OLD (Pre-Period 35) Topic 17 Corporate Governance - RESUBMISSIONS ONLY

@eminathsana - No problem using CG and RAP as abbreviations. However do not go overboard on using too many non-conventional abbreviations: CEO and EPS are fine but I have come across students who use non-conventional (i.e. those not widely used) or ambiguous abbreviations (e.g. IA can mean Internal audit or Intangible Assets). It can drive the markers mad and in extreme circumstances I have known the work being failed on Communication (even if there has been a list of abbreviations included as an appendix) on the grounds that abbreviations had been used to try to circumvent the word count and that the marker had to keep breaking off to refer to the list and then re-read bits to try to make sense of what had been written. So if in doubt about using any abbreviation then my advice is don't do it!

@trephena I wish I could contribute to this T17 platform but arrgg I don't have the confidence till the results come in March Alfred

Hi I am have submitted RAP in the past but failed topic 17. I want to resubmit in May. I choose shell Plc I am considering changing this what do you think. Is it too late to start writing now?

@dorcas- you need to examine the reasons why you failed previously. Usually for T17 it is because the student has overly relied on company sources of information so the report is not balanced as it just restates the company's own CG statement or does not question or critique the information. So be successful you need to show a range of sources and take a broader appraisal of the situation not just blindly accept what the company tells you but seek out articles from the business press that either support or contradict the company stance and make also make comparisons with similar companies. There is certainly time to re-submit in May. I suggest you read through this whole 17 forum to get ideas of the right approach and also read my article on our homepage about how to do a resubmission statement - which helps you focus on how to do a successful resubmission. See www.opentuition.com/obu for the obu homepage

Thank so much that is helpful. I will that.

Hi, i would like to submit my RAP in MAY,2015.I have chosen topic 17 and chosen United Nations World Food Programme as my organization of study.Do you think i have made a good choice?

@nomsa80 "a good choice?" - Well yes and no! You cannot just describe the CG in the organisation you have to evaluate it objectively. I normally suggest that this is done by comparing it with an appropriate code. Now if the UN lays down a code then you can use this. If not then you may need to look to see if there is any other appropriate code that is applicable to the voluntary/charity sector or whether you can benchmark the organisation against another high profile charity. On the plus side I imagine that there are plenty of instances of corruption that either surface or have to be prevented against, so this introduces another dimension you can explore. It may be appropriate to conduct a survey BUT it has to be done properly (see p.36 of the Information Pack as this deals with Primary Data collection) . However you should NOT rely entirely on a questionnaire to assess an organisation's CG - the data is normally either too subjective or biased or both. So many RAPs (not just on T17 but other topics) that include questionnaires as their main research and info gathering tool fail (I would estimate about 80%). The message that comes back from the markers time and time again is either do a survey and questionnaire properly or don't do it at all (and that means thinking very carefully about wording the questions clearly, targeting the right people and asking questions that look at obtaining facts not just subjective perceptions) I suggest that you read the whole of Section 7 of the Information Pack and Appendix 1 The Assessment Criteria too and look through the T17 forum as I have tried to give a lot of help and advice before you go ahead so that you get a feel of what is required in terms of research. The main thing you have to do as I said up front is objectively evaluate the quality of the organisation's CG. Whether its CG is good or bad doesn't matter as long as you show that you are not blindly accepting everything the management in the organisation are telling you but are looking at a variety of sources to get a rounded opinion and questioning and critically examining it with supporting evidence (this is what the assessment criteria mean by 'critical thought'). At then end of the day I cannot tell you whether a particular organisation is a good subject for T17 or not, you have to judge that for yourself once you have understood the requirements and assessed what your information sources will be.

@dorcas there are some exemplars of RAPs on the OBU site (see the Information Pack for the link) whether any are specific to T17 I have no idea but they usually only show sections not the whole RAP. However we do not condone the sharing of student work so please do not ask another student to supply their work. This is in the interests of all parties as their are penalties for copying (even inadvertently) I understand that there is going to be an article in Student Accountant on T17 written by one of the OBU moderators specifically designed to help students adopt the correct approach to pass this topic. I have no idea if this is going to be before P30 but I will let you know more if I hear any further news from OBU on this and we will provide a link to it on our forum. (or if someone spots this first in Student Accountant please let us know :-D ).

@Trephena I appreciate that thanks, I do not mean student project I was referring to the one written for guidance by OBU as I was going through topic 8 forum and it was said that there are information just written for some topics.

@Trephena while bench-marking with a rival company , how to compare the committee roles ? do I have to compare the terms and references of both companies ? but the thing is , when I went through the terms and references, for example on nomination committee I end up seeing the same thing from the rival companies , so how to differentiate the roles, to make a comparison ?

@eminathsana - You are expected to do some form of evaluation and if both companies are doing the same then that's fine. You just mention that they both have 5 NEDs or whatever on the Nomination Committee (however if it was for example 5 non-independent/executive directors then you would criticise them both for not having sufficient NEDs). By the way I have mentioned previously T17 is not like Topic 8 where you have to have the same comparator company all of the way through. This is because the overall aim of T17 is to assess the QUALITY of Corporate Governance, so you need to pick up on anything that they are doing exceptionally well that will contribute towards this and/or anything that will compromise this and if you do find a rival company doing something better then bring it into your report. Remember too it is not so much what any company policy may say but what is actually put into practice. (Tesco produced what seemed like a reasonable CG statement in 2014 but months later it was evident that in practice their CG had been deplorable. This admittedly was not obvious to anyone who read it prior to their scandal but indicates that 'lip-service' goes on). For example if there is a poor attendance record among NEDs for meetings then it may indicate that there is no real balance in board decisions as the executive directors dominate in practice. Another way you can do comparisons about quality is to see if you can find CG information for your company from say 5 years ago and look to see what has changed (hopefully for the better).

Alright , thank you so much :D

hi, I want to know if we are allowed to access to OBU Library.

@dorcas - unfortunately as the OBU RAP is not a campus based course, OBU do not offer access to the elibrary and ejournals currently. I suggest that you search using Google Scholar and look on the right of the listings to see if pdf versions of documents are available as sometimes some academic papers and research articles are made available by the original researcher / author(s)

I found this and think it may be a useful resource for anyone doing T17 so I suggest that if you are considering doing this topic that you take a look. (In particular there is a separate section that is called 'Governance in Africa' with some links to other sources that may be relevant to African students who chose a domestic organision for T17) https://www.applied-corporate-governance.com/

Hi Everyone, Currently doing T17 on Tesco Plc. In part 2 what accounting/business models can be used to analyse impact on stakeholders other than mendelow?? Also the recent accounting scandal is an attention seeker. Kindly advise.Thanks.

@ome480 I rather like the more recent 'holistic model' (Kendall & Kendall) which sees different tiers of influence (stakeholders are second tier and the wider business environment is a third tier). They suggest that really good governance is "about achieving the stakeholders’ goal, and delivering success in an ethical way" and ensuring "congruence between the expectations of the various interested parties". See https://www.applied-corporate-governance.com/best-corporate-governance-practice.html Is your final sentence a statement or question? An attention seeker by whom? and the point you are making is? My only comment here is I don't think that all the malpractices used by Tesco are unique to them as I have already stated on this forum - there are serious issues with many large companies' relationship with their suppliers (I have mentioned Premier Foods and potentially also M & S and Laura Ashley). However regarding Tesco there is alleged serious financial statement fraud too (again not uncommon). In the last decade there has been a constant stream of scandals: Enron, WorldCom, Global Crossing, Parmalat, Olympus Cameras to name just those that instantly spring to mind involving financial statement fraud (see Journal of Forensic & Investigative Accounting Vol. 3, Issue 2, Special Issue, 2011 for full details of most of these and others). These scandals have been punctuated by various type of banking frauds from those that initiated the financial crash in 2008 (Lehman Brothers) to the fixing of both LIBOR and foreign exchange rates and the role various banks have played in assisting money laundering and tax evasion (Wachovia Bank, UBS and HSBC). All of these are indicative that good Corporate Governance still has a long way to go...

As many regular readers of this T17 forum will know, I am not a great advocate of doing primary data for this topic (mainly on the basis that questionnaires and surveys are rarely well done). However I have am pleased to share with you the following link that gives a good insight into how a stakeholder questionnaire should be conducted. https://www.applied-corporate-governance.com/stakeholder-survey.html Whilst I would still say that you should not rely predominantly on primary data, if you are careful and adhere to the principles and advice set out in this link and in the article on p.36 of the Information Pack then it is reasonable and acceptable to use some primary data collection to supplement your information gathering and analysis. However remember that primary data collection is not necessary to meet the assessment criteria if you do everything else adequately.

Thank you trephena for the reply. Last sentence is a question . - Why big companies are mostly in the headlines for the wrong reasons ?? -They invest so much money in the organisations systems to prevent such incidents from happening, but still scandals occur?? -They have a pool of skilled,diversified and talented management in the organization.Why can't they detect and prevent it ?? ( Are they genuinely unaware of their surrounding or ethier they ignore it ??) When you see Tesco plc Annual report its has everything covered.One would ask after looking it what could go wrong.

@ome460 - Top management are usually in on it! Financial Statement Fraud (and that is what Tesco and the cases above are) emanates from pressure to succeed (or more correctly, pressure to be seen to succeed). Shareholder - especially institutional shareholders - and market expectations mean companies having to constantly report increasing profits and higher dividends to keep the share price high. Such pressure is one of the elements in the classic Fraud Triangle (Cressey, 1953), the other two facets being Opportunity (the people at the top are in the ideal position to massage figures) and Rationalisation - the share price stays high and 'everyone is a winner (including the top management who get bigger bonuses). If you study white collar crime these three elements Pressure, Opportunity and Rationalisation are usually present and will be found in all the major cases I mention above and in many individual fraud cases in the workplace. The only chance of detection is either via the auditors or whistleblowers. The problem with auditors is they have a vested interest in bringing in high audit fees and don't want to upset clients by asking too many awkward questions. And whistleblowers usually come out worse off as they are invariably fired and then find they cannot get a job elsewhere on account of their whistleblowering in spite of supposed whistleblower protection legislation....

@Trephena, Thank you, my heatfelt sincere thanks. I am so happy and really grateful for the support on this platform. I passsssssseeeeeeed with a B. Guys submitting I keep my promise to OT, am here for you. Trephena, thank you once again, OT thank you so much @alfred

@alfred - Great news! What is really good about your story is that anyone who reads all the posts on here will learn that they can do it too! In fact there are lots of lessons from it (not just how to pass T17) but how to not give up. Then there is perseverance, hard work and determination. So well done! :-D (Don't gloat too much over the research guy though who tore your work apart :-) - just say that he would probably have been right for work for a higher degree but the criteria for this were different as it is project work) Yes you will be able to help many students now - if you have completed your ACCA you could even do the online mentoring course and particularly help Ugandan students on the ground there. PS In fact I think your set back with T13 was probably a blessing in disguise as you nay not have been celebrating today if you had done T13 as the correct approach to it is harder to advise via a forum. I also hope that other African students may realise that T17 is a better option (provided the work is put in) to T6 - so over to you to convince them!

Congratulations Alfred....I missed the due date for last submission but am submitting this time. And a question to you Alfred....How many CG reports did you put in your RAP??? Do i have to put all of them??? And Alfred can i please send you my project so that you can read it.

@Trephena Am so excited upto now. Actually I finished my ACCA and was in top ten in Uganda as well in top 100 globally I will definately be interested in doing the online thing and helping out many other students not only Ugandans Alfred

@Keith I don't know whether OT allows the review thing or if OBU would be comfortable with it as from my learning days with Trephena she stressed and actually also refused to review mine However if I got you properly I submitted only one CG report Alfred

Yah OT does not allow,I meant you as Alfred. You may start your mentoring with me. Is it ok Trephena???

@Trephena Is it allowed to use more than 1 competitor in topic 17? , I mean for instance while comparing with Sub-board committees I used 1 competitor and for Financial analysis like calculating earning per share I have used different competitor . and also in some cases I have said , my chosen company is not so good at one area of the code , in that case do I have to see whether other 2 rival companies are doing the same or is it fine to see only one company ?

@alfred and @keith5 There is no problem with a student who has passed their RAP helping and reviewing work but we do not recommend that students who have passed actually show their work to anyone they do not personally know well and trust. My position is that as forum moderator if I agreed to review one student's work, all students would want me to do this for theirs too!!!! The objective of the Forums is that all students may benefit equally: when we started this T17 forum it looks just like a dialogue between just alfred and me but in fact many students used the advice to help them. (For this reason too I ask that students post queries here rather than trying to get me to answer via a personal email)

@eminathsana Yes T17 is different from T8 in this respect. You are assessing the quality (or lack of quality) in an organisation's CG so comparisons with various companies is fine - most however should be operating in a similar sector. It would be probably irrelevant to compare the CG at a bank with a petroleum company for example as their operating environments are too dissimilar. As I have indicated in my posts above it is perfectly valid to use more than one Code and refer to law from different jurisdictions if there is evidence that rules in another country are more stringent in assuring good CG. I suggest you read my earlier posts above to alfred as I covered a lot of ground in those and as he got a B if you use those as a guide you should be on the right track. :-)

@trephena hi..the forum has been of great help. may i please have your help. can i compare my research target company with a comparator that uses a different currency? just realised my company uses US $ and my comparator uses Rands, so im stuck..wanted to compare their revenue,profitability, EPS for the last part of how shareholders are affected..wat do i do now?sigh