U.s. Corporate Governance System

Corporate governance is a set of actions used to handle the relationship between stakeholders by determining and controlling the strategic direction and performance of the organization. Corporate governance major concern is making sure that the strategic decisions are effective and that it paves the way towards strategic competitiveness. (Hitt, Ireland, Hoskisson, 2017, p. 310). In today’s corporation, the primary objective of corporate governance is to align top-level manager’s and stakeholders interest. That is why corporate governance is involved when there is a conflict of interest between with the owners, managers, and members of the board of directors (Hitt, Ireland, Hoskisson, 2017, p. 310-311).

Corporate governance in itself has no single definition but common principles which it should follow. For example in 1994 the most agreed term for corporate governance was “the process of supervision and control intended to ensure that the company’s management acts in accordance with the interest of shareholders” (Parkinson, 1994)1. Corporate governance code is not a direct set of rules but a self-regulated framework which businesses choose to follow. This code has continued to change in the past 20 years in accordance with what is happening in the business world. For example the Enron scandal caused reform in corporate governance with the Higgs Report which corrected the issues which were necessary. Although it does not quickly fix problems, it gives a better framework to

Common stockholders are the basic owners of a corporation, but few stockholders of large corporations take an active role in management. Instead, they elect the corporation’s board of directors to represent their interests. Board members seldom get involved in the day-to-day management of the company. They establish the basic mission and goals of the corporation and appoint

Phenomenal growth of interest in corporate governance has emerged in recent years. The body of literature on the subject has grown markedly in response to successive waves of large corporate failures. Furthermore, there have been numerous attempts to define what constitutes ‘good corporate governance’ and to provide guidelines in order to enhance the quality of corporate governance.

In large corporations the success or failure of the company is the responsibility of the board of directors. According to Richard DeGeorge, “The members of the board are responsible to the shareholders for the selection of honest, effective managers, and especially for the selection for the CEO and of the president of the corporation.” (p. 202). The board members have a moral responsibility to ensure the corporation is run honestly, in respect to its major policies, and to ensure the interests of the shareholders are satisfied. The next responsibility within a corporation is the responsibility management has to its board of directors. DeGeorge writes, “It must inform the board of its actions, the decisions it makes or the decisions to be made, the financial condition of the firm, its successes and failures, and the like.” (p. 202). The management of the corporation is morally obligated to

* The roles and responsibilities of the board of directors in corporate governance and the way the board affects a company’s operation.

In the aftermath of major scandals and bailouts in the United States, the world`s and the public’s confidence in public corporations, has been shaken. With the publicized scandals of Enron and other corporations in the United States, the faith in public corporations fell as fast as the stock market. Investors had no confidence in corporations or in their boards. Measures needed to be taken to form regulations to provide stronger accountability, to prevent these types of scandals from happening and to rebuild the confidence of investors. Corporate governance of publicly traded

The following paper will compare and contrast corporate governance in the U.S. and European Union. Because corporate governance regulations are not yet uniform across all EU countries, we have chosen to examine Poland in particular. We will first present U.S. corporate governance and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, and then examine how Poland's corporate governance regulations compare. Finally, since we have already learned about Corporate Social Responsibility for U.S. companies, we have examined Corporate Social Responsibility in Poland, looking specifically at the largest airline in Poland, LOT.

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act has a direct effect on corporate governance, and it is the strengthening of audit committees at public companies. This audit committee members oversees the company’s the management accounting decisions and gain new responsibilities such as approving numerous audit and non-audit services, selecting and overseeing external auditors, and handling complaints regarding the management’s accounting practices (Blokhin, 2015). There has been increased attention to corporate governance resulted from the passage the Sarbanes-Oxley Act; therefore, this paper is going to address about three ways, management oversight, internal control, and ethical conduct, which are responsible for a company’s accounting information have been affected.

The Board of Directors is defined as “a group of elected individuals who serve as representatives of an organizations’ stockholders” (Root). They are the decision-making power over management related policies and fiduciary duties of the organization. They make decisions to fire or hire the executive leaders, conduct performance evaluations on the company’s leading executives, and ultimately decide the executive’s compensation, as well as dividends to be distributed to the shareholders. The Board of Directors determine the organization’s strategic direction, and make sure the company is operating under the principles of the law to ensure the organization is conducting itself ethically, legally, and with social and environmental responsibility (Bateman 267).

The main objective of U.S. corporate governance system is maximization of shareholders value, thus executive compensation in U.S. are based on nature of the job performed and is linked to performance incentives such as bonuses or stock ownership. On the other hand, Japan and France corporate governance system objective lies on the mutual benefits of stakeholders, therefore their compensation is dependent on the achievements of the corporate overall objectives. Although all three countries uses different governance system, all utilize the same performance compensation format. Employees Stocks Options report stated that in 2000, 86% of US employers offered stock options to employees besides 19% of all employees were

In the light of various corporate scandals, regulatory bodies and corporate governance were placed under pressure by shareholders and stakeholders to form a tighter grip in governing corporation’s conduct. The obligations, roles and responsibilities of company’s stewards are under scrutiny of Corporations Act, listing rules, country’s code of corporate governance, ethics as well as social standards.

Over the past few decades the term ‘corporate governance’ has become quite commonplace, with considerable debate arising as to the intersection between ‘corporate governance’ and ‘regulation. The scope and content of corporate governance in and of itself is quite wide, capturing ‘the structures, processes and systems, both formal and informal, by which power is exercised, constrained, monitored and accounted for in the management of a corporation’.

Keywords: Board directors, strategic change, decision making, board size, audit committee, board of directors, corporate governance, directors of corporations, firm performance, corporate boards and efficiency, firm value, board composition, board leadership structure, firm size, outside directors, inside directors, independent boards,

Corporate governance is an essential part of modern company operations and management , it relates to business ethics, code of conduct and system to manage a company. However, there are many corporate scandals due to the failure of corporate governance. This report analyzes the corporate governance from multiple aspects. It is through the understanding the relationship between corporate governance and business ethics, evaluating the ASX principles as a guidelines to corporate governance and analyzing the National Australia Bank’s corporate governance. ASX principles referring to problems such as business ethics, code of conduct, diversity and risk management are explained with analyzing