The Corporate Governance and Accountability Project
Author: The Aspen Institute Center for Business Education
Source: The Aspen Institute Center for Business Education's Corporate Governance and Accountability Project
Year: 2011
Abstract:
The Corporate Governance and Accountability Project
The Aspen Institute’s Center for Business Education developed the Corporate Governance and Accountability Project with the goal of influencing prevailing models of corporate governance and theories of the firm, as they are understood and taught by business school faculty. Rebalancing the short-term/long-term focus of business will make it possible to bring a wider view to the role of business, one that encompasses both fiscal and societal well-being.
This Reading Collection brings together the Project’s material, including syllabi, web casts, essays, and more, in one easy-to-access location. Use the "Related Documents" links below to access the Project's material.
With the support of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, we interviewed and convened prominent faculty from leading business schools in the disciplines of Accounting, Economics, Finance, Law and Strategy, to ask what was currently understood regarding the theory and purpose of the firm. These scholars shared their views on the strengths and limitations of the current business curriculum, identifying a set of topics, or “teachable questions,” that they believed could usefully be introduced into core business courses given appropriate teaching materials. To that end, we've developed an extensive faculty network and a large array of teaching materials that provide opportunities to introduce a reconsideration of the strengths and the limitations of the dominant Shareholder Primacy Model in the core MBA curriculum.
We created a “critical mass” of faculty partners and new materials that provide a strong foundation to broaden and deepen the examination of the purpose of the firm and various theories of corporate governance. We worked with select Faculty Fellows teams from Harvard Business School and Washington State University, Vancouver, to reframe core courses so that alternative theories of the firm and methods for using these theories in decision making are part of the fundamental design and teaching objectives of core course syllabi.
As a background to the reference and teaching materials we've developed, here is a listing of just some of the questions the CGA team considered throughout its work:
• When is share price a good indictor of the value of the firm?
• Is communication to all relevant stakeholders the key to balancing short-term and long-term interests?
• Who are the shareholders, and what are their interests?
• How can long term and broader societal risks and impacts be measured, both by investors and managers?
• Just what does the law require of executives and directors, when it comes to shareholder primacy?
For more on this general topic, explore other Corporate Governance material at CasePlace.org here.
Related Documents
A Closer Look at Business Education: Sustainability in the Curriculum
Author(s): Shattuck, Rachel
Product Type: Policy and Issue Reports
Aspen has worked to create new sustainability-focused teaching materials for use in the business school classroom, and to gather best practices from faculty and schools that are working to foreground these issues in the curriculum.
A Closer Look at Business Education: The Stakeholder Approach in Accounting and Finance
Author(s): Shattuck, Rachel
Product Type: Policy and Issue Reports
As part of Aspen CBEs “Corporate Governance and Accountability” project, which was funded by the Sloan Foundation, Aspen CBE in 2008 collaborated with Jane Cote and John Becker-Blease—at the time, both faculty at the College of Business at Washington State University-Vancouver (WSUV)—to produce two extended teaching modules that focus on integrating the stakeholder perspective into MBA-level courses in the Accounting discipline and the Finance discipline.
Board Representation: Multiple Interests and Corporate Governance
Author(s): Scully, Maureen; Johnson, Jennifer
Product Type: Teaching Modules
What issues are involved in representing multiple interests on boards? Several perspectives on corporate governance allow that shareholders and other stakeholders be taken into account in decisions about corporate strategy and resource allocation. The process of integrating minority concerns into corporate boards is often fraught with challenges...
CGA: What Do We Know and What Do We Teach Future Business Leaders?
Author(s): Gentile, Mary C.
Product Type: Essays and Concept Papers; Speeches
The Aspen Institute Business & Society Program reports on MBA education's approaches to governance issues, offering a rich picture of what is currently taught in MBA programs; the strengths and limitations of this material; the questions left unanswered or unasked; and some promising approaches for addressing these gaps.
Earnings Management: Causes, Techniques, and Transparent Financial Reporting
Author(s): Mintz, Steven
Product Type: Teaching Modules
Earnings management occurs when managers use judgments to purposefully alter operating results to mislead stakeholders into thinking the company is doing better than it really is or to gain a personal advantage.
Investments and Returns: Who Has Legitimate Claim on the Returns of the Firm?
Author(s): Scully, Maureen; Gentile, Mary C.
Product Type: Teaching Modules
Corporate governance and accountability are examined through case studies, background conceptual pieces, and articles from the business and popular press. The background readings are by Professor Margaret Blair and colleagues, whose work challenges conventional assumptions about the primacy of shareholders among corporate stakeholders, based on legal precedent and best practices for long-term firm viability.
Market Failures
Author(s): Goodwin, Neva
Product Type: Teaching Modules
Economists recognize that markets lead to efficiency and the social good only under certain conditions. This collection, prepared by the Global Development and Environment Institute at Tufts University, describes seven causes of market failure and provides cases and readings related to each.
Maximizing Shareholder Value: What Are Shareholders' Interests?
Author(s): Scully, Maureen
Product Type: Teaching Modules
Maximizing shareholder value (MSV) guides many business decisions and quickly becomes part of business school students' vocabulary. However, it is important to understand shareholders' interests more precisely. This Teaching Module considers that shareholders might prefer maximization at the level of their portfolio or an industry, not at the individual firm level. It focuses on the underlying question: What are shareholders' interests...
MBA Curriculum Reform in the Accounting Discipline
Author(s): Cote, Jane
Product Type: Syllabi; Teaching Modules
Accounting with its arcane language and rules is a subject often feared and reviled by MBA students. While the process of producing accounting information might indeed contribute to this reputation, framed differently, MBA students easily see the role accounting plays in achieving strategic goals and managing stakeholder tensions. MBA students are expected to be future business leaders, not accountants. Using this assumption to design the course results in less emphasis on computation and more emphasis on the consequences that choices made in the process of accounting measurement have on strategic direction, stakeholder commitments and performance expectations. Students then understand that accounting is a measurement system that lays the foundation for enlightened decision making.
Rethinking the MBA Curriculum in the Finance Discipline
Author(s): Becker-Blease, John
Product Type: Syllabi; Teaching Modules
The purpose of this course is to provide students with a heightened appreciation of the role of a financial manager within a firm and to understand the tools and the nature of the decisions that financial managers must make...
Sarbanes-Oxley Act: How Did We Get Here?
Author(s): Keating, Elizabeth
Product Type: Teaching Modules
The Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act, known as “Sarbanes-Oxley Act”, was passed in 2002 following a series of corporate bankruptcies and allegations of executive management malfeasance, most notably Enron and WorldCom. The regulation of securities had not been this significantly altered since...
Sarbanes-Oxley Act: What Has it Wrought?
Author(s): Keating, Elizabeth
Product Type: Teaching Modules
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act is the most significant piece of corporate securities legislation since the Securities Act of 1933 and The Securities and Exchange Act of 1934. The Act's requirements are significant and have brought about substantial change in the work and role of auditors and the operations and financial disclosures of publicly traded corporations. However, this change has not been costless. This Teaching Module complements "Sarbanes Oxley Act: How Did We Get Here?"...
Teaching Questions for CGA What the Law Allows Teaching Module
Author(s): Gentile, Mary C.
Product Type: Exercises
The Sloan Corporate Governance and Accountability Project
Author(s): The Aspen Institute Center for Business Education
Product Type: Notes
Since 2003, The Aspen Institute Center for Business Education received funding from the Sloan Foundation to underwrite its Corporate Governance and Accountability Project, which aims to influence prevailing models of corporate governance and theories of the firm, as they are understood and taught by business school faculty.
Web-Conference: Beyond Shareholders: Representing Multiple Views in Board Deliberations
Author(s): Konrad, Alison; Scully, Maureen; CasePlace.org
Product Type: Multimedia
This Web-Conference featured Dr. Alison Konrad, Professor of Organizational Behavior and Corus Entertainment Chair in Women in Management at the Richard Ivey School of Business, as she discussed how boards of directors might bring multiple views into their deliberations and governance.
Web-Conference: Corporate Governance in the Current Economic Climate
Author(s): Koppell, Jonathan; Davis, Gerald; Gentile, Mary C.
Product Type: Multimedia
On October 27th, 2009, Aspen CBE hosted a web-conference on Corporate Governance in the Current Economic Climate.
Web-Conference: Sustainability and Stakeholders in the Finance Curriculum
Author(s): Becker-Blease, John; Keating, Elizabeth
Product Type: Multimedia
On October 29th, 2009, Aspen CBE hosted a web-conference on "Sustainability and Stakeholders in the Finance Curriculum" through the Corporate Governance and Accountability Project, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Web-Conference: The Stakeholder Approach in the Marketing Discipline
Author(s): Korschun, Daniel; Viswanathan, Madhu; Gentile, Mary C.
Product Type: Multimedia
On September 3rd, 2009, Aspen CBE hosted a we-conference: The Stakeholder Approach in the Marketing Discipline.
Webcast: Rethinking MBA Curriculum in the Accounting Discipline
Author(s): Cote, Jane
Product Type: Multimedia
As part of the Aspen Institute’s Corporate Governance and Accountability Project, Washington State University, Vancouver, has shifted the topics and tone of its core MBA Accounting course from primarily information production to a discussion of how accounting information impacts not only strategic decision makers but also the firm’s stakeholders.
Webcast: Rethinking MBA Curriculum in the Finance Discipline
Author(s): Becker-Blease, John; Scully, Maureen
Product Type: Multimedia
This web-conference discusses the recently revamped core MBA Finance Course at WSU, Vancouver which covers a traditional slate of topics present in most corporate finance courses and also formally introduces students to the stakeholder and shareholder primacy models of the corporate objective function.
Webcast: Sarbanes-Oxley Act: How Did We Get Here?
Author(s): Keating, Elizabeth; The Corporate Governance and Accountability Project Team
Product Type: Multimedia
Faculty, if you missed the Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Keating's Sarbanes Oxley Web-Conference (Sarbanes-Oxley: How Did We Get Here?), you can still access the powerpoint and audio presentations here...
Webcast: Sarbanes-Oxley Act: What Has it Wrought?
Author(s): Keating, Elizabeth; The Corporate Governance and Accountability Project Team
Product Type: Multimedia
Faculty, if you missed the Corporate Governance and Accountability web-conference, featuring Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Keating discussing the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, you can still access the powerpoint and audio presentations here...
What the Law Allows
Author(s): Gentile, Mary C.
Product Type: Teaching Modules
This module – What the Law Allows – was created because some faculty mentioned how it is often assumed that managers and directors are required to take actions that serve shareholders by maximizing short term share price. They wanted to examine those areas where the law allows managers and directors to consider other stakeholders and the firms' longer term well-being. Accordingly, this module focuses on the following question...