Program Overview

MGT351 Ethics of Corporate Governance

This subject examines how public corporations are directed and controlled. It evaluates how differing theories of the corporation impact on corporate governance design. The course combines this conceptual approach with empirical analysis of the role played by internal and external gatekeepers in ensuring that rules and principles of corporate governance are adopted. The contemporary debates over how that process should be managed are examined and critiqued.

Subject Information

Grading System

• HD/FL

Duration

• One session

School

• School of Accounting and Finance

Assumed Knowledge

• MGT100

Incompatible Subjects

• MGT547

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this subject, students should:

• be able to detail and critically discuss the fundamental doctrines, principles and features of corporate governance design;
• be able to detail and critically discuss how internal systems of control are developed and enforced;
• be able to demonstrate critical knowledge and understanding of a wide range of legal and organisational concepts, values, principles and to explain the relationship between them in the field of financial governance;
• be able to critically discuss the wider socio-legal context in which corporations and the markets in which they operate are governed.

Syllabus

This subject will cover the following topics:

• Introduction: the corporation and society;
• The history of the corporation;
• The rise of the contractual account of corporate governance;
• The communitarian response: a stakeholder alternative;
• The creation of corporate governance systems;
• Mandatory vs enabling systems of oversight;
• Controlling the corporation: directorial duties and responsibilities;
• Controlling the corporation: external oversight from auditors, lawyers and institutional investors;
• The Australian corporate governance system;
• Towards a new paradigm: the emerging law of corporate governance