Corporate governance principles provide guidance on how corporations should operate. Adoption of international corporate governance best practices leads to long-term sustainability and resilience, and can be a competitive tool to attract foreign investments. The Asian Development Bank, in partnership with the ASEAN Capital Markets Forum, have jointly developed the ASEAN Corporate Governance Scorecard, an assessment based on publicly available information and benchmarked against international best practices that encourage publicly listed companies to go beyond national legislative requirements. This report can be used by capital market regulators and other stakeholders as a reference to understand the current corporate governance standards across the region. It is also a useful diagnostic tool to guide improvement of corporate governance standards.
This book examines issues and implications of digital and social media marketing for emerging markets. These markets necessitate substantial adaptations of developed theories and approaches employed in the Western world. The book investigates problems specific to emerging markets, while identifying new theoretical constructs and practical applications of digital marketing. It addresses topics such as electronic word of mouth (eWOM), demographic differences in digital marketing, mobile marketing, search engine advertising, among others. A radical increase in both temporal and geographical reach is empowering consumers to exert influence on brands, products, and services. Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and digital media are having a significant impact on the way people communicate and fulfil their socio-economic, emotional and material needs. These technologies are also being harnessed by businesses for various purposes including distribution and selling of goods, retailing of consumer services, customer relationship management, and influencing consumer behaviour by employing digital marketing practices. This book considers this, as it examines the practice and research related to digital and social media marketing.
From 1997 to 2001, more than 4,000 privatization operations have been carried out in more than 100 countries, bringing in government revenues of over 1,362 billion dollars. The phenomenon, which grew exponentially at the end of the 1990s and then abruptly slowed down, had dramatic consequences on the performance of state-owned enterprises and a significant impact on industrialized countries, as well as emerging and less developed economies. Yet there have been surprisingly fewattempts to provide a systematic empirical account of the privatization process at the worldwide level.Why do governments privatize? Why do some countries accomplish large-scale privatization programmes, and others never privatize at all? Is privatization a trend or a cycle? Furthermore, how do governments privatize? Do governments really transfer ownership and control of state-owned enterprises or does private ownership tend to coexist with public control?This book provides some answers to these important questions trying to test research hypotheses set forth by the recent economic theory of privatization.Comprehensive cross-country empirical analyses carried out over a period of more than twenty years are used in the book to show that privatization has taken place all over the world, sometimes spontaneously, more often under the pressure of economic and budgetary constraints. Several of the goals of the privatization have been met, but despite proclamations and programmes, only a small minority of countries has carried out a genuine privatization process, completely transferring ownership ofstate-owned enterprises to the private sector. A lack of political will is to some extent at the root of this reluctance. However this reluctance can be traced back partly to structural factors that would make an orderly privatization difficult, such as the absence of developed capital markets,appropriate regulation, and suitable institutions.
The past two decades has witnessed unprecedented changes in the corporate governance landscape in Europe, the US and Asia. Across many countries, activist investors have pursued engagements with management of target companies. More recently, the role of the hostile activist shareholder has been taken up by a set of hedge funds. Hedge fund activism is characterized by mergers and corporate restructuring, replacement of management and board members, proxy voting, and lobbying of management. These investors target and research companies, take large positions in their stock, criticize their business plans and governance practices, and confront their managers, demanding action enhancing shareholder value. This book analyses the impact of activists on the companies that they invest, the effects on shareholders and on activists funds themselves. Chapters examine such topic as investors' strategic approaches, the financial returns they produce, and the regulatory frameworks within which they operate. The chapters also provide historical context, both of activist investment and institutional shareholder passivity. The volume facilitates a comparison between the US and the EU, juxtaposing not only regulatory patterns but investment styles.
Fidelity, Hallmark, Michelin, and Wal-Mart are renowned industry powerhouses with long leadership track records. Yet these celebrated companies are united by another factor not generally equated with competitive success: They are all family-controlled businesses. While many view the hallmarks of family businesses—stable strategies, clan cultures, and unencumbered family ownership—as weaknesses, Danny Miller and Isabelle Le Breton-Miller argue that it is these very characteristics that create formidable competitive advantages for many such firms. Managing for the Long Run draws from a worldwide study of enduring, family-run organizations—including Cargill, Timken, L.L. Bean, The New York Times, and IKEA—to reveal their unconventional success strategies and how these strategies can be adopted and applied in any organization. Miller and Le Breton-Miller show how four driving passions of family-run firms—command, continuity, community, and connection—give rise to a set of practices that defy modern management thinking yet ensure a company’s long term competitive advantage. Outlining how these practices can enhance strategic efforts from operations to brand leadership to innovation, this book shows what every company must do to manage for the long run.