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Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Aug 2009
Letters to the editor
I read Tony Featherstone’s article on ‘Unseating the founder’ (Company Director, June 2009) with great interest. As with any good article, the title was provocative and the content worthy of reflection. Here are a couple of probing questions that add to those raised in the art...
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Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Dec 2008
James Lau
provides 10 strategies that could help your organisation thrive in a downturn.
How to thrive in a recession
In times of subdued demand and economic turbulence, companies can fall from the top positions in their sector. Recent examples include Lehman Brothers and Babcock ...
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Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Aug 2008
Ken Moss
discussed the role that power and authority play in a board’s relationship with its CEO at a recent AICD lunch in Perth. Here’s an excerpt of what he had to say.
Power and authority in the boardroomMany political figures have hung onto power for perhaps too long, including the li...
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Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Feb 2008
Richard Hewson
explains how the subtleties of human comfort zones can upset the relationship between CEOs and boards.
Discomfort zone
Is the relationshipbetween your board and your CEO as effective as you would want? When the board and the executives of an organisation are not...
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Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Feb 2008
AICD’s International Company Directors Course helps directors and senior executives to ease over the barriers that make cross border operations difficult.
Stepping over global boundaries
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Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Nov 2006
John Massey is as comfortable in the nursery caring for newborn babies as he is in the boardroom building multimillion dollar enterprises – but are these worlds as different as they seem? Nichola Clark reports.
The nurture of business
John Massey likes to describe himself as ‘a formalised e...
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Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Oct 2006
Robert Elstone, Elizabeth Johnstone and Charles Macek argue that directors need to be courageous in encouraging management to adopt a long term strategic focus – and not focus entirely on short-term financial performance.
Some challenges for directors in short termism
In previous articles we c...
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Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Aug 2006
Boards share equal and collective responsibility
Jeff Lucy, the chairman of ASIC, is someone who commands a good deal of respect at AICD. However, we disagree profoundly with him with regard to his views on the Greaves case, expressed in a letter to the Australian Financial Review on 30 May. (A ful...
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Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Jun 2006
Directors cannot afford to be ignorant of development in IT – but they should concentrate on the business case for implementing new technology and not be overwhelmed by confusing jargon. Domini Stuart reports.
Coming to grips with IT
As recently as the seventies, IT was nothing more than an ex...
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Content Type:
Position Paper
23 Feb 2006
This position paper sets out what the AICD believes to represent the expectations of the corporate community in Australia as to the responsibilities and liabilities of a company chairman. It places the Greaves case in context, outlines the role of the chairman, comments on the question of liability ...
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Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Oct 2005
The key to more effective boardsisn’t given in the rules
The greatest challenges boards face is the way people engage with each other in the process of doing what has to be done, not the tasks themselves, says Sarah Cornally*
When people come together in a group there are a lot of forces at play. Th...
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Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Sep 2005
All the wrong way with LBJ
It is called the LBJ effect, a course of action named after the American president who put more resources into the Vietnam war even though it was clear the war could not be won. As Larry Stybel and Maryanne Peabody* explain, the LBJ effect also explains some corporate beha...
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Content Type:
Media Release
22 Aug 2005
Tuesday, 23 August 2005. The majority of Australian companies have taken positive steps to formalising risk management practices and are implementing robust risk management frameworks. However, more work needs to be done in terms of strengthening the "softer" elements of these frameworks in areas su...
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Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Jun 2005
The first and often only reaction from governments to abhorrent corporate behaviour - however isolated the incident - is to enact new legislation and give the regulators more power. But has this rush to legislative judgment gone too far and become a threat to the economy and an unforeseen cost burde...
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Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Jun 2005
The chief executive "drives the bus" and the chairman "collects the fares". This the shorthand description Malcolm Irving, chairman of e-payments company Keycorp, ascribes to the crucial relationship between chairman and CEO at a Directors Briefing in Sydney in April. The crucial CEO/chair dynamic
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Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Jun 2005
We have said earlier that the duties of directors are well defined in the law and don’t need change. Let’s consider some consequences of the duties.
Directors have a collective responsibility for the company as a whole. Shareholders put the fate of their company in directors’ hands. Through the CEO ...
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Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Mar 2005
At one time being a chairman meant simply being boss of the board. Today, the role is much more complex and it is one that is constantly changing to meet the expectations of other directors, the needs of the company and the scrutiny of shareholders. David Gonski talks to John Arbouw about some of th...
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Content Type:
CDM Article
01 Jun 2004
The fact that the Department of Defence withheld information from the Federal Government on its knowledge of prisoner abuse in Iraq (resulting in John Howard having to make a public apology) may at first glance not have any implications for directors. Managers in uniforms do Government a disservice
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Content Type:
CDM Article
01 May 2004
Are you a company director concerned about your governance and compliance obligations, and unsure how much you have to do to fulfil them? Managing the obligations
Following the paper trail – How safe is it to rely on those management sign-offs? asks Jon Tyers*
Are you a company director co...
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Content Type:
CDM Article
01 May 2004
The leadership of the chairman is critical when there is dissension on the board. A good chairman can make the difference between a board continuing to function as an effective unit or being torn apart by conflict says Pamela Murray-Jones, general manager National Education
Talking Shop
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