Corporate Governance Unlocked


Book Description




Rebuilding the Corporate Genome


Book Description

Praise for Rebuilding the Corporate Genome "Whether you talk about capability-driven organizations, modular approaches, or networked economies, the implications of very low costs for transactions, information exchanges, and communications are clear: Business boundaries are dissolving and re-forming. Aurik, Jonk, and Willen show how innovators are creatively exploiting this trend to their decided advantage." —Gerard Hoetmer, Senior Vice President, Unilever Bestfoods "If you set your strategy at lower levels of the business, you can more effectively compete and grow-and fend off unexpected rivals. Rebuilding the Corporate Genome shows that once you look through capability lenses, new horizons and new possibilities suddenly come into focus." —Jan Oosterveld, Member, Group Management Committee, Royal Philips Electronics "This book is a compelling and prescient look at the future of the modern corporation. While the 'corporate genome project' may be a work in progress, the authors take important steps towards the goal of understanding how corporations really work, and how capability-based corporations will emerge as the organizations of tomorrow. Read this book carefully, because this is as close as you will get to a key for unlocking innovation and value in your industry." —Mohanbir Sawhney, McCormick Tribune Professor of Technology and Director, Center for Research in Technology & Innovation, Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management "Rebuilding the Corporate Genome reveals the future before it arrives. The authors masterfully extrapolate from a set of current trends to paint a picture of how businesses and strategies will evolve. The book is a must-read for anyone charged with charting the direction of a business in these turbulent times." —Toby E. Stuart, Fred G. Steingraber-A.T. Kearney Professor of Organizations and Strategy, University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business




New Companies Act Unlocked


Book Description

From 1 May 2011 company law in South Africa was dramatically altered: the 1973 Act which had governed companies for the life-times of most business people and lawyers in South Africa was replaced by the Companies Act of 2008, as amended in March 2011. A new era of company law dawned, and with it a host of new concepts, rights, remedies, obligations, procedures and sanctions were introduced. These fundamentally affect the way that every business operates and the advice and practice of every lawyer, accountant or other professional adviser. This book, the first to cover the new Act and the new regulations, provides the hand-holding, the insight, and the understanding that business and their advisers require in order not to be wrong-footed by the new regime.




Corporate Governance


Book Description

In the wake of the dramatic series of corporate meltdowns: Enron; Tyco; Adelphia; WorldCom; the timely new edition of this successful text provides students and business professionals with a welcome update of the key issues facing managers, boards of directors, investors, and shareholders. In addition to its authoritative overview of the history, the myth and the reality of corporate governance, this new edition has been updated to include: analysis of the latest cases of corporate disaster; An overview of corporate governance guidelines and codes of practice in developing and emerging markets new cases: Adelphia; Arthur Andersen; Tyco Laboratories; Worldcom; Gerstner's pay packet at IBM Once again in the new edition of their textbook, Robert A. G. Monks and Nell Minow show clearly the role of corporate governance in making sure the right questions are asked and the necessary checks and balances in place to protect the long-term, sustainable value of the enterprise. A CD-ROM containing a comprehensive case study of the Enron collapse, complete with senate hearings and video footage, accompanies the text. Further lecturer resources and links are available at www.blackwellpublishing.com/monks




Unlocking Africa's Business Potential


Book Description

Africa welcomes business investment and offers some of the world's highest returns and impacts Africa has tremendous economic potential and offers rewarding opportunities for global businesses looking for new markets and long-term investments with favorable returns. Africa has been one of the world's fastest-growing regions over the past decade, and by 2030 will be home to nearly 1.7 billion people and an estimated $6.7 trillion worth of consumer and business spending. Increased political stability in recent years and improving regional integration are making market access easier, and business expansion will generate jobs for women and youth, who represent the vast majority of the population. Current economic growth and poverty-alleviation efforts mean that more than 43 percent of the continent's people will reach middle- or upper-class status by 2030. Unlocking Africa's Business Potential examines business opportunities in the eight sectors with the highest potential returns on private investment—the same sectors that will foster economic growth and diversification, job creation, and improved general welfare. These sectors include: consumer markets, agriculture and agriprocessing, information and communication technology, manufacturing, oil and gas, tourism, banking, and infrastructure and construction. The book's analysis of these sectors is based on case studies that identify specific opportunities for investment and growth, along with long-term market projections to inform decision-making. The book identifies potential risks to business and offers mitigation strategies. It also provides policymakers with solutions to attract new business investments, including how to remove barriers to business and accelerate development of the private sector.




The Making of a Market


Book Description

During the nineteenth century, Yucat&án moved effectively from its colonial past into modernity, transforming from a cattle-ranching and subsistence-farming economy to a booming export-oriented agricultural economy. Yucat&án and its economy grew in response to increasing demand from the United States for henequen, the local cordage fiber. This henequen boom has often been seen as another regional and historical example of overdependence on foreign markets and extortionary local elites. In The Making of a Market, Juliette Levy argues instead that local social and economic dynamics are the root of the region&’s development. She shows how credit markets contributed to the boom before banks (and bank crises) existed and how people borrowed before the creation of institutions designed specifically to lend. As the intermediaries in this lending process, notaries became unwitting catalysts of Yucat&án&’s capitalist transformation. By focusing attention on the notaries&’ role in structuring the mortgage market rather than on formal institutions such as banks, this study challenges the easy compartmentalization of local and global relationships and of economic and social relationships.




Pivot to the Future


Book Description

The proven, effective strategy for reinventing your business in the age of ever-present disruption Disruption by digital technologies? That's not a new story. But what is new is the "wise pivot," a replicable strategy for harnessing disruption to survive, grow, and be relevant to the future. It's a strategy for perpetual reinvention across the old, now, and new elements of any business. Rapid recent advances in technology are forcing leaders in every business to rethink long-held beliefs about how to adapt to emerging technologies and new markets. What has become abundantly clear: in the digital age, conventional wisdom about business transformation no longer works, if it ever did. Based on Accenture's own experience of reinventing itself in the face of disruption, the company's real world client work, and a rigorous two-year study of thousands of businesses across 30 industries, Pivot to the Future reveals methodical and bold moves for finding and releasing new sources of trapped value-unlocked by bridging the gap between what is technologically possible and how technologies are being used. The freed value enables companies to simultaneously reinvent their legacy, and current and new businesses. Pivot to the Future is for leaders who seek to turn the existential threats of today and tomorrow into sustainable growth, with the courage to understand that a wise pivot strategy is not a one-time event, but a commitment to a future of perpetual reinvention, where one pivot is followed by the next and the next.




Governance: A Very Short Introduction


Book Description

Generally referring to all forms of social coordination and patterns of rule, the term 'governance' is used in many different contexts. In this Very Short Introduction, Mark Bevir explores the main theories of governance and considers their impact on ideas of governance in the corporate, public, and global arenas.




The Politics of Resentment


Book Description

In the days and weeks following the tragic 2011 shooting of nineteen Arizonans, including congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, there were a number of public discussions about the role that rhetoric might have played in this horrific event. In question was the use of violent and hateful rhetoric that has come to dominate American political discourse on television, on the radio, and at the podium. A number of more recent school shootings have given this debate a renewed sense of urgency, as have the continued use of violent metaphors in public address and the dishonorable state of America’s partisan gridlock. This conversation, unfortunately, has been complicated by a collective cultural numbness to violence. But that does not mean that fruitful conversations should not continue. In The Politics of Resentment, Jeremy Engels picks up this thread, examining the costs of violent political rhetoric for our society and the future of democracy. The Politics of Resentment traces the rise of especially violent rhetoric in American public discourse by investigating key events in American history. Engels analyzes how resentful rhetoric has long been used by public figures in order to achieve political ends. He goes on to show how a more devastating form of resentment started in the 1960s, dividing Americans on issues of structural inequalities and foreign policy. He discusses, for example, the rhetorical and political contexts that have made the mobilization of groups such as Nixon’s “silent majority” and the present Tea Party possible. Now, in an age of recession and sequestration, many Americans believe that they have been given a raw deal and experience feelings of injustice in reaction to events beyond individual control. With The Politics of Resentment, Engels wants to make these feelings of victimhood politically productive by challenging the toxic rhetoric that takes us there, by defusing it, and by enabling citizens to have the kinds of conversations we need to have in order to fight for life, liberty, and equality.




Creating Shareholder Value


Book Description

Economist, consultant, and Wall Street Journal contributor Alfred Rappaport provides managers and investors with the practical tools and tests for a corporate strategy that creates shareholder value. The ultimate test of corporate strategy, the only reliable measure, is whether it creates economic value for shareholders. After a decade of downsizings frequently blamed on shareholder value decision making, this book presents a new and indepth assessment of the rationale for shareholder value. Further, Rappaport presents provocative new insights on shareholder value applications to: (1) business planning, (2) performance evaluation, (3) executive compensation, (4) mergers and acquisitions, (5) interpreting stock market signals, and (6) organizational implementation. Readers will be particularly interested in Rappaport's answers to three management performance evaluation questions: (1) What is the most appropriate measure of performance? (2) What is the most appropriate target level of performance? and (3) How should rewards be linked to performance? Through the lens of high-stakes case studies, like the notable acquisition of Duracell International by Gillette, Rappaport dissects the intricate decisions and risks inherent in the merger and acquisition process. The shareholder value approach presented here has been widely embraced by publicly traded as well as privately held companies worldwide. Brilliant and incisive, this is the one book that should be required reading for managers and investors who want to stay on the cutting edge of success in a highly competitive global economy.