance through a series of changing paradigms in response to wider transformations in the political economy, business and society. The different eras of governance, and the dominant theoretical and practical paradigms are highlighted. In a context where the adequacy of the dominant paradigms of corporate governance is increasingly challenged, the search for coherent new paradigms is a vital task in corporate governance.

This paper is a conceptual analysis of evolving paradigms in corporate governance.

To meet the imminent challenge of social and environmental sustainability in a post-carbon economy, further rethinking of corporate purpose, corporate governance and directors duties will be essential. This sustainability revolution has only just commenced, but in the course of the twenty-first century, it will transform both business and society.

The implications of the research concern the importance of conceptualising corporate governance through different eras and paradigms, and appreciating that further paradigm shifts will occur in response to transformations in the political economy and ecology.

This paper informs on the importance of the transformation of business purpose and objectives in response to the imminent dangers of environmental and social collapse.

This paper emphasises the social and environmental dimensions of corporate activity, and how these must be considered in the definition of wealth generation.

The contribution of this paper is to focus upon the increasing integration of corporate governance and corporate sustainability, and how this is essential for the reformulation of corporate purpose and objectives.

The purpose of this paper is to present a paradigmatic look at corporate governance.

This paper starts with the premise that any worldview can be associated with one of the four basic paradigms: functionalist, interpretive, radical humanist, and radical structuralist. The paper looks at the current state of mainstream academic finance and notes that it is founded only on the functionalist paradigm. It argues that any view expressed with respect to corporate governance is based on one of the four paradigms or worldviews. It, therefore, discusses four views expressed with respect to the nature and role of corporate governance.

The paper emphasizes that the four views expressed are equally scientific and informative; they look at the nature and role of corporate governance from a certain paradigmatic viewpoint. Emphasizing this example in the area of corporate governance, the paper concludes that there are opportunities for mainstream academic finance, in general, and corporate governance, in particular, to benefit from contributions coming from the other three paradigms if they respect paradigm diversity.

The paper recommends a serious conscious thinking about the social philosophy upon which finance, in general, and corporate governance, in particular, is based and of the alternative avenues for development.

Purpose – The purpose is to explore public participation as a means to overcome jurisdictional barriers in governance of trans-boundary wildlife management issues.

Methodology/approach – We present one model, defining six philosophical approaches to public participation, then examine relationships between these approaches and traits of stakeholder communities, revealing three distinct governance paradigms: top–down governance, public input, and public engagement. These paradigms illustrate that the different approaches represent fundamentally different types of participation, not simply varying amounts of participation. Using case studies from the United States, we demonstrate how some state, federal, and local government institutions have successfully applied public input and public engagement models of governance to suburban white-tailed deer management. While both models can be used effectively, certain approaches may be preferable to others depending on specific management context, public participation goals, and target publics.

Findings – Public input approaches appear better suited to addressing complex problems and communities of interest, while public engagement approaches may better resolve wicked problems that affect communities of place. Future research is needed to clarify the relationship between success of governance paradigms and contextual considerations.

Originality/value of chapter – The chapter goes beyond many existing approaches to public participation and governance and presents interesting findings related to exurbanized and protected areas in the USA.

The governance of the relationship between humans and the biophysical world has been based on a paradigm characterized by dualistic thinking and scientism. This has led to the Anthropocene. The purpose of this paper is to reframe human-biosphere governance in terms of “cyber-systemics”, a neologism that is useful, the authors argue, not only for breaking out of this dualistic paradigm in human-environmental governance but also of the dualism associated with the use of systems and cybernetics.

In this paper the authors draw on their own research praxis to exemplify how the intellectual lineages of cybernetics and systems have been mutually influencing their doings, and how new forms of governance practices that explore different framing choices might contribute to building innovative governance approaches attuned to the problematique of the Anthropocene, for instance through institutional designs for cyber-systemic governance.

The growing popularity of the Anthropocene as a particular framing for the circumstances, if it is to transformative and thus relevant demands informed critique if it is to help change the trajectory of human-life on earth. The authors offer arguments and a rationale for adopting a cyber-systemic perspective as a means to avoid the dangers in pursuing the current trajectory of our relationship with the biophysical world as, for example, climate change. The essay frames an invitation for a systemic inquiry into forms of governance more suited to the contemporary circumstances of humans in their relationships with the biophysical world.

The research essay challenges many taken-for-granted epistemological assumptions within the cybernetics and systems intellectual communities. A case for radical change is mounted; the means to effect this change, other than through changes in discourse remain unclear though it is apparent that changes to praxis and institutional forms and arrangements will be central.

Cyber-systemic capabilities need to be developed; this requires investment and new institutions that are conducive to cyber-systemic understandings and praxis.

Understanding the global environmental crisis as an emergent outcome of current commitments to dualistic governance choices demands a reframing of much of what humans have done, re-investment in cyber-systemics offers a moral and practical response.

The purpose of this paper is to address the governance of “fair trade social enterprises” (FTSEs), i.e. the organisations exclusively dedicated to the import, distribution and/or labelling of fairly traded products. The aims are to describe and categorise the types of persons and stakeholder groups represented in FTSEs' governance structures and to look at the link between stakeholder involvement and other organisational features such as resources, goals and activities.

These questions are investigated through a qualitative field study based on face‐to‐face interviews with the managers of 15 Belgian FTSEs.

The paper distinguishes three governance models each entailing different governance paradigms: the managerial model, the volunteer‐based and the multi‐stakeholder models. In the three governance models, it is possible to link, to a certain extent, the composition of the governance structures, the access to resources and the goal priorities regarding the different dimensions of the FT activity. In brief, governance appears as an organisational entry revealing much information about the vision and the strategy of the FTSEs.

This paper is limited to Belgian FTSEs and must be considered as one of the first attempts in characterising the specific features and challenges of organisational governance in the FT context. International comparative studies exploring FTSE's governance in a more longitudinal perspective, combining the standpoints of diverse organisational actors, would be most welcome in the future.

As this paper shows, the multidimensional nature of FT and the coexistence of different types of FTSEs in the same country make this a very interesting field to investigate the challenges of governance in social enterprises. Social enterprises and those researching them should pay more attention to the importance of adopting and conceiving governance schemes that are adapted to their multiple missions and enable the access to multiple resources.

This chapter takes its point of departure in the vision of educating public leaders and managers with the ability to create public value in a networked governance structure. The purpose of the chapter is to revise this vision by unpacking the notion of public value in contemporary governance and discuss the implications for public leadership and for public leadership and management programs.

The chapter explores the notion of public value as a conceptual framework for emergent forms of networked governance. Drawing on insights from sociology of law and governmentality studies, a set of key tensions inherent in the public value discourse are identified as the diagnostic impetus to consider the somewhat excessive leadership figure put forward in the literature. The chapter shows that the discourse of networked governance and public value thinking is rather contested and imply a certain kind of hybridisation of public administration and public purpose into opposite identity spheres. Instead of forming a ‘whole system’ as suggested in the literature, the hybridisation implicates an ongoing suspension that allows the governance structure to become tense and unresolved. The hybridisation forms new dilemmatic spaces in contemporary governance, it is argued.

The author suggests that public leadership should be considered as hybrid practices, formed around an ongoing search of ‘publics’ and images of ‘wholeness’ by way of oscillating between varying values and identities. This form of hybrid leadership calls for new explorative learning formats in public leadership programs, it is argued.

The chapter undertakes a careful critical reading and conceptual examination of the current paradigm of public value management. By drawing on sociology of law and Foucault’s genealogy of rationalities of government the examination brings new insight into the doubled identities and dilemmatic spaces of contemporary governance and elaborates the concept of public leadership theorized as distributed and hybrid practices.

The purpose of this paper is to present a case study of Curaçao as a small island coping with globalization and to contribute to the development of a framework to discuss globalization and corporate governance.

The paper starts to integrate three scenarios: globalization, the paradigmatic approach of corporate governance, and the categorization of organizations. This framework is then applied to the case of Curaçao.

Globalization of Curaçao involves the introduction of the Anglo‐American model of governance into several actors. This is a major change that the society finds difficult adapting to. A significant part of the population is at risk of being excluded.

The paper contributes to a multi‐paradigm approach to corporate governance, and in analyzing the globalization of small islands.

As social movements engage in transnational legal processes, they have articulated innovative rights claims outside the nation-state frame. This chapter analyzes emerging practices of legal mobilization in response to global governance through a case study of the “right to food sovereignty.” The claim of food sovereignty has been mobilized transnationally by small-scale food producers, food-chain workers, and the food insecure to oppose the liberalization of food and agriculture. The author analyzes the formation of this claim in relation to the rise of a “network imaginary” of global governance. By drawing on ethnographic research, the author shows how activists have internalized this imaginary within their claims and practices of legal mobilization. In doing so, the author argues, transnational food sovereignty activists co-constitute global food governance from below. Ultimately, the development of these practices in response to shifting forms of transnational legality reflects the enduring, mutually constitutive relationship between law and social movements on a global scale.

This paper aims to develop a framework of connotative meanings afforded to the term “corporate governance”.

An examination of academic publications from 1985-2012 containing the term “corporate governance” was conducted. The articles are sorted into the theoretical constructs that influence the contemporary connotative meaning of corporate governance.

That a combination of a weak definitional base coupled with strong motivational forces have aided the development of competing theoretical perspectives of the meaning of corporate governance. The dominant meaning is written from an agency theory perspective.

Theoretical analysis was restricted to articles found in academic journals published since 1985.

This study provides a very useful analysis into the connotative meanings and theoretical bases used by academic writers in the study of corporate governance.

This paper provides an updated and developed analysis to the theoretical dimensions that underpin the contemporary use of the term “corporate governance”.

The aim of this paper is to investigate the phenomenon of earnings management in Egypt, with particular reference to the pricing of IPOs. In addition, it aims to discuss its respondents' perceptions of the factors that are likely to weaken the effectiveness of internal corporate governance mechanisms in preventing the engagement in earnings management practices.

To achieve the objectives of this paper, a multi‐method approach was adopted. This approach includes secondary data analysis and the collection of primary data from a number of semi‐structured interviews.

The results indicate that Egyptian IPO managers have no incentive to affect the offering proceeds of their firms through exercising their discretion over the accounting accruals before going public. On the contrary, the results suggest that the amount of equity retained by issuers and the size of IPOs have a very significant impact on determining offering prices in the Egyptian stock market. The results also suggest that state‐owned enterprises are less eager to maximise their offering proceeds than privately owned companies.

The findings of this paper will be of interest to domestic and overseas investors in the Egyptian IPO market. This paper also provides many recommendations to the regulatory authorities in Egypt regarding ways to strengthen and reinforce the internal governance structure of companies.

There has so far been relatively little or no research into earnings management practices in Egypt. The multi‐cultural roots of Egyptian society make it different from other societies and hence distinguish it as a setting for our study.