13 May, 2021

Leaders confident of Covid comeback but doubt their abilities in digital

Optimism may be growing that there is a future for business beyond the pandemic, but confidence among C-suite members also appears to have wilted over the past year. Recent research appears to show th...

12 May, 2021

Ethics chief Patricia Harned: ‘Retaliation has a silencing effect on culture’

Retaliation at work against whistleblowers is “off the charts,” during the pandemic, according to the leader of the biggest business ethics body in the US. Patricia Harned, chief executive of t...

29 April, 2021

FTSE 100 rejects idea of employee director to boost worker engagement

Not so long ago the idea of workers on boards was a hot topic; former prime minister Theresa May even made it part of her forlorn efforts to make society more equitable. It seems big companies don’t...

27 April, 2021

Change in audit committee chairs ‘sees audit fees rise and quality fall’

With audit and auditors under intense scrutiny in numerous places it was only a matter of time before audit committee chairs saw their share of attention. And so they have. When Svenja Hillebrandt ...

26 April, 2021

Companies with female directors ‘do better on E&S measures’

Companies perform better on environmental and social (E&S) measures after their boards appoint female directors. So says new research from the Université Paris-Dauphiné. After looking at Fren...

20 April, 2021

Rise of the machines requires a ‘stakeholder approach’ from boards

Companies are in need of a new approach to coping with the risks presented by machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence, according to academics, which should include sharing the governance rol...

8 April, 2021

Climate reporting requires ‘shift in approach’ to reflect TCFD principles

Just 49 companies are undertaking the most detailed kind of climate reporting according to principles laid out by the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). While that may not ...

25 March, 2021

UK stewardship code ‘has not changed the nature of investor engagement’

Traditional forms of company-specific engagement will not happen unless institutional investors face “mandatory legal or regulatory” demands, according to a new paper on the UK stewardship code fr...

23 March, 2021

Do we overestimate the impact of CEOs on company performance?

Do CEOs really affect company performance? Many would argue that they don’t, and that companies would get along just fine without the intervention of a high-flying, exhorbitantly paid chief executiv...

10 March, 2021

Ethics survey reveals global pandemic of misconduct

The strain of managing the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has rebounded into company ethics, with employees across the world reporting a deterioration in the behaviour of colleagues around them. I...