On December 6 and 7 2018, we welcomed researchers to our first conference on responsibility (called “Rethinking Responsibility: Agents and Structures”) at Concordia University. The researcher came from Canada, the US, Europe and Africa; they studied business, ethics, geography, labor, law, sociology and philosophy. Why care about responsibility? Responsibility is important as is speaks to …
I recently reviewed published studies that explore dual class firms. Below, I will discuss what can be learned from these studies about dual class firms. I will address a series of questions: What are dual class firms? Why do dual class share structures exist? What firms have dual class structures? What consequences do these structure …
This Friday, the Luc Beauregard Centre of Excellence in Communications Research welcomed Professor François Brochet from Boston University who presented a study on investor relations (IR). IR are important as firms have many different investors (e.g., retail investors, institutional investors including hedge funds, pension funds, ETFs). Firms communicate with these investors by disseminating mandated and …
Today, the Luc Beauregard Centre for Excellence in Communications Research at Concordia University welcomed Professor Debbie Dougherty from the University of Missouri, who gave a fascinating talk about sexual harassment in organizations and about the role of communication in sexual harassment. Communication is about the creation of meaning; in other words, when we talk about …
In the years leading up the last French Presidential election, economic growth, or “la croissance”, became a political buzzword in France. The French president at the time, François Hollande, staked his reelection on growth. He failed to deliver and never put his name forward for a second shot at being le président. His Minister of …
This summer, I spoke with Anais Cherif, who is a journalist for La Tribune, a business news outlet in France. We discussed the possibility that Mark Zuckerberg could be fired from Facebook. I pointed out that for this to happen, Mark Zuckerberg would have to fire himself. He owns such a large stake in Facebook …
I recently did a review of studies published between 2008 and 2018 that explored independent directors who sit on the boards of for-profit corporations. I am going to discuss what I learned from these studies and highlight three key takeaways on director independence. What is an independent director? An independent director is “free from conflicts …
I am discovering the work of Iris Marion Young, a philosopher and political scientist who wrote much about justice. I find her work relevant to think about corporations and their responsibility, because she discusses the notion of personal responsibility, which refers to what each individual is responsible for, and social structures, which designate the opportunity …
Marilynne Robinson recently published an article (“What are we doing here?“) on humanities and their role in university education. She argues that humanities help individuals be capable citizens. She speaks about Toqueville and the beauty of knowledge, about a cab driver and the world he learned from reading a book. She cautions against an education …
CSR, or Corporate Social Responsibility, is often viewed as an obvious, readily understood, homogenous concept. Yet a close look at CSR research challenges this view. Researchers have proposed a plethora of definitions for CSR, with each definition assigning a particular meaning to CSR. Orlitzky et al. (2011) speak of the “inconsistencies and debates regarding the proper …
Between May and December 2008, Western Digital, one of the largest computer hard disk manufacturers in the world, experienced a severe shock*. Its stock price fell from $37.53 to $11.45. In 2009, the company reported in its proxy statement that it used discretion, as opposed to objective performance metrics, for evaluating its CEO. In …
The access of women to power has attracted much attention recently, in light of the non-election of Hillary Clinton. Two authors have penned powerful essays on power and women: Rebecca Solnit, in From Lying to Leering, and Mary Beard, in Women in Power. Snap’s IPO involves nonvoting shares, which means that investors will get a …
Last week I visited Verdun, a town in France about a ninety-minute car ride from where I grew up in Luxembourg. It was my first time in Verdun, a charming town with a vibrant center, lots of those boulangeries that I love in France, and a promenade along its river, the Meuse. I came across …