Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the critical assumptions lying behind the Anglo American model of corporate governance. Design/methodology/approach – Literature review examining the concept of a nexus of contracts underpinning agency theory which, it is argued, act as the...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to trace the evolution of corporate governance through a series of changing paradigms in response to wider transformations in the political economy, business and society. The different eras of governance, and the dominant theoretical and practical...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to highlight the loss of moral capital incurred by an organization from indifferent or deferential followers of bad leaders. Despite the proliferation of codes of conduct and ethics and compliance programs throughout the business community, the prevalence...

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the systemic causes of the failure of business ethics (BE) and suggest some possible remedies. The discipline and the movement of BE has at least three decades of history. BE has developed concepts and theories, and provided empirical evidences....

Although 2002 was a difficult year for most organizations, Disney Corporation has had it tougher than most. Share prices plummeted, films flopped (its updated version of Treasure Island was a box‐office disaster in the US) and the ability of Chairman and CEO Michael D. Eisner was seriously...

Not all management leaders are high‐profile champions of causes, fitting the traditional heroic mold. So‐called quiet leaders are often just as effective when tough decisions are required. Their stealth tactics and slowly‐but‐surely approach may even be just what is called for in...

Gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, although we tend to call it greed these days. And in boardrooms of the business world some people tend to confuse greed with their view of what they deserve in terms of unrealistic salaries, unjustified bonuses, perks, creative accounting, golden...

There’s a broad, smiley, grin in the face of “Jack”, the corporate mascot of Jack in the Box (JBX), one of the leading fast‐food restaurant chains in the USA. And why wouldn’t he be smiling, being the figurehead of a company that has got more than 1,940 outlets in 17 states and 44,000...

In a privately owned company, the owner rules the roost and controls the decision‐making process. Flotation changes all that. Going public diffuses ownership among a wide range of shareholders who paradoxically become peripheral figures as far as power and control are concerned. Control shifts...