Prof. Marc Goergen on Corporate Governance

This module is intended for advanced undergraduates in business and management, accounting, finance, or economics, and Master students. The module is delivered over a total of 24 hours of lectures with a flexible format including traditional lectures, class discussions of the end-of-chapter questions in Goergen (2018) and the multiple choice questions (see below).  AIMS OF THE MODULE This module aims to introduce you to recent developments in the theory and practice of corporate governance. The module adopts an international perspective by comparing the main corporate governance systems across the world.  LEARNING OUTCOMES OF THE MODULE On completion of the module you should be able to: Evaluate the current state of corporate governance in an international context; describe differences in corporate control and managerial power across the world; assess the potential conflicts of interests that may arise in various corporate governance environments; critically evaluate the effectivene…

Similar to most academics, I get lots of unsolicited emails from potential PhD students asking me whether I would be willing to supervise them. Hence, I thought I should put together the Dos and Don'ts of doing this. DosDon'tsEmail only potential supervisors in your area of research.Email everybody in the department or school. Start your email with "Dear Sir or Madam".Specify a topic that is of interest to you. Be as specific as possible. Ideally, you should attach a detailed research proposal to your email.State that you want to do a PhD in an area as large and vague as e.g. finance. Write that, since the age of 5, it has been your dream to do a PhD. (I didn't know what a PhD was at that age!) This is not a great start.The choice of the university is an important consideration. So is identifying a suitable supervisor. Do your research by consulting staff profiles. Choose a supervisor who is research active in your field of interest.Email a potential supervisor …

These case studies can be done once you have read Part I of my textbook "Corporate Governance. A Global Perspective". I suggest you read all three chapters, with a particular focus on the third chapter.

If you are a lecturer, you may use these case studies in class to help your students understand the theoretical concepts discussed in Part I of the textbook. All the following case studies illustrate how the large shareholder in listed European and US companies manages to have strong control while holding much less ownership.

DGMT Plc

Oohh Danone - More than just a yoghurt

Google Inc. - Google has now been restructured and Larry Page and Sergey Brin's holdings are now in Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google. However, the stylised facts about Google as uncovered by this case study still apply to Alphabet Inc.

I haven't posted any of these corporate governance case studies for a while. As the updated version of my corporate governance textbook is about to be published on 11 March 2018, I thought it was a good time to investigate the corporate governance of another interesting company. The company I have chosen is the Daily Mail and General Trust Plc (DMGT Plc), a UK company. This is a media company which owns a.o. the tabloid The Daily Mail and the free newspaper Metro. It also has a holding in Euromoney Institutional Plc and Zoopla.



I chose DMGT Plc as it is not your run-of-the-mill UK stock-market listed Plc. The typical example of a UK exchange-listed corporation would be a Plc with dispersed ownership and weak control (see Section 3.3 of my textbook International Corporate Governanceor its updated version Corporate Governance. A Global Perspective). This is what I call combination A in my textbook (see below figure).


It what follows, I shall be using the 2017 annual report of DMGT P…

The Cengage edition entitled "Corporate Governance. A Global Perspective" is an improved and updated version of "International Corporate Governance" published by Pearson Prentice Hall in 2012. The table of contents of the Cengage edition can be found here. The Cengage edition is due to be published on 11 March 2018. Changes to Cengage Edition The structure of the textbook has changed to improve the flow throughout the book. Part II, which used to be entitled “International Corporate Governance”, is now called “Macro Corporate Governance”. Parts III and IV have been swapped around to improve progression through the book. Chapter 5 on “Incentivising Managers and the Disciplining of Badly Performing Managers”, which used to be in Part II, has been moved to Part III. A new chapter, Chapter 7 on “Boards of Directors”, including some of the material which used to be in old Chapter 5, has also been added to Part III. Throughout the book, many of the case studies in the tex…

The second edition of the highly acclaimed textbook "International Corporate Governance" is scheduled to be published by Cengage on 11 March 2018. The new edition will follow the style and approach of the first edition, but its title will change to "Corporate Governance. A Global Perspective". The book can already be pre-ordered from Blackwells.

A new chapter on boards of directors has been added to the book. There has been extensive updating of the material throughout the book, reflecting advances in research on and practice in corporate governance (full details can be found here). The table of contents (subject to change) of version two is as follows:

Part I – Introduction to Corporate Governance
Defining corporate governance and key theoretical modelsCorporate control across the worldControl versus ownership rightsPart II – Macro Corporate Governance
Taxonomies of corporate governance systemsCorporate governance, types of financial systems and economic growthCorpor…