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@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.
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).
@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)
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.
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….
@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! 😀
(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.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
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???
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 ?
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. 🙂
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
@cherrony – I don’t think for T17 you need to compare EPS and profitability (this is more a T8 thing). The comparisons for T17 should be directly related to CG. Commentary on EPS for T17 should be part of the stakeholder analysis so it is not particularly relevant to make financial comparisons
Hi Trephena ,
Please help me on :
what is governance?
Does it Differ from ‘Corporate governance’ or are they same or is it like a branch of governance ?
@ome480 – This will depend on the context. Corporate Governance is technically used for incorporated bodies – usually those that are companies. Governance itself refers to how an organisation is directed and controlled (see Cadbury, 1992). However the definition of CG has been extended to include all organisations that have a separate legal personality so could include a registered charity, public authority or in fact potentially a professional body such as ACCA.
I suggest you take a look at the following website which is one of our recommended resources for this topic (don’t forget you will need to reference this site in your RAP if you cite any of their information)
https://www.applied-corporate-governance.com/definition-of-corporate-governance.html
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