Introductory description

The module offers a comprehensive, critical, contextual, and interdisciplinary analysis of the key questions underpinning the contemporary corporate governance debate.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

A brief history of corporate governance.
Shareholder primacy vs stakeholder-oriented regimes.
Corporate governance codes and the convergence debate.
Integrated reporting and shareholder stewardship.
Soft vs hard law approaches to regulation.
Regulatory actors and polycentric regulation.
Enforcement and compliance.
Governing executive compensation: the case of bankers' pay.
Who regulates the financial regulators?

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Understand how corporate governance has developed over the past 50 years
• Critically evaluate recent developments in the public debate about corporate governance and assess how companies, financial institutions, and regulators have responded
• Appreciate the variety of corporate governance systems around the world
• Engage in critical analysis of the convergence debate and explain why variety is likely to persist
• Understand the different forms of regulation and critically evaluate the conditions of their success
• Recognise the limits of state-centred views of regulation and appreciate the polycentric nature of regulation
• Assess the mechanisms enabling society to hold regulators to account
• Combine insights from legal, economics, management, and political science literatures

Indicative reading list

Specific reading list for the module

Subject specific skills

Understand and evaluate current trends in corproate governance and practice.
Enhance independent critical thinking about current legal and policy issues in corporate governance.
Identify and the most appropriate sources in corporate governance research.

Transferable skills

Develop independent, analytical, and critical thinking skills.
Improve ability to evaluate and communicate complex ideas.
Enhance ability to develop, structure, and deliver persuasive lines of argument.
Mobilise multiple source materials in the service of a sustained analytical argument.
Work unsupervised as the main mode of work.
Work in a team and be sympathetic to other contributions.