Corporate Governance Report: Principles, Practices, and Implications

This report comprehensively analyzes various aspects of corporate governance. It begins by discussing gender diversity in corporate settings, highlighting its benefits and providing recommendations for improvement, referencing examples like Medibank Private Limited and companies that have failed to incorporate diversity. The report then delves into the fundamental principles of corporate governance, including the protection of shareholder interests and the application of stakeholder theory. It acknowledges potential drawbacks like hindering innovation and creativity, and suggests strategies such as risk management and budget adherence. Furthermore, the report examines ethical implications within a business context, emphasizing the importance of internal controls, whistleblowing mechanisms, and ethical conduct, with examples like Whistle Blowers and Lendlease. It also explores corporate governance practices specific to venture capital funds, focusing on qualified management, skill development, and stakeholder roles. The report concludes with an overview of the OECD principles of corporate governance and the significance of corporate social responsibility (CSR), including strategies for aligning CSR policies with company goals and the importance of stakeholder engagement, referencing the Adnani Company as an example. The report references several academic articles to support the arguments made.

Running head: CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
Corporate Governance
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

1
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
Answer to question 1:
Gender diversity is a fair or unbiased representation of the genders. It mostly refers to
the equal ration of women and men. The gender diversity of the corporate offices have been
discussed widely. There have also been regular initiatives that promote the concept of gender
diversity in various conventional fields that are dominated by men including the heavy
industry, science and medicine (Armstrong et al. 2015). As stated by Cornelius (2005)
achieving gender diversity within the organization has various benefits for the business that
may also lead to long term profits. Having a diverse situation in respect to genders can also
improve the reputation of the firm as well. There are several companies which have failed to
incorporate gender diversity in their organizational culture, such as Enron, HIH, Worldcom,
and Sunbeam. These companies do not have many female members in their board of
directors; rather they have more male directors. The female directors of these companies are
mostly non-executive directors who cannot take independent decisions. However, on the
other hand Medibank Private Limited has successfully shaped their organizational culture by
incorporating a successful diversity and inclusion policy. The organization believes that
everyone is different; therefore it values the difference and considers it as the strength of the
company. Furthermore, recommendations for the company on the Australian Stock Exchange
are listed below:
 The organization should find the gap between having gender diversity in the
organization and the existing situation; therefore it will help the management to
narrow down its area of working.
 The organization should also look for a specific skill set amongst the employees and
they should not discriminate on the basis of gender once they find those specific skill
sets in any employee.

2
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
 For the next three to five years the company should fix the criteria of being a board
member and should adhere to the criteria.
 For the application and selection procedure, the company should decide on certain
criteria and should not bias based on gender.
Answer to question 2:
As stated by Love and Rachinsky (2015) the basic principle of corporate governance
is facilitating the entrepreneurial, effective and wise management which is competent of
delivering a long-standing success for the company. The corporate governance practices
include a definite framework including the legal codes, legislation and the voluntary
practices. The major reason of incorporating corporate governance into the organizational
practices is to protect the interest of the shareholders who are not staying close with the
management. Along with that this practice also considers the interests of the customers,
employees, suppliers and the other ones who are having a direct interest with the company.
The Stakeholders theory of corporate governance states that the business ethics and
organizational management should address the principles and morals in managing the
organization (McCahery, Sautner and Starks 2016). This theory states that the management
should also consider the interest of all the involved stakeholders, not only the interests of the
management or the directors. However, it has also been viewed that adhering to the corporate
governance sometimes tend to slow down the decision making process and also creates
hindrances for the creativity and innovation in the business practices. The innovative and
creative practices of the business deals with different products and service, therefore it is also
associated with the stability of the company (Peni and Vähämaa 2012). Therefore the
organization may have hindrances in its goals and milestones if they have to stick to the
corporate governance policies. The recommendations for such situation are:

3
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
 The company should have a risk committee that will take care of the forthcoming
risks of the company and help minimizing them.
 The company should always understand the budget of the project. It should always
maintain the budget, therefore if adhering to the corporate governance policies
exceeds the budget of the project, it should extend the budget or compromise with the
policies.
 The company should also have definite plans for achieving the milestones. Therefore
the corporate governance policies should align with those as well.
Answer to question 3:
The corporate governance takes care of the wealth of stakeholders and the interests of
the stakeholders. Within the broader perspective, the perception of corporate governance also
considers the welfare of the society and the stakeholders. The ethics is considered to be a part
of philosophy and normative science as it is mostly associated with the norms of the human
conduct. It is also a concept that defines that the actions ate moral or immoral. In the business
perspective, the ethics is the discipline of applying the ethical principles for evaluating and
solving the moral dilemmas (Tricker and Tricker 2015). A certain business is only considered
ethical while it tends to create a balance between its financial objectives and the social
obligations. Within a business environment the ethics prevents the company from getting
trapped in any kind of fraudulent activities (Love and Rachinsky 2015). Therefore, the ethical
implications of the company would be:
 The company should have an internal control, especially on the quality of services and
goods that are being supplied to the consumers.
 There should also be a whistle blower committee of the company which will inform
the management if there are any complications.

4
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
 There should not be any system of bribing.
 The ethical implications should also be aligned with the company policies so that
there is no damage of the brand reputation.
The ethical implications of any organization treat the external and internal people in
an appropriate way. For example, the organization Whistle Blowers had been accused of
taking bribes which has affected its brand image. This can also be considered as a
corporate failure. On the other hand, Lendlease has taken effective steps for ensuring
whether anyone is bribing the Australian vintage.
Answer to question 4:
The venture capital funds refers to the investment funds which manage the investors’
money who tend to seek the private equity stakes for the small sized organizations and
startups with adequate and strong potential for development. The venture capital firms are
mostly associated with the joint ventures, SME (small to medium sized enterprises) and start
ups. The recent focus of the SMEs has changed to a great extent (Tricker and Tricker 2015).
In the previous times, the focus was entirely on the families whereas now the focus is
frequently on the qualified managers. Therefore the best corporate governance practices for
the venture capital funds will be:
 The investment funds should define the focus of the enterprise. The strategies should
relate to hiring the qualified managers.
 There may be lack of controls in the business practices; however the company should
improve the efficiency of the managers and the quality of products and services.
 If there is any lack of skills, especially in the sales, accounting or IT departments, the
company should take immediate actions to it.

5
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
 If there is any lack within the succession planning, the company should focus on
building new set of skills.
 The roles and responsibilities of the stakeholders should be preserved.
Answer to question 5:
The corporate governance has been emerging as a significant issue as the global
investment is enhancing gradually, therefore it is providing a assurance of the market
integrity and building the market confidence (Van Grembergen and De Haes 2017). The
regulatory oversight and the prescriptive rules are increasing at the same time; therefore the
corporate governance has been emphasized to a great extent. The OECD principles of the
corporate governance states that:
 Making sure that there is a framework for corporate governance
 The shareholders should be treated equally. This framework should also protect the
stakeholders and ensures that the rights of every stakeholder are preserved including
the foreign and minority ones.
 The corporate governance framework should be able to provide adequate incentive
round the investment, therefore in this way the stock market can function. The
functions of stock market also contribute to a good corporate governance practice.
 The framework should also identify the specific rights of every stakeholder which has
been already established by the legislation or any kind of mutual agreement.
Therefore this framework should also help the stakeholders by creating adequate jobs,
wealth and a sustainable and financially capable organization.
 The framework should be capable of ensuring that the organization makes an accurate
and timely contribution to all the materialistic matters involving the economic
situation, ownership, performance and governance of the particular company.

6
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
 It is also a major responsibility of the framework to make sure that the strategies of
the company is well planned. It should also take care of the effectual monitoring of
the plans by management and the responsibility of the organization and concerned
stakeholders.
Answer to question 6:
The corporate social responsibility is the ‘…the continuing commitment by business
to behave ethically and contribute to economic development while improving the quality of
life of the workforce, their families and the local community and society at large.’ The
company should always set goals which are measurable; therefore it would be easier for the
company to align its strategies with the CSR policy. As the CSR policy is mostly concerned
with the interests of the stakeholders, therefore the first priority should be protecting their
interests and engaging them in the CSR strategy. The company can also utilize mapping the
sustainability; therefore it would help them to prioritize specific issues. For example, a
famous Indian organization, Adnani Company that produces power for the Indian community
had few issues with their CSR policies. The activities of the organization were creating
environmental issues as the coal was polluting the water and the community was not happy.
Therefore in such situation, the government has to take strict initiatives against the company.
However, the company should protect itself from any such issues and implement strategies
that adhere to the CSR policy of the company. There should be separate annual reporting of
the adherence to CSR policies which will collect achievable and accurate. There should be
internal and external targets which will be divided by the workforce and area of working.

7
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE

8
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
Reference list
Armstrong, C.S., Blouin, J.L., Jagolinzer, A.D. and Larcker, D.F., 2015. Corporate
governance, incentives, and tax avoidance. Journal of Accounting and Economics, 60(1),
pp.1-17.
Cadbury, A., 1992. Report of the committee on the financial aspects of corporate
governance (Vol. 1). Gee.
Dimopoulos, T. and Wagner, H.F., 2016. Corporate Governance and CEO Turnover
Decisions.
Fender, R., Adams, R., Barber, B. and Odean, T., 2017. Gender Diversity in Investment
Management: New Research for Practitioners on How to Close the Gender Gap. Research
Foundation Publications, 2017(1), pp.37-38.
Love, I. and Rachinsky, A., 2015. Corporate Governance and Bank Performance in Emerging
Markets: Evidence from Russia and Ukraine. Emerging Markets Finance and
Trade, 51(sup2), pp.S101-S121.
McCahery, J.A., Sautner, Z. and Starks, L.T., 2016. Behind the scenes: The corporate
governance preferences of institutional investors. The Journal of Finance, 71(6), pp.2905-
2932.
Nanda, S., 2014. Gender diversity: Crosscultural variations. Waveland Press.
Peni, E. and Vähämaa, S., 2012. Did good corporate governance improve bank performance
during the financial crisis?. Journal of Financial Services Research, 41(1-2), pp.19-35.
Shleifer, A. and Vishny, R.W., 2017. A survey of corporate governance. The journal of
finance, 52(2), pp.737-783.

9
CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
Tricker, R.B. and Tricker, R.I., 2015. Corporate governance: Principles, policies, and
practices. Oxford University Press, USA.
Van Grembergen, W. and De Haes, S., 2017, January. Introduction to IT Governance and Its
Mechanisms Minitrack. In Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on
System Sciences.