18 - Corporate Governance for Wealth Creation and Human Rights

Summary

Corporate governance, understood as the authoritative direction and control of the company, has to serve the purpose of the company, that is, to create wealth in the comprehensive sense and to respect human rights. First, the chapter presents a brief overview of different conceptions of corporate governance (Cadbury Report, King Reports I-IV, G20/OECD, Shleifer & Vishny, Monks & Minow, Hilb, Rossouw, U.S. Business Roundtable). Against this backdrop, the book’s new perspective of corporate governance is explained in line with the seven features of wealth creation and the three criteria of respecting human rights. In many situations – like in the Medtronic case – the advancement of one type of capital (for example, human capital) goes hand in hand with the advancement of another type of capital (for example, economic capital). However, the question arises how to deal with trade-offs between different types of capital. It is proposed to define minimal ethical requirements for each type of capital (for example, not to pollute the air) in line with “the balanced concept of the firm.” At this minimal level, no trade-offs are acceptable while, beyond this minimum, trade-offs are allowed. As for human rights, corporate governance requires proactive strategies to prevent trade-offs between human rights.