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Some of the worst corporate meltdowns over the past sixty years can be traced to passive directors who favored operational shortcuts over quality growth strategies. Thinking primarily about placating institutional investors, selective stockholders, proxy advisors, and corporate management, these inattentive and deferential board members have relied on short-term share price increases to sustain their companies long term. Driven by a desire for prosperity, not posterity, these actions can doom any company.In The Activist Director, attorney Ira M. Millstein looks back at fifty years of counseling companies, nonprofits, and governments to actively govern their corporations and constituencies. From the threat of bankruptcy and the ConEd blackout of 1970s New York City, to the meltdown of Drexel Burnham Lambert in the late 1980s, to the turnaround of General Motors in the mid-1990s, Millstein takes readers into the boardrooms of several of the greatest catastrophes and success stories of Americas best-known corporations.His solution lies at the top: a new breed of activist directors who partner with management and reject short-term outlooks, plan a future based on growth and innovation, and take responsibility for corporate organization, strategy, and efficiency. What questions should we ask of potential board members and how do we know theyll be active? Millstein offers pragmatic suggestions for recruiting activist directors to the boardroom to secure the future of the corporation.

This book argues that the strategic management of relationships with external stakeholders – what the author calls “Corporate Diplomacy” – creates real and lasting business value. With colourful examples, practical tools and considered perspectives, the book hones in on a fundamental challenge for managers of multinational corporations. A practical guide to creating value for stakeholders. Managers can learn the diplomatic skills they need to deal with all kinds of stakeholders in a positive and constructive way This is a rare book that is theoretically sound and practically relevant. R. Edward Freeman, University Professor and Olsson Professor, The Darden School, University of Virginia An excellent guide, whether a company is starting afresh or checking well-developed approaches for potential flaws. Sir Mark Moody-Stuart, Chairman, Global Compact Foundation; MD, Royal Dutch Shell 1991–2001; author, Responsible Leadership Providing a cogent framework to follow, Witold Henisz’s work offers a novel analytical rubric that practitioners in all sectors will benefit from. Ian Bremmer, President & Founder, Eurasia Group; author, Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World and The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations? Witold Henisz uses creative rigour to build an important bridge between practitioners of corporate diplomacy and those who may not always value its contribution to business success. Robert Court, Global Head of External Affairs, Rio Tinto With trust in corporations at all-time lows and the importance of business and society issues at all-time highs, Corporate Diplomacy shows how systematic but practical engagement with stakeholders can address both problems. Ben W. Heineman, Jr, Senior Fellow at Harvard’s schools of law and government; former GE SVP for Law and Public Affairs Offers a new paradigm for looking at the increasingly tough political and social challenges which companies face in emerging markets. Steven Fox, Managing Partner & Founder, Veracity Worldwide LLC Corporate Diplomacy offers a valuable route map to help business leaders find their path through what can be challenging and unfamiliar terrain. Lucy Parker and Jon Miller, authors, Everybody’s Business: The Unlikely Story of How Big Business Can Fix the World Incisive and thought-provoking. This book can sharpen the skills that corporations need most in difficult places. Cameron Hume, former US Ambassador to Indonesia, Algeria & South Africa; Consultant to Sinar Mas Group Success as a corporate diplomat requires a remarkable set of talents and skills. Henisz’s new book is the ultimate field guide to this new brand of diplomacy. Judith Samuelson, Executive Director, Aspen Institute’s Business + Society Program

Why does corporate governance--front page news with the collapse of Enron, WorldCom, and Parmalat--vary so dramatically around the world? This book explains how politics shapes corporate governance--how managers, shareholders, and workers jockey for advantage in setting the rules by which companies are run, and for whom they are run. It combines a clear theoretical model on this political interaction, with statistical evidence from thirty-nine countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America and detailed narratives of country cases. This book differs sharply from most treatments by explaining differences in minority shareholder protections and ownership concentration among countries in terms of the interaction of economic preferences and political institutions. It explores in particular the crucial role of pension plans and financial intermediaries in shaping political preferences for different rules of corporate governance. The countries examined sort into two distinct groups: diffuse shareholding by external investors who pick a board that monitors the managers, and concentrated blockholding by insiders who monitor managers directly. Examining the political coalitions that form among or across management, owners, and workers, the authors find that certain coalitions encourage policies that promote diffuse shareholding, while other coalitions yield blockholding-oriented policies. Political institutions influence the probability of one coalition defeating another.

The implementation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in conjunction with proficient investor relations management (IRM) can enhance the reputation and appeal of enterprises, thereby fostering the sustainable development of enterprises. This paper examines the correlation between CSR and IRM by exploring the potential misinterpretation of socially responsible actions by listed companies as “hypocrisy”. We use the fixed effect model, moderating effect model and instrumental variable method to examine the correlation between CSR and IRM. The findings indicate that actively fulfilling corporate social responsibility can enhance interaction and communication between listed companies and investors in the capital market, thereby mitigating the risk of being perceived as “hypocrisy”. This positive effect is particularly pronounced when companies are experiencing poor operational performance. These conclusions remain robust even after conducting various tests to address endogeneity concerns. In terms of the underlying mechanisms, corporate social responsibility primarily enhances investor relations management through strengthening network communication and on-site interactions. Moreover, enterprises are more inclined to proactively interact with investors in the capital market when companies face severe financial difficulties, stringent financing constraints, or poor quality of information disclosure. Additionally, our study extends its analysis to elucidate how corporate social responsibility can mitigate the risk of stock price crashes from the perspective of investor relations management.

Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) are unique economic and governance events as privately held firms issue common stock or shares to the public for the first time. The governance issues surrounding IPOs are relatively unexamined compared to more established, and usually larger, firms. As such, they provide a unique context to study corporate governance and its development around the world. Based on a collaborative international research project, this book analyses the corporate governance of IPOs in twenty-one countries, each of which is characterized by different governance environments and different levels of IPO activity. The end result is a broad and deep assessment of governance practices and IPO activity for an array of economies that represent roughly 80 percent of the global economy. These chapters collectively provide new insights into what a global theory of corporate governance might look like and offer guidance to policy makers and academics regarding national governance configurations.

Corporate social responsibility has grown into a global phenomenon that encompasses businesses, consumers, governments, and civil society, and many organizations have adopted its discourse. Yet corporate social responsibility remains an uncertain and poorly defined ambition, with few absolutes. First, the issues that organizations must address can easily be interpreted to include virtually everyone and everything. Second, with their unique, often particular characteristics, different stakeholder groups tend to focus only on specific issues that they believe are the most appropriate and relevant in organizations' corporate social responsibility programs. Thus, beliefs about what constitutes a socially responsible and sustainable organization depend on the perspective of the stakeholder. Third, in any organization, the beliefs of organizational members about their organization's social responsibilities vary according to their function and department, as well as their own managerial fields of knowledge. A Stakeholder Approach to Corporate Social Responsibility provides a comprehensive collection of cutting-edge theories and research that can lead to a more multifaceted understanding of corporate social responsibility in its various forms, the pressures and conflicts that result from these different understandings, and some potential solutions for reconciling them.

Anne Lafarre combines wide ranging empirical legal and economic research to analyse and understand the real role of the AGM in the European businesses and corporate governance frameworks today.

The first book to offer a global look at the state-of-the-art thinking and practice in investor relations and financial communication Featuring contributions from leading scholars and practitioners in financial communication and related fields—including public relations, corporate communications, finance, and accounting— this volume in the critically acclaimed \"Handbooks in Communication and Media\" seriesprovides readers with a comprehensive, up-to-date picture of investor relations and financial communications as they are practiced in North America and around the world. The Handbook of Financial Communication and Investor Relations provides an overview of the past, present, and future of investor relations and financial communications as a profession. It identifies the central issues of contemporary investor relations and financial communications practice, including financial information versus non-financial information, intangibles, risk, value, and growth. Authors address key topics of concern to contemporary practitioners, such as socially responsible investing, corporate governance, shareholder activism, ethics, and professionalism. In addition, the book arms readers with metrics and proven techniques for reliably measuring and evaluating the effectiveness of investor relations and financial communications. Bringing together the most up-to-date research on investor relations and financial communication and the insights and expertise of an all-star team of practitioners, The Handbook of Financial Communication and Investor Relations: * Explores how the profession is practiced in various regions of the globe, including North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, India, Australia, and other areas * Provides a unique look at financial communication as it is practiced beyond the corporate world, including in families, the medical profession, government, and the not-for-profit sector * Addresses \"big-picture\" strategies as well as specific tactics for financial communication during crises, the use of social media, dealing with shareholder activism, integrated reporting and CSR, and more This book makes an ideal reference resource for undergrads and graduate students, scholars, and practitioners studying or researching investor relations and financial communication across schools of communication, journalism, business, and management. It also offers professionals an up-to-date, uniquely holistic look at best practices in financial communication investor relations worldwide.