The walls between us: Exploring the question of governance for sustainability
- Authors: Ingley, Coral , Mueller, Jens , Wells, Philippa
- Date: 2013
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: 9th European Conference on Management Leadership and Governance p. 338-345
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The walls between us : Governance for sustainability
- Authors: Wells, Philippa , Ingley, Coral
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Corporate Behavior and Sustainability : Doing Well by Being Good Chapter 4 p. 67-82
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Companies can no longer expect to engage in dubious or unethical corporate behaviour without risking their reputation and damaging, perhaps irrevocably, their market position. Irresponsible corporate behavior not only deprives shareholders of long-term returns but also ultimately imposes a cost on society as a whole. Sustainable business is about ensuring that entities contribute toward positive social, environmental, and economic outcomes. Bad business behaviour is costly for stakeholders, for markets, for society, and the economy alike. To ensure that a company behaves well, the buy-in of the leadership team is crucial. The full commitment of the board of directors, in conjunction with the senior managers of the organization, is required if an organization is to be socially responsible. In this sense, leadership does not reside with an individual (the CEO) within the organization but with all of those at the apex of corporate power and control. Effective change management requires enlightened and capable leadership to instigate and drive the process of embedding a sustainable and socially responsible corporate philosophy and culture that supports good business decision-making. A profound understanding of the requirements of such a leadership process will help corporate managers become highly effective change agents. Governance will be the main driver of this change. For the economy and financial markets to become sustainable and resilient, radical changes in corporate leadership need to take place. Integrated reporting, government regulation, and international standards will all be important factors in bringing about this change. As well as understanding the effects of corporate behavior on financial markets, such an understanding is also now imperative in relation to the social and environmental contexts.
Independent directors : Experience and value in contrasting economic contexts
- Authors: Wells, Philippa , Moyeen, Abdul , Ingley, Coral
- Date: 2016
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Management, Leadership and Governance, ICMLG 2016 p. 383-390
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- Description: The OECD Principles of Corporate Governance embed an emphasis on independent directors as a mechanism for encouraging broad expertise, experience and diversity on boards. This principle has become de rigueur for large public companies in many developed economies, including Australia although tending to be reflected in listing requirements rather than in law, and leaving it to the companies to determine whether appointees meet the criteria of independence. Emerging economies have been less likely to adopt such requirements but it is now apparent that at least some are moving to do so. Research suggests that unlike developed countries, there is an insignificant relationship between independent directors and financial performance of large businesses in developing countries such as Bangladesh. This raises interesting questions: do the differences in performance reflect differences in understanding and expectations of the role, appointment and participation of such directors? This paper is an attempt to explore and answer these questions via a comparison between the Australian and Bangladeshi approaches. Findings in both locations are inconsistent and, it appears, requirements and guidelines for independent directors' appointment tend to be in reaction to specific issues and ideologies.
Corporate Sustainability/CSR and the Influence of the Independent Director : "100% Pure" New Zealand
- Authors: Wells, Philippa , Ingley, Coral , Mueller, Jens
- Date: 2014
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: Proceedings of the 10th European Conference on Management Leadership and Governance (Ecmlg 2014); Zagreb, Republic of Croatia; 13th-14th November 2014 p. 372-380
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- Description: Companies/corporates are facing pressure to expand their reporting beyond the financial to include environmental and social performance. Governments are generally reluctant to legislate for such expansion in reporting but many corporates have responded by seeking recognition for their progress in this regard by reporting on CSR/sustainability initiatives or otherwise publicising such activities. However, some corporates are slower to react. At the same time there has been a push for the election of independent directors to boards, sometimes as a majority of members. It is now pertinent to explore the matter of whether such directors are influencing corporates in their sustainability and CSR policies. Within a framework shaped by Institutional theory, and via an examination of the publicly available published reports and other documented information on the Top 50 companies on the New Zealand Exchange (the NZX), this paper explores this question. The initial findings from this examination suggest that the reporting and performance record for these New Zealand corporates is both disappointing and limited. The finding is all the more interesting in light of the country's global "100% pure" marketing mantra and the environmentally responsible image and reputation the country seeks to cultivate internationally.
Governance and leadership implications for academic professionals in the era of technological disruption
- Authors: Wells, Philippa , Ingley, Coral
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Journal article
- Relation: Journal of Management and Governance Vol. 23, no. 1 (2019), p. 21-32
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Whether employee unions have a role to play in Universities (and what that role might be) has always been troubling, with views ranging from philosophical antipathy to wholesale endorsement. In some jurisdictions, levels of membership and support also have varied in response to such external factors as statutory changes to governance structures of universities, voluntary unionism, changes to the direct role of unions in furthering the statutory responsibilities of employers such as in promotion of health and safety in the workplace, and such internal factors as casualisation, centralisation of power and decision making and policies of workforce flexibility via redundancy and other strategies. An emerging “threat” that is garnering increasing levels of concern is that of disruptive automation in the higher education sphere, not only in ancillary functions such as learning management systems, information processing and provision of student support services, but also going to the root of the academic function—the education experience. This development will have fundamental implications for higher education, as for other service industries, and poses essential challenges for employee unions in terms of their relevance, governance and leadership, particularly where that automation threatens job security and careers. This paper will explore those challenges by reference to analogous developments such as MOOCs, “cookie-cutter” courses and programs, casualisation and the growth in on-line, flexible and blended delivery modes. As a review and commentary, the exploration will focus on the Australian context but to ensure broader relevance, will be grounded in political economy, reflecting the tensions that emerge between the funders of universities, both public and private, who seek higher profits, control and power, and those who see universities as a fundamental social institution. Arguably, it is in the space created by such tensions that the future for unions is located. It is a matter of determining what that future looks like. This approach permits both contextualisation of the discussion and provides opportunities for international comparisons, thereby providing a basis for future research within the context of academic leadership.
GDPR: Governance implications for regimes outside the EU
- Authors: Ingley, Coral , Wells, Philippa
- Date: 2018
- Type: Text , Conference proceedings
- Relation: 14th European Conference on Management, Leadership and Governance, ECMLG 2018 p. 105-113
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- Description: It is estimated that as of 2017 around 120 nations around the globe had legislation to protect personal data with at least another 30 in train. Many of the early regimes (dating back to the 1980s and 90s) reflect the OECD Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data (1980, updated 2013). However, there are also increasing concerns that these guidelines may no longer be fit for purpose with recent issues regarding breaches of data security and privacy. The EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (2016) implements a reformed data privacy regime. Tellingly, some of the new and pending privacy regulations elsewhere reflect the GDPR, a characteristic that suggests much about the impact of international trade. Two questions arise: first, how is the GDPR likely to affect and influence governance of organisations, not only those domiciled in the EU, but also those trading with the Union or having a presence there? Second, compared to the GDPR, what gaps are there in other existing privacy regimes and what are the implications for the governance of those organisations and their risk management strategies? This paper compares the GDPR with privacy regimes in place in New Zealand and Australia (the first of which has GDPR “approved country status” for receipt of data) and attempts to answer the questions above, thus providing a focus for empirical research. As such, the paper provides insight into the impact of the data privacy and security legislative reform, on corporate governance, strategy and risk management beyond the EU in its reach to far distant regions. © The Authors, 2018. All Rights Reserved.
- Description: Proceedings of the 14th European Conference on Management, Leadership and Governance, ECMLG 2018
Unions in higher education - Leadership in the era of automation
- Authors: Wells, Philippa , Ingley, Coral
- Date: 2017
- Type: Text , Conference paper
- Relation: 13th European Conference on Management, Leadership and Governance (ECMLG 2017); London, United Kingdom; 11th-12th December 2017 p. 513-520
- Full Text: false
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- Description: Whether employee unions have a role to play in Universities (and what that role might be) has always been troubling, with views ranging from philosophical antipathy to wholesale endorsement. In some jurisdictions, levels of membership and support also have varied in response to such external factors as statutory changes to governance structures of universities, voluntary unionism, changes to the direct role of unions in furthering the statutory responsibilities of employers such as in promotion of health and safety in the workplace, and such internal factors as casualisation, centralisation of power and decision making and policies of workforce flexibility via redundancy and other strategies. An emerging “threat” that is garnering increasing levels of concern is that of automation in the higher education sphere, not only in ancillary functions such as learning management systems (LMS), information processing and provision of student support services, but also going to the root of the academic function – the education experience. This development will have fundamental implications for higher education, as for other service industries, and poses essential challenges for employee unions in terms of their relevance, governance and leadership, particularly where that automation threatens job security and careers. This paper will explore those challenges by reference to analogous developments such as MOOCs, “cookie-cutter” courses and programs, casualisation and the growth in on-line, flexible and blended delivery modes. As a review and commentary, the exploration will focus on the Australian context but to ensure broader relevance, will be grounded in political economy, reflecting the tensions that emerge between the funders of universities, both public and private, who seek higher profits, control and power, and those who see universities as a fundamental social institution. Arguably, it is in the space created by such tensions that the future for unions is located. It is a matter of determining what that future looks like. This approach permits both contextualisation of the discussion and provides opportunities for international comparisons, thereby providing a basis for future research within the context of academic leadership.
Independent directors : experience and value in contrasting economic contexts
- Authors: Philippa Wells , Moyeen, Abdul , Ingley, Coral
- Date: 2019
- Type: Text , Book chapter
- Relation: Research Handbook on Boards of Directors p.169-192
- Full Text: false
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