Corporate Governance Order Description Option 1 Conduct a review of the governance of your organisation (or one with which you are familiar) and write a report with your findings. Use the concepts, tools and techniques learned in this subject to review the structure, process and effectiveness of the governance of the organisation, and to make recommendations for appropriate improvements. These focus questions could guide you in writing your report: In which aspects of corporate governance has your organisation been reasonably successful? Discuss what has led to the success and how it could be sustained. In which aspects of corporate governance has your organisation failed or been less successful? Discuss the reasons for this and what can be done to address them. Option 2 Consider a publicly listed company whose business performance has been criticised publicly and, using its annual report, reference documents about the company (e.g. analysts’ reports, in-depth interviews and articles, documents on company’s website) and write a report about its governance protocols and practices. (This could include independence of directors, length of tenure of directors, other responsibilities of directors, etc.). Whichever option you choose your report should include: A brief description of the organisation and its background/industry. This description should be a short section only. An outline of the bases or criteria for the review of the organisation’s governance. For example, mention which standards or guiding principles are relevant for the review, discuss their importance and why it is appropriate for you to use them. A critical review of the organisation’s governance applying the relevant concepts, principles, standards or other tools and techniques learnt during this subject, in accordance with your discussion above. A list of recommendations for suggested improvement based on your review. The recommendations should only be a short section in the overall report. This assessment is an individual assessment (ie this is not a group assessment). Please ensure you avoid collusion and other practices which compromise individual assessment work. Important Assignment Instructions The required word length for this assignment is 2500 words (+/- 10%). In terms of structure, presentation and style you are normally required to use: - AIB standard report format; and - AIB preferred Microsoft Word settings; and - Harvard style referencing (which includes in-text citations plus a reference list). These requirements are detailed in the AIB Style Guide. Reference lists for AIB assignments / projects normally contain the following number of relevant references from different sources: 6-12 (for MBA assignments). All references must be from credible sources such as books, industry related journals, magazines, company documents and recent academic articles. Your grade will be adversely affected if your assignment contains no/poor citations and/or reference list and also if your assignment word length is beyond the allowed tolerance level (see Assessment Policy available on AIB website). Useful resources when working on your assignments include: - AIB Online Library - AIB Assignment Guide - AIB Style Guide TEXT BOOK Tricker, B 2015, Corporate governance: principles, policies and practices, 3rd edn, Oxford University Press (ISBN: 9780198702757). The 2nd edition is also suitable (ISBN: 9780199607969).
16 September, 2015