International Corporate Governance

R. I. Tricker, Prentice Hall, Singapore (1994)

‘Quite suddenly the intellectual terrain has changed, corporate governance has now seized the imagination of academics, politicians and the media – it has indeed become a subject of public fascination. In response business leaders who were about as inclined to discuss boardroom behaviour as the more intimate secrets of their private lives, have begun to open up, and in some instances consult widely on the appropriateness of their board composition, structure, operation and strategy.  If much of the current interest in and discussion of corporate governance has not greatly contributed to our understanding of the way companies are directed at least there is a widespread recognition there are problems there to be studied.

In approaching the problems Tricker’s masterly volume International Corporate Governance (1994) offers a definitive mapping of the field.  The concise but authoritative chapters on substantive themes include board structures, activities, performance and accountability, exploration of the distinctive attributes of public companies, complex groups, family firms, and non-profit organizations, and concluding chapters on improving board effectiveness and the board and the company of the future.  These essays are supported by a selection of 23 readings and a wide ranging series of 43 cases. It is the coverage of the cases that the determinedly international focus of the volume is at its most illuminating… The enduing impression created by the book is of the immense cultural richness of contemporary corporate forms regardless of any pressures towards internationalization.’

From a review by Professor Thomas Clarke, Corporate Governance – an international review, Volume 2 Number, 4 October 1994