Exploring the rationale of enlightened shareholder value in the realm of UK company law – the path dependence perspective

Despite conventional beliefs in the predominance of shareholder value, a broader agenda of stakeholder consideration has been advocated in the UK by the recently-introduced ESV principle – the overriding corporate objective in the new company law regime. In this paper, the efficiency of this principle in terms of stakeholder enhancement is challenged through an interdisciplinary analysis. Through a critical review of the ESV principle, it is discovered that stakeholder enhancement practices in the context of the 2006 company law regime are still for the fundamental goal of shareholder value maximisation, and that their enlightened impact has been fairly limited in practice. Furthermore, by revisiting the interrelationships between UK economic, political and cultural factors with the predominance objective of shareholder value maximisation in the Companies Act 2006, it is discovered that the enlightened effect of this new approach in the company law regime is in fact impeded by strong, persistent forces deriving from shareholder-oriented particulars. Providing insight into the future direction of corporate governance practice, the paper concludes the rationale behind the shareholder-oriented ESV principle, and further suggests the continuing predominance of shareholder value in UK corporate governance

Curriculum Development in Indonesian Education

Pendidikan Indonesia telah belangsung selama berabad-abad mengikuti perkembangan sejarah, elonomi, politik masyarakat Indonesia. Pendidikan Indonesia sejalan dengan tumbuh kembangnya kerajaan-kerajaan di Nusantara dan juga masuknya agama-agama besar di Indonesia seperti Hindu, Budha maupun Islam. Namun perkembangan pendidikan modern di Indonesia diawali dengan masuknya kolonial bangsa barat ke Indonesia. Setelah Indonesia merdeka, pemerintah terus menerus melakukan pembangunan pendidikan secara nasional di seluruh wilayah NKRI. Pembangunan pendidikan tidak bias terlepas dari pengembangan kurikulum karrena kurikulum adalah inti dari proses pembelajaran. Kurikulum disususn dan dikembangkan sesuai kebutuhan siswa, sekolah, masyarakat serta tuntutan jaman

Branding of UK higher education institutions: an integrated perspective on the content and style of welcome adresses

The transformation to a more market-oriented steering approach in European higher education challenges universities and other higher education institutions to consider developing branding or image management activities. The existing literature focuses either on the content or the style, but we argue that an integrated perspective is needed to fully grasp the processes underlying branding. In a comparative case study of ten UK higher education institutions with varying reputations – five highly reputed versus five low(er) reputed institutions – we demonstrate how and why branding is deployed in welcome addresses of institutional leaders. Our findings indicate that isomorphic tendencies are visible, although brand differentiation could also be identified between highly and lowly reputed institutions. Our findings provide support for the competitive group perspective on branding activities

The PRIMO FORTE framework for good governance in public, private and civic organisations : an analysis on small EU states

Purpose: In this article we lay out and discuss a framework proposed by the Public Risk Management Organisation (PRIMO) (https://www.primo-europe.eu/) of which the authors are board members and the results of a test on public and private entities of EU small jurisdictions, specifically Malta, Slovenia, Luxembourg, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Cyprus. These are countries within the EU having less than 3 million people population. Design/methodology/approach: We collected our primary data by using a semi-structured questionnaire and administering it to participants who are working directly or indirectly with entities within these EU states. The questionnaire was structured using the FORTETM acronym as themes, ‘Financial and compliant design’, ‘Object orientation and delivery’, ‘Responsibility and stewardship’, ‘Tools and processes for creation’ and ‘Environmental awareness and interaction’, with 5 statements under each theme to which participants were required to answer using a 5-point Likert-scale ranging from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree”. We, however, allowed the participants to open up and discuss each statement and recorded these comments. Some demographic data was also collected as to the type of entity the participants are working with, the level of expertise on governance of the participant and the size of the entity. The quantitative data was subjected to statistical analysis while the results from the open ended question was analysed using the Thematic approach. Findings: Factor analysis provided support for the FORTE Good Governance model for both the Private and Public entities, no-matter if they are small or large. Originality/value: The study provides a better understanding and supports the FORTE Model established by PRIMO-Europe, after approximately 15 years of collecting data on public risks and for the first time tests it on both Private and Public entities, in large and small firms in small EU Jurisdictions. Moreover, this model contributed to the vast literature on models of risk management within organisations, but was not validated empirically for reliability of the factors, and on small jurisdictions. Therefore, the significance and importance of such a study lies firstly on the premise that testing on small countries, can be deemed as small laboratories for more complex politics, regulations and policies of larger countries.peer-reviewe

The organisational goals of social entrepreneurs: how social are they?

There is an increasing consensus among academics that the common denominator of ‘social entrepreneurs’ is their adherence to a ‘dominant social mission’. The extent to which social entrepreneurs actually adhere to socially oriented goals and values is largely taken for granted and treated as a black box. Building on established theoretical constructs, this paper develops a number of measures that can potentially contribute to our understanding of how ‘social’ social entrepreneurs really are. More specifically, we empirically test four potential measures of “social proclivity” in a well defined sample of social ventures, performing confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) (N~270). CFA points to high reliability and validity for the measures of each of the four constructs and supports the existence of a higher order construct “social proclivity”. Further, results show that social entrepreneurs display strong social as well as economic motives, providing an empirical base for actually capturing the dual-bottom line that characterises these enterprises

Out of the Troubles and into Rights: Protection For Gays, Lesbians, and Bisexuals in Northern Ireland Through Equality Legislation in the Belfast Agreement

Part I of this Note explores the history of LGB rights in Northern Ireland, focusing on the development of domestic equality legislation stemming from the recent peace process. Part II examines the statutory framework of this legislation, concentrating on what protections and rights it provides for sexual minorities in Northern Ireland. Part II also looks at a recent European Directive prohibiting discrimination against LGB persons in employment. Part III argues that for truly effective change to occur, LGB individuals need both policy-based and rights-based legislation encompassing the human rights principles of equality and non-discrimination. Part III further argues that the political divisions in the region ultimately hinder the drafting, passing, and effectiveness of such legislation

Rethinking Nigeria’s Development Using African Traditional Communication Media for National Orientation

This paper examines the problem of poor orientation of most Nigerian citizens, especially the rural dwellers, occasioned by the dearth and failure of modern media in rural Nigeria; a phenomenon that has led to a major setback in participatory governance and national development in a country. The objective of the paper is to investigate the causes of modern media failure in national orientation and development in Nigeria and to examine the need to adopt traditional African media as a viable alternative in Nigeria’s national orientation and development programme especially at the grassroots. This paper assumes that African traditional communication media as effective tools have been ignored in the national orientation programmes despite their relevance to national development. The paper adopts an analytical research method to examine secondary sources of data on the constraints of modern media in rural Nigeria and the viability of African traditional media in Nigeria’s national orientation and development’s efforts. Findings reveal that most Nigerian citizens, especially rural dwellers, do not understand national orientation messages because they are broadcast in English rather than their respective languages and the broadcasts are made on modern media channels that exist in urban areas. Findings also reveal that that government’s lack of political will, high cost of setting up community media, absence of professional journalists and selfish interests of Nigerians are factors responsible for the non-existence of modern media channels in rural Nigeria. Findings also reveal that African traditional media is very compatible to the communication needs of rural Nigerians. The paper concludes that the National Orientation Agency (NOA) in Nigeria has had reduced effectiveness and therefore, recommends the use of African traditional communication media in addition to the use of modern media such as television, radio and print materials to accord Nigerians the necessary orientation that will commit the citizens towards the task of national development

Organic Agriculture Movement at a Crossroad - a Comparative Study of Denmark and Japan

Along with apparent institutionalisation of organic agriculture that took place in the last couple of decades, the role of organic agriculture organisations as a social movement actor has increasingly being put into question. Under this circumstance, there can be observed an evidence of “division” among these organisations at being foe or ally to this trend of institutionalisation. Why have such competing trajectories existed in this social movement field? And how have different trajectories evolved throughout the time? Through a comparative study of two organisations related to organic agriculture in Denmark and Japan, it argues that a cause of the discrepancy can be found in fundamentally different formulations of the concepts of organic agriculture and the related movement, and thus different organisational fields in which the organisations have been embedded. It further attests that the process of external institutionalisation, punctuated typically by the establishment of the national organic law, has affected the internal institutionalisation of both organisations, regardless of its self-determined orientation toward pro- or anti- institutionalisation. Yet, how far or how fast the internal institutionalisation process will develop may still depend on the orientation of an organisation, when it potentially can preserve substantial autonomy from such process by refraining itself from creating business-client relationship with its own constituency and from compromising direct participation of its constituency to collective actions