The International Handbook of Corporate Governance

Corporate governance is a relatively new topic, but one which has gained public prominence, interest and importance as a result of several well publicised corporate disasters, such as Maxwell Communications, Coloroll and Polly Peck. In the UK alone there have been three reports published since 1992 which consider aspects of corporate governance ‐ the Cadbury Report (1992), the Greenbury Report (1995) and more recently the Hampel Report (1997). Despite this, there is still no accepted definition of the term, although it is generally accepted that corporate governance covers the way a company’s board of directors should behave towards their shareholders,...