Corporate Governance Essay

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Corporate governance is the set of guidelines that determines the control and organization of a particular company. The company’s board of directors is in charge of approving and reviewing changes to this set of formally established guidelines. Companies have to keep in mind the interests of multiple stakeholders, parties who have an interest in the company. Some of these stakeholders include customers, shareholders, management, and suppliers. Corporate governance’s focus is concentrated on the rights and obligations of three stakeholder groups in particular: the board of directors, management, and shareholders. Corporate governance determines how power is split between these three stakeholders. A company’s board of directors is the main stakeholder that influences the corporate governance of a company (Corporate Governance). …show more content…

Normally, corporate governance is considered either “good” or “bad.” For example, “bad” corporate governance can be to blame for the Enron scandal and the financial chaos that ensued. Enron’s board of directors did not have the best interests of its shareholders in mind. The board of directors decided not to enforce conflict of interest rules when they allowed the CFO to create private partnerships and do business with the company. These partnerships were used to cover up fraud, and Enron eventually collapsed. This scandal brought new attention to the importance of corporate governance and the implications that can occur, such as a massive corporate collapse like Enron, when corporate governance systems are weak (Corporate Governance Failure: The Case of Enron and Parmalat). I think learning about corporate governance is interesting and important because weak corporate governance can cause large-scale financial

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