This thesis seeks to address corporate governance from both a practical as well as an academic perspective. It searches for solutions to self-interest and agency costs, problems that it is posited are innate to the anthropomorphism of the corporation and to the separation of management and ownership of widely held, publicly traded, corporations. / Practically, this dissertation is anchored in experience, garnered from empirical research, based on in depth and general surveys, as well as detailed interviews. It examines the workings of corporations, including their boards of directors, of gatekeepers, of checks and balances and of shareholders and the relative importance and rationale for the roles that they play. Based on the academic and empirical efforts it is posited that self-interest and the funneling syndrome, (a process whereby information required for decision making is constrained and managed by those in control), almost always predetermines the outcome of the corporate formal decision making process involving the board of directors. This facilitates abuse. When it occurs and there appears to be no accountability, confidence essential to the capital markets, quite understandably, suffers. / A hypothesis is advanced to explain the complexity of a potential failure of corporate governance through a relatively simple formula. It draws conclusions as to what is required to help address the challenges raised by the breakdown in effective corporate governance and to help instill greater investor confidence. A self-assessment mechanism to help quantify how effectively a corporation is dealing with corporate governance, both on an absolute basis (comparing itself year over year) and on a relative basis (compared to one's peers) is proffered. This tool of more effective corporate governance, seeks to identify the causes for breakdowns in corporate governance and to assist a board of directors in dealing more proactively with this challenge.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.85218 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Fridman, Josef J. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Civil Law (Institute of Comparative Law.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 002209015, proquestno: AAINR12972, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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