In this Closer Look, we examine the roles that leadership and culture play in contributing to chronic misbehavior and the manner in which it takes root in an organization. We use the example of Uber Technologies. Between 2012 and 2017, Uber Technologies faced a series of governance challenges...

CEO activism — the practice of CEOs taking public positions on environmental, social, and political issues not directly related to their business — has become a hotly debated topic in corporate governance. To better understand the implications of CEO activism, we examine its prevalence, the...

The board of directors is expected to ensure that management has identified and developed processes to mitigate risks facing the organization, including risks arising from data theft and the loss of information. Unfortunately, recent experience suggests that companies are not doing a sufficient...

Institutional investors pay considerable attention to the quality of a company's governance. Unfortunately, it is difficult for outside observers to reliably gauge governance quality. Oftentimes, poor governance manifests itself only after decisions have been made and their outcomes known. We...

The litmus test for an effective compensation program is whether it provides “pay for performance.” While the concept of pay for performance is simple, its implementation is not. In particular, boards must consider not only whether a compensation plan encourages executives to pursue...

In this updated Closer Look, we examine the tensions between corporate culture, financial incentives, and employee conduct as illustrated by the Wells Fargo cross-selling scandal. In 2016, Wells Fargo admitted that employees had opened as many as 2 million accounts without customer authorization...

Currently, there is much debate about the role that non-investor stakeholder interests play in the governance of public companies. Critics argue that greater attention should be paid to the interest of stakeholders and that by investing in initiatives and programs to promote their interests,...

The management of operational risk in the banking industry has undergone significant changes over the last decade due to substantial changes in operational risk environment. Globalization, deregulation, the use of complex financial products and changes in information technology have resulted...

Under the Basel II standards, the Operational Risk (OpRisk) advanced measurement approach is not prescriptive regarding the class of statistical model utilised to undertake capital estimation. It has however become well accepted to utlise a Loss Distributional Approach (LDA) paradigm to model...

Under the Basel II standards, the Operational Risk (OpRisk) advanced measurement approach allows a provision for reduction of capital as a result of insurance mitigation of up to 20%. This paper studies different insurance policies in the context of capital reduction for a range of extreme loss...