SDG Detail

B8575-001Fundamentals of Governance

Postgraduate course

Project description

As this course is short and quick, we focus on the United States and compare across the types of governance, e.g. the public firm, the private firm, the ESOP, the sports league, and the non-profit. The primary institutions discussed will be the board, the shareholders, institutional investors, the stakeholders, and management. However, there will also be plenty of moments to think about the dynamics and personalities of families, CEOs, and directors. There are a variety of perspectives from which questions of corporate governance can be formulated and addressed but it has been economic analysis that has largely dominated contemporary discussions of the subject. Most theories of governance are preoccupied with the relationship between institutions of governance and economic performance. We expand this perspective to ask ultimately, are there forms of governance that are competitors to the public corporation? Would they satisfy stakeholders, and the wider public, more than the shareholder governance that is so much under assault today?