Good International Corporate Governance

IOD in London consulting on good corporate governance

It was announced recently that the Institute of Directors is to train Russian and Chinese businesses in good corporate governance. London is considered the centre of the trading world in financial terms and investors can invest in emerging and growing economies as well as the traditional markets.

China is establishing its corporate governance structures by following the Anglo-American model. However, the country does not yet have the necessary formal and informal institutions, or the financial infrastructure to make these structures work effectively. A culture of secrecy and sheer exploitation, that has existed for many years, has to turn into the openness and disclosure of everything to all comers who wish to invest, that is largely the trademark of US and the UK. It took the UK a few hundred years from the adventurers like Sir Walter Raleigh to John Castaing in 1698 in his Coffee House to 1801, when the first regulated exchange came into existence. The US managed it relatively quickly, simply because they had to, if they did not want their baby economy disintegrating into mush, as it did - almost-in the 1920's Depression.

With globalisation comes a whole new set of issues and problems apart from finding multilingual employees to fill all the new language jobs that will arise. We cannot change cultures and ways of working overnight- the Chinese civilisation is far older than ours. However many of these emerging markets want to 'join in' and benefit from the wealth of the global economy, so undoubtedly they will have some sort of baptism of fire and will quickly adopt many of the standards and ethics of those institutions like the London Stock Exchange and Wall Street. They have worked pretty well over the years and can limit any damage that can potentially arise with new markets.

Rather than employ a big stick to get everyone in line, a carrot in the form of education and persuasion will work better - hence the involvement of the IOD in the process. The IOD is an old and revered institution, a non party political organisation and no doubt will be able to provide an smooth passage to worldwide trading.