In recent years there has been a surge in corporate governance reform around the world. On the African continent this phenomenon is evident in the number of national corporate governance reports that have been produced. This article analyzes these national codes of corporate governance in Africa to determine how the relationship between corporate governance and business ethics is being perceived. The article commences by providing a background to the corporate governance reform process that still is in the making in Africa. (...) It then explores the relation between corporate governance and business ethics by looking at various aspects of corporate governance that might have an impact on how business ethics is being perceived and practiced. Finally new corporate governance developments that potentially might have an impact on the prominence and practice of business ethics are reviewed. (shrink)

Much has been written about stakeholder analysis as a process by which to introduce ethical values into management decision-making. This paper takes a critical look at the assumptions behind this idea, in an effort to understand better the meaning of ethical management decisions.A distinction is made between stakeholder analysis and stakeholder synthesis. The two most natural kinds of stakeholder synthesis are then defined and discussed: strategic and multi-fiduciary. Paradoxically, the former appears to yield business without ethics and the latter appears (...) to yield ethics without business. The paper concludes by suggesting that a third approach to stakeholder thinking needs to be developed, one that avoids the paradox just mentioned and that clarifies for managers (and directors) the legitimate role of ethical considerations in decision-making. (shrink)

Corporate governance reforms are occurring in countries around the globe. In developing countries, such reforms occur in a context that is primarily defined by previous attempts at promoting "development" and recent processes of economic globalization. This context has resulted in the adoption of reforms that move developing countries in the direction of an Anglo-American model of governance. The most basic questions that arise with respect to these governance reforms are what prospects they entail for traditional development goals and whether alternatives (...) should be considered. This paper offers a framework for addressing these basic questions by providing an account of: 1) previous development strategies and efforts; 2) the nature and causes of the reform processes; 3) the development potential of the reforms and concerns associated with them; 4) the (potential) responsibilities of corporate governance, including the (possible) responsibilities to promote development, and; 5) different approaches to promoting governance reforms with an eye to promoting development. (shrink)

The King Report on Corporate Governance (1994) evoked unprecedented interest in corporate governance in South Africa. This does not mean that corporate governance was not an issue of concern before the release of this historical report. To the contrary, corporate governance in its broader sense has been at stake since the inception of the first publicly owned companies in South Africa. This article intends to give an overview of corporate governance in South Africa. It starts by making a distinction between (...) broad and narrow conceptions of corporate governance. Before applying this distinction to the practice of corporate governance in South Africa, a brief overview of the corporate landscape in South Africa is provided. Then the South African situation with regard to broad and narrow corporate governance respectively is analysed. The article ends with a discussion of the review of corporate governance that currently is in the making in South Africa. Throughout the article both the financial and ethical dimensions of corporate governance is attended to. (shrink)

This article adds to the discussion of the legitimation of stakeholding, by studying the implications of investing financial assets, years of labor, community resources, or other such scarce goods in a corporation. It attempts to respond to those who argue that it is not possible for all stakeholders to be effectively represented in corporate governance and that if they were, this would undermine the well-being of the corporation.

In this paper I delineate the group of activities concernedwith business and then proceed to give an exposition of the concepts usedby Ubuntu as an example of the African view of business managementindicating those activities of human performances regarded by them asbasic to their world view. I proceed to deal with the way these Ubuntuconcepts are applied to business management using the ideas of LovemoreMbigi as an important advocate of the Ubuntu style of participatorymanagement. In doing so. I try to (...) establish what some important Africanthinkers themselves regard as the special position of Ubuntu in contrastto individualism, collectivism and Western Humanism. I then focus on themost important topic of this paper, to wit, the application of the Ubuntuconcepts to a real case and analyse it as a case study. I conclude bycritically assessing the suggested Ubuntu style of management in terms ofuniversal and specific applications. (shrink)

The King Report on Corporate Governance (1994) evoked unprecedented interest in corporate governance in South Africa. This does not mean that corporate governance was not an issue of concern before the release of this historical report. To the contrary, corporate governance in its broader sense has been at stake since the inception of the first publicly owned companies in South Africa. This article intends to give an overview of corporate governance in South Africa. It starts by making a distinction between (...) broad and narrow conceptions of corporate governance. Before applying this distinction to the practice of corporate governance in South Africa, a brief overview of the corporate landscape in South Africa is provided. Then the South African situation with regard to broad and narrow corporate governance respectively is analysed. The article ends with a discussion of the review of corporate governance that currently is in the making in South Africa. Throughout the article both the financial and ethical dimensions of corporate governance is attended to. (shrink)