Suchergebnisse

SARTORI'S COMMENT THAT UNDERCOMPREHENSION APPLIES to the engineering of history provides a starting point for these reflections since those words suggest three familiar ideas — purpose, thought and action — as do also other expressions he uses: 'our cognitive control of ourselves', 'the shaping of societies and polities', and a 'policy enactment which amounted to little else than allowing markets to blossom'. Purpose, thought and action can be seen as aspects of management, at least in the context of this discussion and provided it is clear that decisions not to act can often be a form of management; so can we justify equating undercomprehension with unmanageability.Purposes with varying degrees of compatibility are pursued and both cooperation and conflict characterize the pursuit; instruments are required for planning, for conflict resolution and for damage limitation.

THE TERM CORPORATE GOVERNANCE HAS COME INTO USE TO describe both the purposes and the methods which determine the structure and the control of companies. A wide range of legal, regulatory and less formalized arrangements is thus embraced. In the UK in recent years discussion has related to a number of interrelated issues: the structure and functioning of boards of directors, reporting to shareholders and the ways in which shareholders use their power. These issues have a bearing upon business performance, though the debate about ways to improve the quality of management embraces also the cultural factors, the educational system and training arrangements; and performance depends too upon factors wholly or largely beyond the influence of managers, such as the tensions from class-division, over-powerful unions and the uncertainties which flow from discontinuities in public policy which are especially evident in the British political system. But in the general debate the corporate governance issues have perhaps had less attention than they deserve; the discussion has been confined to a limited circle. It is proposed here to concentrate on non-executive directors.