• Banking and Finance

  The Purpose of Corporate Governance Defined

  Posted by Kevin Young on October 25, 2022 at 3:45 am

  How to define Corporate Governance?

  Corporate governance is the collection of mechanisms, processes and relations by which corporations are controlled and operated. Corporate governance essentially involves balancing the interests of a company’s many stakeholders, such as shareholders, senior management executives, customers, suppliers, financiers, the government, and the community. Corporate governance is necessary because of the possibility of conflicts of interests between stakeholders, primarily between shareholders and upper management or among shareholders.

  Principles of Corporate Governance

  Since Business Roundtable last updated Principles of Corporate Governance in 2012, U.S. public companies have continued to adapt and refine their governance practices within the framework of evolving laws and stock exchange rules. Business Roundtable CEOs continue to believe that the United States has the best corporate governance, financial reporting and securities markets systems in the world. These systems work because they give public companies not only a framework of laws and regulations that establish minimum requirements but also the flexibility to implement customized practices that suit the companies’ needs and to modify those practices in light of changing conditions and standards.

  

  Corporate Governance and the Board of Directors

  The board of directors is the primary direct stakeholder influencing corporate governance. Directors are elected by shareholders or appointed by other board members, and they represent shareholders of the company. The board is tasked with making important decisions, such as corporate officer appointments, executive compensation, and dividend policy. In some instances, board obligations stretch beyond financial optimization, as when shareholder resolutions call for certain social or environmental concerns to be prioritized.

  Academic Definitions for Corporate Governance

  The act of steering, guiding and piloting—describes what boards [should] do when in session. It does not describe and is not a proxy for the board itself, nor any other party or activity outside the boardroom. Regulators, proxy advisers, and shareholder meetings are all important, but none is corporate governance.

  Practitioner Definitions for Corporate Governance

  Gathering together a group of smart, accomplished people around a board table to make good decisions on behalf of the company and its stakeholders.

  Legal Definitions for Corporate Governance

  Generally, corporate governance refers to the host of legal and non-legal principles and practices affecting control of publicly held business corporations. Most broadly, corporate governance affects not only who controls publicly traded corporations and for what purpose but also the allocation of risks and returns from the firm’s activities among the various participants in the firm, including stockholders and managers as well as creditors, employees, customers, and even communities.

  Commission Definitions for Corporate Governance

  Corporate Governance is concerned with holding the balance between economic and social goals and between individual and communal goals. The corporate governance framework is there to encourage the efficient use of resources and equally to require accountability for the stewardship of those resources.

  Guiding Principles of Corporate Governance

  Business Round table supports the following core guiding principles:

  1. The board approves corporate strategies that are intended to build sustainable long-term value; selects a chief executive officer (CEO); oversees the CEO and senior management in operating the company’s business, including allocating capital for long-term growth and assessing and managing risks; and sets the “tone at the top” for ethical conduct.
  2. Management develops and implements corporate strategy and operates the company’s business under the board’s oversight, with the goal of producing sustainable long-term value creation.
  3. Management, under the oversight of the board and its audit committee, produces financial statements that fairly present the company’s financial condition and results of operations and makes the timely disclosures investors need to assess the financial and business soundness and risks of the company.
  4. The audit committee of the board retains and manages the relationship with the outside auditor, oversees the company’s annual financial statement audit and internal controls over financial reporting, and oversees the company’s risk management and compliance programs.
  5. The nominating/corporate governance committee of the board plays a leadership role in shaping the corporate governance of the company, strives to build an engaged and diverse board whose composition is appropriate in light of the company’s needs and strategy, and actively conducts succession planning for the board.
  6. The compensation committee of the board develops an executive compensation philosophy, adopts and oversees the implementation of compensation policies that fit within its philosophy, designs compensation packages for the CEO and senior management to incentivize the creation of long-term value, and develops meaningful goals for performance-based compensation that support the company’s long-term value creation strategy.
  7. The board and management should engage with long-term shareholders on issues and concerns that are of widespread interest to them and that affect the company’s long-term value creation. Shareholders that engage with the board and management in a manner that may affect corporate decision making or strategies are encouraged to disclose appropriate identifying information and to assume some accountability for the long-term interests of the company and its shareholders as a whole. As part of this responsibility, shareholders should recognize that the board must continually weigh both short-term and long-term uses of capital when determining how to allocate it in a way that is most beneficial to shareholders and to building long-term value.
  8. In making decisions, the board may consider the interests of all of the company’s constituencies, including stakeholders such as employees, customers, suppliers and the community in which the company does business, when doing so contributes in a direct and meaningful way to building long-term value creation.

   

  Kevin Young replied 2 years ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
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