Corporate Governance after the Financial Crisis

Abstract:     
The Financial Crisis of 2008–09 raises questions about the assumptions that underpin corporate governance. Shareholder value and private ordering may not in fact be the best means of promoting efficiency and corporate responsibility, and the mechanisms that have been traditionally used to ensure management accountability may not be effective. “Corporate Governance after the Financial Crisis” (Edward Elgar, 2012) is a volume that brings together experts from around the world to draw on the experience of the Financial Crisis to explore topical issues in corporate governance. These range from shareholder primacy and the corporate objective to the stakeholder principle, business ethics, and convergence in, or globalization of, corporate governance principles.

This paper is the introduction to the volume, provided by its editors. The introduction begins with an overview of the developments in corporate governance in the recent decades, from shareholder value and private ordering in the era of deregulation, and the proclamation of “end of history” in corporate law, moving on to the events after Enron, WorldCom et al, and more recently the Financial Crisis of 2008-09. This is followed by outlines of the chapters included in the volume, which covers a range of jurisdictions – namely, US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, Malaysia and Taiwan.

A goal of the volume is to underscore the reality that our understanding of fundamental questions of corporate governance is still developing, and to demonstrate that the corporate governance debate is far from over. In doing so, the volume deals with a diverse set of subjects such as emerging ideas about shareholder primacy (US), public-private models of regulation to promote corporate responsibility (US), business ethics (New Zealand) and the nature of directors’ powers (UK).

Number of Pages in PDF File: 22

Keywords: corporate governance, corporate law, shareholder primacy, derivative actions, board of directors, business ethics, stakeholder principle, Malaysia, insolvency law, market-oriented blockholder, corporate purpose, Taiwan, independent directors, public-private methods, New Zealand, Canada

JEL Classification: K22

Accepted Paper Series