Evolutions in Corporate Governance ─ Towards an Ethical Framework for Business Conduct

* Proposes a new paradigm for understanding, developing and maintaining standards of corporate governance
* Re-imagines a framework within which good corporate governance is addressed alongside profitability and competition
* Makes a significant contribution to our knowledge of corporate governance and ethics
* Contends that meaningful change in behavior will come with a framework based on law and ethics
* Proposes a timely framework to take on the forces of globalization and business influence
* Essential for academics and practitioners researching and working towards better business ethics

In a world where the implications and consequences of corporate actions and decisions are potentially far-reaching and lasting, ethical standards--their observance and their breach--must be part of the language of business conduct, whether in the context of corporate transgressions, regulatory effectiveness, terms of engagement between business and their stakeholders, or the metrics used by investors in assessing performance and risk and understanding long-term value.

This critically important book proposes a new paradigm for understanding, developing and maintaining standards of corporate governance. Its point of departure is not a position along the diverse paths of traditional corporate governance and regulatory theory, law and practice, nor specific questions of how to institute, implement and observe policies and practices that function as proxies for good governance. Instead, it starts with the idea of framing governance generally, and corporate governance specifically, as a matter of conduct that is guided by a set of fundamental ideals and principles.

Evolutions in Corporate Governance attempts to answer the wider question of how to reimagine a framework within which “good” corporate governance--that takes account of and is responsible for the social, environmental, ethical as well as legal and economic dimensions of business conduct--is addressed alongside issues of profitability and competition, in the face of forces of globalization and business influence that are testing the limits of what can be accomplished by traditional law and regulation. Dempsey contends that meaningful change in behavior will come only when there is a corporate governance framework that explicitly encompasses both law and ethics.

This book is an outstanding work of subtle and sophisticated scholarship, one that ranges across diverse literatures, and makes a profound contribution to our knowledge of corporate governance and ethics. It will be essential reading for both academics and practitioners researching and working towards better business ethics.