Beedie School of Business News

The PRI are 6 general principles that are intended to promote the integration of environmental, social and governance issues into investment decision-making and ownership practices of institutional investors. The proponents of these principles suggest that their implementation and adoption will improve the long-term return to beneficiaries i.e. those individuals whose money the institutional investors are investing. The principles deal with incorporating ESG metrics, active ownership, disclosure, reporting, advocacy and implementation of the principles. Keep reading…

This work is Soros’ latest contribution to assessing the problems with and prospects for the financial system. The book focuses on the recent credit crisis, its causes and what will be required to prevent further dramatic strains on the markets and the financial system in general. As the title suggests, Soros calls for a substantial rethinking of how markets and financial institutions work. Soros criticizes the current orthodoxy in economic thinking and adherence to equilibrium theory and its component parts such as perfect knowledge/information and rational expectations. For Soros, our understanding of markets and financial systems will only be improved with a better theoretical framework which, according to Soros, is the theory of reflexivity. As Soros describes it, the theory of reflexivity is an acknowledgement of the objective facts of a situation and how those facts interact with a person’s subjective understanding of them leading to highly unpredictable outcomes. Soros uses the current credit crisis as an example of how markets can be better explained by a theory of reflexivity rather than by equilibrium theory. Keep reading…

This report is one in a series dealing with attitudes to risk and its management. The report focuses on risk assessment in Canada and is based on the results of a telephone survey of senior management conducted from October to December 2005. The results of the survey suggest that senior management recognizes risk management as a critical part of business operations but that corporations face serious challenges in implementing adequate risk management systems. The report suggests that although 85% of respondents identify clear risk ownership as the most important determinant of success in managing risk, only 2% of those respondents believe that their company is achieving this objective. The vast majority of respondents (94%) indicated that they plan to maintain or increase investment in risk management in the coming years. The areas of priority managers identify include: strategic (20%), compliance (20%), operational (15%) and building a dedicated risk management function (15%). Keep reading…

This article analyses how the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance can be implemented in post-crisis Asia where different cultural, legal and philosophical approaches to corporate governance and economic development result in different outcomes as compared with Western corporate models. In particular, the article addresses the effects of ownership concentration on shareholder rights such as voting rights , the role of relationship-based commercial activity particularly between banks and corporations and the effect of culture on disclosure, transparency and enforcement. Keep reading…

This report contributes to the emergent discussion about how businesses can better adapt to the new realities of the global marketplace. The report focuses specifically on how globalization is evolving beyond mere multinational presence in different countries to a more complex interdependent network of worldwide assets that can “optimize” resources horizontally and vertically. The report argues that current enterprise management structures such as holding companies, decentralized operating companies and integrated operating companies, do not lead to differentiation in revenue and stock price growth. Instead, the report argues that companies need improved risk management institutions to create effective enterprise management. The report notes that although  62% of companies with revenues over $5 billion experienced material risk events in the last three years, only 52% had any sort of formalized risk management program. The report further suggests that the CFO needs to be the key driver of information integration throughout the enterprise with a focus on four key elements: enterprise-wide common data definitions, a standard Chart of Accounts, standard common processes and globally mandated standards. Currently, according to the report, fewer than one in seven enterprises govern and manage the integration of their Finance organizations using these standards. Keep reading…

MBA Explorer has recently chosen Professor Tom Lawrence’s Outlook for Change site as one of the Top 50 Business Professor Blogs.

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BCE has been a fixture of the Canadian corporate landscape for 130 years. When Alexander Graham Bell and his father Melville Bell introduced the telephone in Canada, who could have predicted the impact that this mysterious and innovative piece of technology would have on global telecommunications. With its most innovative years arguably behind it, now the most immediate impact that BCE is likely to have is on the rights of shareholders and bondholders on the playing field of Canadian corporate governance. Keep reading…

On August 18, 2008, Anne Macdonald, Chair of the Teaching Effectiveness Committee, announced the winners of the 2008 TD Canada Trust Distinguished Teaching Awards: Mr. Scott Powell and Mr. Stephen Spector.

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