PROF. MARC GOERGEN ON CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

In February, I wrote a blog about the UK approach to corporate governance , which started with the Cadbury code. I argued that we need to review the UK approach as it is not enough evidence based. A few years ago, I organised a conference on corporate governance at Cardiff Business School . One of the participants, one of the authors of an important review of UK corporate governance which was commissioned by the UK government, expressed utter surprise at the fact that there was indeed research being conducted on corporate governance. It seems weird that policy makers and executives have so little awareness and knowledge of corporate governance research, which by its very nature is highly practice oriented and often also has important policy implications. Why would this be the case? Imagine that your general practitioner (GP) refuses to keep up with recent developments in medical research. What would be your reaction? You would very likely lose confidence in your GP and try to find a...

Improving diversity on corporate boards is definitely on the agenda, and increasingly so. Typically, diversity is limited to gender diversity. Unfortunately, we still seem to be light years away from a broader approach to diversity, including diversity in terms of age, race, culture, religion and other personal attributes. So is increased board diversity good or bad? There are many commentators on social media who unequivocally advocate greater diversity and equate increases in diversity to shareholder value creation. Here is just one recent example from Twitter: Yes, #diverseboards create value MT“ @TheWomanEffect : Gender #diverseboards – a financially significant issue? http://t.co/2dC87UW8 ” #corpgov — Tommaso Arenare (@tommaso_arenare) March 9, 2012 The author of this Tweet is obviously convinced that greater diversity is always good and that there is no doubt whatsoever about this. So what does the academic literature tell us? First of all, and this comes as no...