At the end of the day, good governance is more about people than it is about procedures. So professional bodies need to ensure that there are enough people with the professional knowledge and skills to ensure that commonsense governance, and not governance by mass regulation, prevails.

Phillip Baldwin / President
Corporate Secretaries International Association
Dec 2009 — 20 March 2010

Corporate governance is concerned with the way that power is exercised over corporate entities. All corporate entities need governing — listed companies, wholly-owned subsidiaries, subsidiaries with minority interests, family-dominated companies, joint ventures, not-for-profit entities, and the rest.

   The need for leaders who know how to make a difference in the world has never been greater than it is today,
wrote Dean Jay Light of the Harvard Business School. The need extends beyond business to the social, government, and non-profit sectors as well.

A crucial element of corporate governance is the responsibility of the governing body to be accountable. Directors need to appreciate the strategic risks to which their company is exposed, and recognize the potential effect and the likelihood of them occurring. Boards need to accept that the governance of risk is a board responsibility. Board-level policies for enterprise risk management are needed, with appropriate systems in place.

A CSR policy is, basically, a summary of the firm’s attitudes to the impact it has on its stakeholders, the communities and the environment in which it operates. Obviously, every company is different and must develop its own CSR policy and programmes in the context of its own corporate governance methods, including its corporate strategies and policies, and its management supervision and accountability systems.