CPA Ethics & Governance Module 5 - Case Study Seamus O'Brien

At a recent international meeting of business leaders, Seamus O'Brien said that multi-jurisdiction attempts to regulate corporate governance were futile because of differences in national culture. He drew particular attention to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and International Corporate Governance Network (ICGN) codes, saying that they were, 'silly attempts to harmonise practice'. He said that in some countries for example, there were 'family reasons' for making the chairman and chief executive the same person. In other countries, he said, the separation of these roles seemed to work. Another delegate, Alliya Yongvanich said that the roles of chief executive and chairman should always be separated because of what she called 'accountability to shareholders'.

One delegate, Vincent Viola, said that the right approach was to allow each country to set up its own corporate governance provisions. He said that it was suitable for some countries to produce and abide by their own 'very structured' corporate governance provisions, but in some other parts of the world, the local culture was to allow what he called, 'local interpretation of the rules'. He said that some cultures valued highly structured governance systems while others do not care as much.

Required

1. (a)Explaintherolesofthechairmanincorporategovernance.
2. (b)AssessthebenefitsoftheseparationoftherolesofchiefexecutiveandchairmanthatAlliya Yongvanich argued for and explain her belief that 'accountability to shareholders' is increased by the separation of these roles.
3. (c)Critically evaluate Vincent Viola's view that corporate governance provisions should vary by country.

Note: Book : Psaros, J., Australian Corporate Governance: A review and analysis of key issues, 2009 or onwards. Pearson Education Australia.

(ISBN/ISSN:

9781442500259)

Subject:

ACCT5029 CPA Ethics and Governance