Social Responsibility as a Driver for Local Sustainable Development

The increased interconnection among local and global players induced by globalization, as well as the need for a complete application of the “subsidiarity principle”, calls for a re-thinking of the “corporate social responsibility” concept. This new concept broadens the perspective of the single company interacting with its own stakeholders in relation to specific social and environmental impacts, to a network of organizations, with different aims and natures, collaborating on relevant sustainability issues. In this paper, the authors will provide a definition of “Territorial Social Responsibility”, sustaining the multi-stakeholder approach as a driver toward local sustainable development. Firstly, theoretical approaches to sustainable development at the territorial level will be examined, identifying the most innovative ideas about governance, network relation and development theories. The idea of development focuses not only on the economic aspects, but on the structural and institutional factors. The existence of cooperative territorial networks is essential to fulfil the creation of tangible and intangible assets at the local level. At the same time, the effectiveness of the decision-making and rules’ system can stimulate and empower territorial networks to tackle sustainable development. An analytical framework, scheme-shaped, will be set in order to identify the main aspects, indicators and practices characterizing the territorial social responsibility concept. It will represent a first attempt to create a feasible instrument aimed at understanding how cooperative social responsible actors, operating in the same territory, could direct the path toward sustainable development.Local Sustainable Development, Territorial Social Responsibility, Participation, Local Governance, Accountability, Sustainability Reporting, Multi-Stakeholder Approach, Networks

Regulatory Duties for Directors in the Financial Services Sector and Directors' Duties in Company Law: Bifurcation and Interfaces

Directors in the financial services sector are now subject to direct and enhanced obligations to the financial services regulators in the UK. These obligations, worded broadly, are in some respects similar to how directors’ duties under company law are framed. Directors in the financial services sector are accountable to regulators in respect of the discharge of these obligations and the history of enforcement by financial services regulators in the UK has shown that tough sanctions are meted out. Directors’ duties in general company law are however owed to the company as a whole, and are enforced by the company, shareholders through derivative litigation or liquidators at winding up. Civil enforcement against directors in company law has been quiet in the UK in spite of the revelation of senior level failures in banks in the global financial crisis of 2007-9. Questions may be asked as to why the directors’ duties regime in company law seems ineffective to address senior level weaknesses in the banks embroiled in crisis in 2007-9, and continue to appear unable to hold senior figures to account in the more recent episodes of bank malpractice and misselling. Further, with the advent of the regulatory regime governing senior persons’ conduct in the financial services sector, it is queried whether the regulatory regime will become the main means of discipline for senior persons, making the directors’ duties regime irrelevant. This article examines the relationship between the two legal regimes, and seeks to eludicate the role of regulatory governance of directors in the financial services sector alongside the directors’ duties regime in company law. This article argues that directors’ duties in company law serve different purposes from the regulatory regime for senior persons’ conduct in the financial services sector, and hence the approach taken to separately regulate directors’ conduct in financial services is a correct one. The regulatory regime is intended to encourage greater senior level internalisation of important public policy objectives that cannot be introduced in company law. It will be argued that the regulatory regime should be seen as a distinct mode of prudential and conduct regulation in financial services, and not as a form of governance that eclipses the enforcement of directors’ duties under company law. The interface between the two regimes should not result in the marginalisation of the company law regime and can indeed lead to better mitigation of information asymmetry for the purposes of civil enforcement of directors’ duties under company law. The article however acknowledges that due to the role of D&O insurance, it may make no practical difference what in theory is achieved by either regime. The article also provides some cautionary notes regarding the impact of the regulatory regime on directors’ conduct which will inevitably spill over and shape the discharge of directors’ duties under company law

Tax Competition as a Challenge to the Governance of Global Economy

The paper analyses the role of tax competition in global economy. How can tax systems respond to the challenge - by international cooperation or by national rules, by tax harmonisation or by tax competition? In this paper we approach the question as a matter of global governance. Tax competition is seen both as a means and as an object of global governance. Our conclusion is that there is no universal answer to the question: competition or harmonisation? Attempts to govern the processes of global economy on a national level may easily lead to tax competition. On the other hand, at least at the supranational level, i.e. at regional or global level, the goals and mechanisms of governance seem to emphasise harmonisation. Nowadays especially the OECD has become an important actor or forum for cooperation in taxation. It has succeeded in many ways in preventing and reducing harmful tax competition. The soft law mechanisms developed by the OECD have often been converted into the hard law mechanisms on national level. The governance activities have been based on both soft law and hard law mechanisms

Business, state, and community: 'responsible risk takers', New Labour, and the governance of corporate business

In December 1998, Peter Mandelson MP, one of the principal architects of the Labour Party’s victory in the May 1997 general election, dramatically resigned as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry. Nevertheless, despite his relatively brief period in that office, Mr. Mandelson left his imprint on policy through the publication in November 1998 of a major White Paper, ‘Our Competitive Future: Building the Knowledge Driven Economy’. The White Paper sets out the New Labour analysis of the national political economy in a globalized world economy and is very much influenced by Mr. Mandelson’s experience of the entrepreneurial spirit during his fact-finding visit to the United States of America. This article seeks to chart the relationship between New Labour’s desire to foster the development of the corporate sector within a vibrant entrepreneurial culture and the need to ensure that the integrity of the market is preserved in an arena which is seen as inimicable to strong regulatory intervention by the state. As well as mapping New Labour’s political rhetoric onto contemporary debates in corporate governance, the analysis will involve an examination of the interface between business practice and morality. In particular, the article will focus upon the role of the conception of company directors as ‘responsible risk takers’ and the upon the use of name-and-shame sanctions in the development of an entrepreneurial culture in which all corporate enterprises are seen as having a legitimate societal ‘licence to operate’

International Listing as a Means to Mobilize the Benefits of Financial Globalization: Micro-Level Evidence from China

This paper proposes a micro-level framework to account for how firms in developing economies overcome domestic institutional constraints. It illustrates that the mechanisms enabling those firms to benefit from financial globalization are more complex than the “direct” financial channels outlined in the neo-classical approach. China provides an important example in this context, as its capital market liberalization has been limited and neither the legal nor financial system is well developed. Yet micro-level evidence from China’s internationally listed enterprises indicates that innovative firms can overcome institutional thresholds, secure access to international capital, and benefit and learn from international capital markets. This can in turn induce market-level improvements through regulatory competition and demands for a more standardized system of economic regulation

From Value Protection to Value Creation: Rethinking Corporate Governance Standards for Firm Innovation

A company’s pro-innovation needs are often met by the exploitation of its resources, widely defined. The resource-based theory of the firm provides immense empirical insights into how a firm’s corporate governance factors can contribute to promoting innovation. However, these implications may conflict with the prevailing standards of corporate governance imposed on many securities markets for listed companies, which have developed based on theoretical models supporting a shareholder-centered and agency-based theory of the firm. Although prevailing corporate governance standards can to an extent support firm innovation, tensions are created in some circumstances where companies pit their corporate governance compliance against resource-based needs that promote innovation. In the present context of steady internationalization and convergence in corporate governance standards in global securities markets towards a shareholder-centered agency-based model, we argue that there is a need to provide some room for accommodating the resource-based needs for companies in relation to promoting innovation. We explore a number of options and suggest that the most practicable option would be the development of recognized exceptions that deviate from prevailing corporate governance standards. We further suggest as to how an exceptions-based regime can be implemented in the U.K. and U.S., comparing the rules-based regime in the U.S. with the principles-based regime in the U.K

Corporate Governance in the Emerging Economics of the Caribbean: Peculiarities, Challenges, and a Future Pathway

Building on corporate governance research and responsible leadership theory this paper examines, through a multiple case approach, three major cases of corporate failures in the emerging economies of Barbados, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago, member states of the Caribbean Community trade bloc. The paper accordingly provides valuable insights into the dynamics of corporate governance in the Caribbean and proposes a responsible leadership approach as a framework to mitigating agency-problems and addressing the changing business contexts of the region. The paper suggests that researchers and practitioners need to develop a more holistic approach towards understanding corporate governance by going beyond traditional governance mechanisms and controls, and incorporating responsible leadership levels of analysis into the equation. It also establishes that regulators, boards, management, and auditors are critical to avoiding corporate failures and that good corporate governance is fundamental to the performance and sustainability of firms and economies as a whole

Model Pengukuran Proses Bisnis CRM Berbasis eTom dan IT-IL

Nowadays a Telecom Company doing a business model transformation through managed services. This term as form of outsourcing managed services for telecom companies are very attached to the cutting-edge technology that is capital intensive, therefore it needs a different outsourcing approach in order to remind the competitiveness, not just a simple outsourcing employee in generally. This approach changes the employees outsourcing paradigm in the global telecommunications industry.Company realizes that managed service are complicated to be defined, even more complicate when its executed, thus necessary to have a good business processes maturity level measurement. This study is conducted to examine the business processes maturity level that build managed services leads business model rearrangement in companies.Researchers use eTOM and IT-IL framework for business unit’s maturity level measurement at “Customer Relationship Management (CRM) - Customer Care”, which will implement outsourcing through managed service. The study results is the factors/aspects identification that related to the potential outsourced managed services, restructuring advice of manage service Governance according to the existing business processes maturity level, in the end able to provide appropriate policy recommendations as well.Saat ini perusahaan Telekomunikasi melakukan transformasi model bisnis melalui Manage service, untuk mengurangi beban biaya perusahaan. Perusahaan telekomunikasi sangat melekat dengan teknologi mutakhir dan padat modal, maka transformasi perlu dilakukan dengan pendekatan khusus sehingga dapat mempertahankan daya saing, bukan sekedar outsourcing karyawan umumnya. Hal ini kemudian mengubah paradigma outsourcing dalam industri telekomunikasi global dalam sebuah istilah Manage service.Perusahaan menyadari bahwa Manage service ternyatarumit didefinisikan apalagi dieksekusi, sehingga perlu dilakukan pengukuran tingkat kematangan dalam skala aktivitas atau proses bisnis yang akan dialihdayakan. Penelitian dilakukan untuk mengukur tingkat kematangan proses bisnis dalam Manage services, menghasilkan penataan ulang model bisnis perusahaan.Peneliti menggunakan framework eTOM dan IT-IL dalam mengukur unit bisnis "Customer Relationship Management - Customer Care" yang akan menerapkan Manage service. Hasil studi adalah berbagai aspek identifikasi terkait dengan layanan potensial outsourcing yang dikelola, saran restrukturisasi tata kelola sesuai dengan referensi tingkat kematangan, dan memberikan rekomendasi kebijakan yang tepat

Lawyers in the Shadow of the Regulatory State: Transnational Governance on Business and Human Rights

Lawyers are beginning to play an important role in strengthening the system of transnational governance that regulates business and human rights. In setting the background to our discussion of lawyers’ role in this context, Part I of this Article provides a general overview of the emergence of the transnational governance regime. Part II then describes some of the governance instruments that attempt to prevent and rectify the adverse human rights impacts of business activities. Part III discusses the extent to which lawyers are advising their business clients on human rights issues, the factors that may inhibit or encourage the provision of such advice, and how the lawyers who are raising these issues are framing these discussions with their clients. Finally, Part IV suggests further areas of inquiry that may enrich our understanding of the role that lawyers can play in helping construct a transnational governance regime on business and human rights