Monash Law in Europe, Osgoode Hall Law School Units

Comparative Corporate Governance Outline

Unit Code

Osgoode Hall unit taught in Prato (exchange).

Credit Points

6

Location

Prato

Unit Summary

Corporate Governance can be viewed as a rather neutral term which refers to all the way and techniques by which corporations are governed. However, in recent debate, it has come to stand for a specific sub-set of this broader usage. As used in this course, it refers to the policy-based debate over how best to ensure that corporations are governed in line with various values and, in particular, whether the goal of governance regimes and initiative should be shareholder interests or a wider set of concerns, often referred to as stakeholder interests (e.g., creditors, suppliers, consumers and specially workers). This unit will engage the corporate governance debate by reference to a uncompromising commitment to a democratic society. Accordingly, this unit proceeds on the basis that the debate on ‘corporate governance is not reducible to only a dry and technical discussion on the best regulatory and corporate mechanisms to be adopted, although this is an essential, but not exclusive component to any thoroughgoing approach. Any contribution to the corporate governance debate necessarily involves, preferably by design rather than default, a serious excursion onto the contested terrain of broader social visions and ambitions. Understood in this way, an ambition of the course is not only to diagnose the particular and precise failings of the present corporate regime, but also to work toward detailed and concrete proposals for reform and transformation. Taking a comparative and transnational approach, it is the overall organization, nature and performance of corporations which is at the heart of this critical endeavour – those standards by which corporations are judged as performing appropriately and successfully that are the primary focus of the course. 

Teacher

Prof Alan Hutchinson

Assessment

Exam

Reading Materials

Reading materials will be distributed.