Corporate Board articles from January 2000

Corporate Board archives from January 2000

Governance: The Silence Of The Funds.
January 1, 2000... With their massive, broad stock holdings and spectacular growth, the mutual fund industry would seem like a natural to be at the forefront of corporate governance reform. Yet John Bogle, founder of The Vanguard Group, sees his industry as...

Boards And The CEO Search Firm.
January 1, 2000... With today's faster CEO turnover and the higher stakes demanded for success, boards must cast a wider net for top executive talent. More boards are enlisting executive search firms in their hunt for the perfect CEO. However, unless you...

The Effective Board Meeting.
January 1, 2000... The meeting of a board of directors is unique in the corporate business structure. The combination of heavy legal duties, powerful members, and vague administrative standards too often leave the board meeting agenda-driven and unproductive....

The Shifting Mergers & Acquisitions Landscape.
January 1, 2000... The merger and acquisition market has evolved with terrific speed over the past two decades, with the tide of major dealmaking turning almost yearly. The strategic goals of M&A have evolved too. Acquisitions of knowledge-based and specialized...

Do You Need A Dissident Director?
January 1, 2000... The "dissident" director is proving an important tool for shareholder activists and takeover-minded investors who seek to shake up a company's governance. However, the dissident role calls for a special sort of board candidate, someone at least...

FASB proposes to eliminate pooling of interests for business combinations.
January 1, 2000... The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) issued a proposal for public comment that would, among other things, eliminate the pooling of interests method of accounting for business combinations. As part of its public consideration of the...

Putting the new audit committee proposals to work.
January 1, 2000... Several months after the Blue Ribbon Committee on audit committee effectiveness released its findings, the regulatory and standard-setting bodies charged with implementing the suggested practices (the AICPA, NASD, NYSE and SEC) are issuing...

Buck survey finds pay raises will remain stable in 2000.
January 1, 2000... An annual survey by Buck Consultants shows that year 2000 merit increases for exempt (salaried) employees will average 4.1 percent for the fourth consecutive year. Increases for nonexempt salaried and nonexempt hourly workers will average 4 and...

Many companies fail to capitalize on employee reward program potential.
January 1, 2000... Despite recruiting and retention challenges of a tight labor market, many companies' rewards strategies are not aligned with these and other key business goals, according to a Towers Perrin survey, Engaging Employees for Enhanced Performance....

CalPERS settles its lawsuit with Grace over governance issues.
January 1, 2000... The California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) in October gained a major settlement in its litigation against the former officers and directors of W.R. Grace & Co. The settlement recovered nearly $4 million of a severance...

Consider ESP programs to build top employee buy-in.
January 1, 2000... With negative publicity swirling around stock option plans, many CEOs and boards of directors are seeking alternative methods to align management with shareholders. Employee Stock Purchase (ESP) programs can do just that, without diluting...

Leadership development seen as vital to "world's most admired companies.".
January 1, 2000... The world's most admired companies credit their leadership profile and their processes for identifying and developing those leaders as critical factors in their business success. In conjunction with the 1999 listing of the "World's Most...

Ten years ago in The Corporate Board.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Ten years ago, I was concerned that the government was intruding on shareholder values and management initiatives through price controls, mandated non-productive expenditures, and government regulation. Now, in the present laissez faire...

Five years ago in The Corporate Board.
January 1, 2000... When you ask children what they want to be when they grow up, they do not say, "I want a boring job where the only thing I look forward to is Friday." Enlightened managers can communicate a different message about work. They can help people...

Lasting Change.(Brief Article)(Review)
January 1, 2000... Lasting Change. By Rob Lebow and William L. Simon. Wiley. $17.95. Setting a vision for your company is less an act of creation than of discovery, say the authors. All institutions have underlying values, and it is up to leaders to excavate...

Robert Wood Johnson: The Gentleman Rebel.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Robert Wood Johnson: The Gentleman Rebel. By Lawrence G. Foster. Lillian Press. $30. Johnson was more than the leader who built Johnson & Johnson into a leading health care industry. His emphasis on an underlying credo that would guide all the...

information and communications technology.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Nobody can say what specific skills today's young people will need five, 10, or 20 years from now to prosper in the work force. However, one thing you can say with confidence is that competence with PCs and the Internet as we think of them...

CEO.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... The board shouldn't be comparing its [CEO] candidates' skills with those of the existing CEO but with those of the skills required to build the enterprise of the future. That means an emphasis on such traits as the ability to master new...

Business Week.
January 1, 2000... Don't just do things simply for the sake of a raise or a promotion or a byline. I forgot this lesson a little while back, when during a conversation with my daughter Beth, I mentioned--as casually as I could--that Business Week had named be one...

scientific process.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... The reality I learned is that the business of valuing, motivating and rewarding people is more an artistic exercise than a scientific process. It is based on individual performance, yes, but that performance is scored against profit...

blue-chip corporations.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Back in the 1930s, the posh Wall Street partnerships remained focused on their high-end clientele: sovereign states, blue-chip corporations and ultrawealthy individuals. While they grumbled about the onerous paperwork the new securities law...

Asia.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Asia is a region with enormous potential. Many of the factors that sustained Asia's remarkable economic development in the past are still in place: high savings rates, self-reliance and a strong work ethic, an entrepreneurial spirit, easy...

short-term market.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Some theorists worry that directors holding a lot of shares in their company may be too concerned about short-term market fluctuations and not enough about the longer-run and strategic considerations. This may be a worry in theory but in...

P&G.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Fasten your seatbelt. This is a far faster world. You have to be far more nimble and far more willing to make decisions without nearly the kind of data and analysis that I used to have at a Hasbro or a Disney or a P&G. You've got to let go of...

Internet revolution.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... The real key to our growth in productivity is information technology and the Internet revolution. Computer chips augment the brain power of our third-wave information economy, just as electricity and motors added brawn to the manufacturing...

Gordon Moore.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Don't flaunt your independence. I never had the temptation to prove my independence from Gordon Moore when he became chairman of the board and I became chief executive of Intel. After 25 years of reporting to him I became a kind of independent...

Ralph Whitworth: Turning Around The Boardroom.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Any history of change in American corporate governance over the past two decades would have to include the many key roles played by Ralph Whitworth. Whitworth first came to prominence as director of the United Shareholders Association (USA)....