Renewing Management and Governance: New Paradigms of Governance?

Abstract

The recent Scandals in corporations have made many scholars reflect and react, and even United Nations General Secretary Kofi Annan has presented a vision of corporations being held accountable for creating sustainable value for shareowners, customers, employees, and communities. Corporate managers have been called crooks and liars and corporate unethical behavior once again has been highlighted. There have been louder calls for more ethical and principled leadership. There have been questions about the roots, causes and consequences of the crisis in confidence in corporations. What can be done? A governance revolution seems to be taking place “And while many official reforms have already been passed following Enron’s meltdown, boards are going even further, instituting sweeping changes in their composition, structure, and practices on a scale not seen since skyrocketing executive pay gave birth to the modern governance movement in the 1980s” (Business Week, October 7th 2002, p. 58). The recent scandals give us now the opportunity to ask if there is a need for a new paradigm for governance. Governance reform now ranks high on the priority list of policy makers and regulators. Governance is not only control, incentive and ownership structure. It is also the allocation of decision rights, as well as normative and value based control. Governance is not only something ‘internal’ to the firm, but also cuts across organizations. The governance concept is broader than just corporate governance, as organizations other than ‘corporations’ face governance challenges. The objective and focus of this roundtable on “Renewing management and