My textbook "International Corporate Governance" has been shortlisted for the Management Book of the Year 2013 award by the Chartered Management Institute (CMI). The CMI received 137 entries across 5 categories. In October 2012 the CMI shortlisted 25 of the entries for the award. The winner in each of the 5 categories as well as the overall winner will be announced on 28 January 2013 at the British Library Conference Centre.
I had been toying for a long time with the idea of writing a textbook on corporate governance. However, it was only when I moved to Cardiff Business School and was asked to teach an entire course on corporate governance that I seriously started thinking about this. When I was designing the course I felt uneasy about adopting one of the existing textbooks. I found these to be very limited in terms of their scope and their view of corporate governance. Not only were these textbooks Anglo-centric, but they also limited corporate governance to accountability and compliance. My view is that corporate governance is much more than this.The main approach I took in my book is to study the conflicts of interests that corporations may suffer from. The book also adopts an international approach, comparing the advantages and drawbacks of the various systems of corporate governance across the world.
The book is organised into 5 different parts. Part I introduces corporate governance, reviews the theoretical body and develops the main concepts of corporate governance that are used across the book. Part II focuses on international corporate governance; including taxonomies of corporate governance systems; how to incentivise managers and how to discipline those that perform badly; the link between corporate governance, types of financial systems and economic growth; and corporate governance regulation. Part III analyses the role of various stakeholders in corporate governance. These stakeholders include debtholders, such as banks, employees and gatekeepers. This part also studies the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and socially responsible investments (SRIs). Part IV looks at possible ways of improving corporate governance. This part looks at corporate governance in emerging markets, contractual corporate governance, corporate governance in initial public offerings, and behavioural biases that affect managers' decision making. Finally, Part V of the book concludes.
An extensive glossary at the end of the book enables the reader to revisit quickly the concepts and technical terms used throughout the book. Complimentary teaching support material - including a test bank with 100 multiple choice questions, an instructor's manual and a complete set of PowerPoint slides - is available from here.
Reviews of the book include James McRitchie's review at corpgov.net.
The book is also now available in a Chinese translation from China Machine Press.
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