Corporate Governance

Introduction

Corporate governance is about the constraints, controls, principles and empowering of corporate actions. Corporate governance inhibits and enables actions, and does so in a variety of ways across different nation states. This course introduces the students to the importance of corporate governance in developing sustainable business enterprises: profitable, dependable and responsible, and thereby also to ways that consider corporations alike across nation states. Recent experiences in Norway and other countries have highlighted the effect that poor corporate governance can have on firm performance, survival and reputation. Today, not only investors, but also public authorities and high performance employees are examining a company's corporate governance and control systems before committing to that firm. This course examines the evolving view of corporate governance in a global perspective, and discusses how sustainability challenges, increasing geopolitical instability and different stakeholder interests affects corporate governance.

Course content

1. Introduction 

2. The current emergence of corporate governance 

3. What is a corporation?    

4. The ideal of Maximising shareholder value 

5. The purpose of the corporation

6. Corporate governance and corporate law: Norway compared to USA 

7. Field trip: A visit to Oslo Stock exchange 

8. Selection and removal of board members

9. CEO selection and compensation 

10. Corporate law and the composition of boards 

11. Strategy and innovation

12. Value management 

13. Blockholders, sharing value and the new global challenges

14. Summing up