Benefits:

This workshop offers an international perspective on board functioning and the role corporate governance. It provides managers with a theoretical framework grounded in practical case studies to enable participants to foster a balanced culture of governance in their organisations. The “company” is a key component of modern society. In many respects, companies have become a more immediate presence to many citizens and modern democracies than governments or other organs of civil society. As a result, companies remain the legitimate and necessary focus of profit making in market economies. In the age of electronic information and activism, no company can escape the adverse consequences of poor corporate governance. This seminar provides insight and meaning to corporate governance and the practical implications for a company in the modern world.

Topics include:

1. Introduction and Background to Corporate Governance: Overview of European and Anglo Saxon models and evolution towards an integrated approach to good governance in the interests of a wide range of stakeholders. Agency and stewardship.
2. Value Management: Corporate governance hinges on four cardinal values: fairness, accountability, responsibility and transparency. Recommendations about board composition, directors’ duties, risk management, internal audit and mechanisms for ensuring that corporations adherence to value systems.
3. Corporate Social Responsibility: Fundamental principles of good financial, social, ethical and environmental practice. Adopting a participative corporate governance system of enterprise with integrity, interdependence with society and the environment in which they operate.
4. Ethics: The management of ethics therefore starts with an adequate understanding of the dangers and benefits of ethical performance or lack thereof for companies. It is this reputation that enables the company to sell its products and services and that gives it access to funding, attracts talented employees, managers and directors and inspires people to invest in the company. The reputation of any company is constituted by the collective opinion that it’s external and internal.
5. Identifying and Managing Risk: Business, by its nature, involves taking risks, which can be manifest in various forms: fraud and theft by employees, damage to stock, litigation or adverse trading conditions. Governance requires that a system to identify and manage possible risks within tolerance limits is implemented.