Economic activity in the United States and
Canada is predominantly performed by corporations.
They are by far the largest private employers of
workers, the biggest investors and the predominant
instrument of production. They are rapidly growing
in size, are generating sufficient funds internally
to carry out most of their expansion programs, and
are diversifying into unrelated activities. Their
affairs are increasingly managed by professional
executives who have little, if any, stake in the
risk capital. The shareholders, who are legally presumed
to exercise control over the powers and actions
of corporate executives, are normally too numerous
and scattered so as not to be in a position to have
a significant influence on the policies of the
corporations.
The changing role of the corporations has
led to considerable discussion about the legitimacy
of corporate power and the accountability of corporations for their actions which affect others such
as consumers, workers, suppliers and the public. As
part of this general accountability, the question is
raised about the type and extent of information that
corporations should be required to disclose to persons and groups who save no contractual relationship with
these corporations. Many businessmen, accountants,
political theorists, economists, and lawyers have
put forward their views about corporate disclosure
which differ widely from one another. A principle
reason for the divergent views about corporate disclosure is that they use different frames of references
to base their arguments for or against disclosure of more information than is at present
provided by corporations.
This study is an attempt to use the
normative model of 'Effective Competition' as a
guide for the type and extent of disclosure to be
made by corporations. An examination of current
literature on competition suggested that the lines
of demarcation for the normative model of 'Effective
Competition' can be defined by reviewing the national
objectives of the United States and Canada which
form the framework for the model and by examining
the main characteristics in the economy which reflect
the structure of the model. The informational
requirements of the main actors in the economy
namely consumers, employers, workers, creditors,
investors, government-run corporations, foreign
firms dealing with the countries and various government
agencies whose actions have a direct effect on other actors form the basis of specific recommendations made about the type and extent of disclosure that should be required from corporations
operating in Canada. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/41839 |
| Date | January 1968 |
| Creators | Devji, Razahussein Mohamedhussein Merali |
| Publisher | University of British Columbia |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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