Examples of International Corporate Governance

Abstract

This chapter examines models of corporate governance around the world because many are quite different from the American approach. We may either learn from the other models or we may decide that they need to change. However, any scheme will have its positive and negative aspects; moreover, the approaches may match particular environments so that it is difficult to judge what is really good and bad when considered without contexts that have likely reciprocally shaped the models. However, the recent financial crisis originated in the American context and this suggests that something needs to change; the American model was damaging in its own context. Comparisons with other nations’ approaches may be instructive; however, we may require a complete overhaul unlike any system in existence. The sustainable model in the previous chapter is a new approach and some nations’ models, although they do not duplicate it exactly, include some characteristics of it; thus, we can see in practice how these aspects may work without beginning from a blank slate. It is also encouraging when there is evidence that an early proposal may have some promise—promise to build on and implement experimentally at first and then on a larger scale.