Concept of Corporate Governance docx

Running head: ASDA CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
ASDA CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
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Executive Summary
The concept of Corporate Governance can be essentially described as the means which are
generally adopted by the organization to deal with the different aspects relating to the employee
and social welfare. In regard to this, the report is aimed towards understanding the different ways
in which the employees at ASDA have been undergoing issues relating to the fact that many
employees have complained about discrimination and inequality scenarios. Therefore, by
following a systematic structure, the paper is dividing into different sections whereby the
Introduction, Literature Review, the Research methods and the Discussion and Analysis has been
presented. This is then followed by the Conclusion and the Recommendations of the study.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................4
Literature Review............................................................................................................................6
The concept of Corporate Governance........................................................................................6
Agency Theory............................................................................................................................6
Stewardship Theory.....................................................................................................................7
Stakeholder Theory......................................................................................................................7
Discrimination.............................................................................................................................8
Discrimination at the Workplace.................................................................................................8
Employee Rights..........................................................................................................................9
Employer Accountability.............................................................................................................9
Considerations.............................................................................................................................9
Theories of Discrimination........................................................................................................10
Discussion of secondary and primary research undertaken...........................................................13
Overview....................................................................................................................................13
Secondary research undertaken.................................................................................................13
Primary research undertaken.....................................................................................................14
Summary....................................................................................................................................15
Critical Review of the Results.......................................................................................................16
Overview....................................................................................................................................16

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Primary research results.............................................................................................................16
Secondary research results.........................................................................................................27
Discrimination at ASDA............................................................................................................27
Impact on the performance of employees..................................................................................28
Corporate governance at ASDA................................................................................................28
Triple bottom impact.................................................................................................................29
Strategic initiatives for ASDA...................................................................................................30
Conclusion and Recommendations................................................................................................34
References......................................................................................................................................35
Appendix........................................................................................................................................38
Questionnaire.............................................................................................................................38

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Introduction
Corporate Governance can be correctly comprehended to be a set of rules and regulations
which are required to be utilized by the organization in engaging into various operations. The
Corporate Governance of a company needs to be such that it is successfully able to cover all the
operations of the organization and in line with this has the overall capacity to certify that it will
successfully be able to guide the organization towards the right steps which are required to be
undertaken by it. In line with this, according to Yermack (2017), the corporate governance
encompasses of the overall interest in a company`s stakeholders which comprise of the
customers, suppliers, governmental regulatory bodies which go a long way in supporting the firm
to attain its objectives. In line with this, the corporate governance of an organization is greatly
impacted by the overall external as well as the internal forces which govern the overall
operations of the enterprise. The primary aim of the report lies on the corporate governance of
the ASDA in UK. The subject of the Corporate Governance can be comprehended to be vast in
nature and in line with this, it can be considered to be the overall duty of the firm to certify that,
they are being successfully able to apply and include all the aspects which are related to the
concept of the Corporate Governance. After research, it was identified that, the Corporate
Governance issue which is relevant in the case of the ASDA can be comprehended to be the
Discrimination and the accusation of the staff members against the management stating that they
are not being treated adequately. With respect to this, the staff members have reported that
although the firm has the equality as a concept in its Corporate Governance, however, the firm
has not been taken it very seriously and in reality the different staff members have been
subjected to a huge level of discrimination and there have been various accusations from the side
of the staff members stating how they were actually being treated in the firm.

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The ASDA Stores Limited can be comprehended to be a British Supermarket retailer
which has its headquarters in the Leeds, West Yorkshire. The company was found in 1949 and
expanded its overall operations to the South of England during the years 1970 and the 1980s.
The company was also listed on the London Stock Exchange until 1999 and later on it was
acquired by the American retail giant Walmart (Asda.com 2019). The ASDA can be
comprehended to be the second largest supermarket chain in Britain between the time period of
2003 and 2014 by the virtue of market share and since the fourth month of 2019, the firm has
been able to regain the second position but is still behind Tesco and ahead of Sainsbury`s
The paper will follow a comprehensive format with reverence to which the Introduction
chapter will provide a brief overview on the subject which will then be followed by the
Literature Review on the same. This will then be trailed by the research procedure that will be
adopted and the findings of the research. The last section of the research will provide certain
recommendations which can be largely adopted by the firm in order to improve the current
scenario.

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Literature Review
The concept of Corporate Governance
The corporations have become increasingly powerful and a dominant institution. In
regard to this, it is vital for a firm to certify that it is successfully able to manage all the existing
aspects of a business which range from the influences, the capabilities and the size. Their
governance and the way in which the dissimilar actions are usually managed tend to be
influenced by the economies and the social landscape scenarios (Tichy 1981). Therefore, due to
the changing nature of the different firms, it has been observed that, the different shareholders
are losing out on the trust and the market value of the firms is being affected considerably. In
line with this, it is integral to certify that, the firm is being able to see to it that the organizations
are putting this lack of governmental control to good use and thereby stress on the overall
importance of the accountability in the organizations. Therefore, the corporate governance has
become a vital aspect of the enterprise and thereby assists in ensuring that the current global as
well as the complex environment can be well managed (Sparrow, Brewster and Chung 2016).
The literatures in the domain of the Corporate Governance tend to provide some meaningful
form of information and governance aspects but tend to fall short on the aspect related to
governance and there remain many interpretations to the concept of Corporate Governance in the
firm. The different theories which are related to the field off Corporate Governance can be
comprehended to be the Agency theory, Stewardship Theory and the Stakeholder Theory.
Agency Theory
The agency theory is deemed to have its roots in the economic theory which states that
there lies a considerable association between the principals, shareholders and the other agents.

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The shareholders are the individuals who generally tend to hire these people to perform certain
functions for them and assist them in ensuring that they are successfully able to perform good
work and manage the organization on their behalf. The theory can be comprehended to be a
conceptually simple theory which suggests that the different managers are not required to be self-
centered and instead work towards ensuring that the overall goals and objectives of the firm can
be met with and the society as a whole tends to benefit from this (Triana, Jayasinghe and Pieper
2015). The main problem which lies in this theory can be related to the fact that there needs to
exist a differentiation between the ownership and control. Hence, In this case, it is seen to it that,
the agents are required to function with principal made rules and aim to maximize the
shareholder value.
Stewardship Theory
The Stewardship theory can be comprehended to have the roots of the firm registered in
the psychology as well as the sociology and concentrates on the fact that a steward tends to lie
with the focus of ensuring that the wealth of the firm can be maximized accordingly through the
performance and also because it is the overall duty of the steward to do so (Cascio 2015). Unlike
the agency theory, the stewardship theory does not stress on the perception of individualism but
rather stresses on the top management being the stewards of the firm who motivate the overall
victory of the firm (Tricker and Tricker 2015). It relies on ensuring that the returns of the
stakeholders are maximized and hence, the performance of the enterprise can directly have an
influence on the perceptions of their individual performance. As per this theory, the agency costs
have to be minimized so as to see to it that, the interests of the shareholder are safeguarded in a
better manner.