Summary Write a Board Appraisal report where you will evaluate an organisations corporate governance principles, structure, and functions. You will investigate and analyse which legislation and corporate governance principles your selected organisation must comply with or voluntarily follows. Referencing is Australian Harvard (AGPS) and outlined in the AIB Style Guide. Learning outcomes Demonstrate advanced understanding of contemporary corporate governance theory, frameworks and practice. [LO#1] Critically evaluate and effectively communicate complex concepts to recommend improvements relating to corporate governance and organisational issues. [LO#2] Apply corporate governance laws, theory and techniques to professional practice in an ethical manner. [LO#3] Completing Learning Activities in Modules 1, 2, and 3 will help you develop your responses to the first assessment. Task Write a 2,000-word report to discuss, compare, explain and evaluate an organisation you select. You will evaluate the corporate governance principles, structure, and functions to understand the alignment of your selected organisation to the theory, concepts or philosophy. Additionally, you will investigate and analyse which legislation and corporate governance principles your selected organisation must comply with or voluntarily follows. You will compare your selected organisation with a peer organisation of your choice. Your comparison allows you to comprehensively discuss the two organisations boards conformance and performance approaches. In practice conformance deals with accountability and supervising executives activities and is past and present focused. While performance is about strategy formulation and policy making mostly future focused. Accountability and strategy formulation are outward-looking but supervising executives activities and policy making are inward-looking. Step 1 Select a company and one of its peers (preferably publicly listed companies from the same jurisdiction due to data availability and comparability) and retrieve relevant corporate governance information. As explained in Activity , you will find the corporate governance information disclosed in the companys most recent annual report (Australian companies), proxy statement (US companies), management proxy circular (Canadian companies), company website or other company statements. For example, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia provides governance information in its annual report: (CBA Annual Report). You can usually find these documents on the organisations or regulators website. Step 2 Based on the disclosed governance information and relevant governance principles, rules and theories, evaluate how your selected organisations board structure performs its conformance and performance functions, according to the following perspectives: Corporate governance principles: Discuss which theory or philosophy most characterises your selected organisation and why. Explain what legislation and principles or guidelines your selected organisation follows. Corporate governance structures: Evaluate the board structure of your selected organisation in comparison to a peer, including director appointments, attributes, competencies, and committees. Corporate governance conformance and performance functions: Compare the board functions of your selected organisation with that of a peer organisation. Discuss the conformance and performance aspects of your selected organisation in comparison to a peer. Board recommendations for your selected organisation: Provide constructive suggestions for improvement to the board of the chosen organisation (. not the peer). Requirements Discuss relevant corporate governance theories, legislation, and principles in relation to the selected organisation. Where possible, draw out and discuss implications (and limitations) for the board structure, and conformance and performance functions of the selected organisation and peer boards. Explicitly provide recommendations to the selected board from your report findings The required word length for this report is 2,000 words (plus 10% tolerance). You are required to use at least five (5) academic references for this report (in addition to any references for the disclosed corporate governance information such as annual reports). Your references should be from credible sources such as books, industry-related journals, magazines, or academic journal articles. Your grade will be adversely affected if your assignment contains no/poor citations and/or reference list and if your assignment word length is beyond the allowed tolerance level (see Assessment Policy available on AIB website). Resources Please use publicly available secondary data only. Prescribed textbook and learning materials and readings from Modules 13. Disclosed governance information source: annual reports (Australian companies), proxy statement (US organisations), management proxy circular (Canadian organisations), company website, or other company statements Corporate governance codes: ASX CGOV Recommendations & Principles, OECD principles, NYSE CGOV guide, ECGI principles, AICD non-for-profit governance principles, TSX Corporate Governance guidelines. Format The report format should follow AIB Style Guide (., cover page including your name and a student id, title and word count of the report, executive summary, table of contents, body, list of references, and appendix if needed). Please use the AIB Report Template to format your report, or use the AIB-preferred Microsoft Word settings. Use author-date style referencing (which includes in-text citations and a reference list). Grading criteria and feedback Your assessment will be marked according to the following grading criteria: Criterion 1: Theories 15% Understanding of relevant corporate governance concepts and theory or philosophies Criterion 2: Rules and principles 15% Understanding of key corporate governance codes and principles Criterion 3: Board structure evaluation 20% Critically evaluate the board structure of the selected organisation in comparison to its peer Criterion 4: Board function evaluation 30% Critically evaluate the board functions of the selected organisation in comparison to its peer Criterion 5: Recommendations 10% Explicitly align with main report findings Criterion 6: Referencing 5% In-text citations and referencing Criterion 7: Communication 5% Communication (includes executive summary), presentation, structure and language (includes table of contents and conclusions)Show more
