Responsibility and the modern corporation

Corporate governance crises as well as human rights issues in global value chains have pushed notions of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Corporate Citizenship (CC), Triple P (People, Planet, Profit) and sustainable development onto the agenda of corporations and into the discussion of corporate governance. However, it has been argued that the CSR debate tends to rest on rather underspecified conceptions of the public corporation and corporate governance

Managing design variety, process variety and engineering change: a case study of two capital good firms

Many capital good firms deliver products that are not strictly one-off, but instead share a certain degree of similarity with other deliveries. In the delivery of the product, they aim to balance stability and variety in their product design and processes. The issue of engineering change plays an important in how they manage to do so. Our aim is to gain more understanding into how capital good firms manage engineering change, design variety and process variety, and into the role of the product delivery strategies they thereby use. Product delivery strategies are defined as the type of engineering work that is done independent of an order and the specification freedom the customer has in the remaining part of the design. Based on the within-case and cross-case analysis of two capital good firms several mechanisms for managing engineering change, design variety and process variety are distilled. It was found that there exist different ways of (1) managing generic design information, (2) isolating large engineering changes, (3) managing process variety, (4) designing and executing engineering change processes. Together with different product delivery strategies these mechanisms can be placed within an archetypes framework of engineering change management. On one side of the spectrum capital good firms operate according to open product delivery strategies, have some practices in place to investigate design reuse potential, isolate discontinuous engineering changes into the first deliveries of the product, employ ‘probe and learn’ process management principles in order to allow evolving insights to be accurately executed and have informal engineering change processes. On the other side of the spectrum capital good firms operate according to a closed product delivery strategy, focus on prevention of engineering changes based on design standards, need no isolation mechanisms for discontinuous engineering changes, have formal process management practices in place and make use of closed and formal engineering change procedures. The framework should help managers to (1) analyze existing configurations of product delivery strategies, product and process designs and engineering change management and (2) reconfigure any of these elements according to a ‘misfit’ derived from the framework. Since this is one of the few in-depth empirical studies into engineering change management in the capital good sector, our work adds to the understanding on the various ways in which engineering change can be dealt with

Label-connected graphs and the gossip problem

A graph with m edges is called label-connected if the edges can be labeled with real numbers in such a way that, for every pair (u, v) of vertices, there is a (u, v)-path with ascending labels. The minimum number of edges of a label-connected graph on n vertices equals the minimum number of calls in the gossip problem for n persons, which is known to be 2n − 4 for n ≥ 4. A polynomial characterization of label-connected graphs with n vertices and 2n − 4 edges is obtained. For a graph G, let θ(G) denote the minimum number of edges that have to be added to E(G) in order to create a graph with two edge-disjoint spanning trees. It is shown that for a graph G to be label-connected, θ(G) ≤ 2 is necessary and θ(G) ≤ 1 is sufficient. For i = 1, 2, the condition θ(G) ≤ i can be checked in polynomial time. Yet recognizing label-connected graphs is an NP-complete problem. This is established by first showing that the following problem is NP-complete: Given a graph G and two vertices u and v of G, does there exist a (u, v)-path P in G such that G−E(P) is connected

A generalization of Ore's Theorem involving neighborhood unions

AbstractLet G be a graph of order n. Settling conjectures of Chen and Jackson, we prove the following generalization of Ore's Theorem: If G is 2-connected and |N(u)∪N(v)|⩾12n for every pair of nonadjacent vertices u,v, then either G is hamiltonian, or G is the Petersen graph, or G belongs to one of three families of exceptional graphs of connectivity 2

Long cycles, degree sums and neighborhood unions

AbstractFor a graph G, define the parameters α(G)=max{|S| |S is an independent set of vertices of G}, σk(G)=min{∑ki=1d(vi)|{v1,…,vk} is an independent set} and NCk(G)= min{|∪ki=1 N(vi)∥{v1,…,vk} is an independent set} (k⩾2). It is shown that every 1-tough graph G of order n⩾3 with σ3(G)⩾n+r⩾n has a cycle of length at least min{n,n+NCr+5+∈(n+r)(G)-α(G)}, where ε(i)=3(⌈13i⌉−13i). This result extends previous results in Bauer et al. (1989/90), Faßbender (1992) and Flandrin et al. (1991). It is also shown that a 1-tough graph G of order n⩾3 with σ3(G)⩾n+r⩾n has a cycle of length at least min{n,2NC⌊18(n+6r+17)⌋(G)}. Analogous results are established for 2-connected graphs

Self-regulation in international corporate governance codes

Soft law refers to a deviation from hard law that begins with the weakening of legal arrangements ‘along one or more of the dimensions of obligation, precision, and delegation’. Such a weakening of legal arrangements is considered potentially beneficial

Boards and Sustainable Value Creation: The Legal Entity, Co-Determination and Other Means

Boards of directors face growing pressures to engage with systemic risks and sustainable value creation. In this article I explore how an entity view in company law provides a consideration of the status, architecture and purpose of the modern corporation that theoretically offers the capacity to integrate such issues in corporate strategy. I also explore how specific models of corporate architecture such as co-determination relate to such an entity view. Exploring different perspectives on the VW case I show how a dominant view of corporate governance conflicts with the assumptions underlying co-determination. In relation to these issues I argue that the entity view and co-determination do not provide panacea for the reform of corporate governance theory and practice, but provide conceptual building blocks that may be used to engage in a creative way with notions of status, architecture and purpose in order to enhance the capacity for company directors to engage with systemic risks and sustainable value creation in corporate strategy