Outcomes based governance: A modern approach to corporate governance by
Corporate governance principles, codes and regulations have developed over the past few years to cater for the challenging realities of a changing world. These advances come in the wake of revelations of weaknesses in organisational leadership and structures, and amid vocal calls for transparency. Corporate governance as a tool for sustainable development of businesses is now more relevant than ever. A recent trend has been to approach corporate governance principles from an ‘outcomes based’ perspective. This requires businesses to consider the benefits of good governance properly applied and fully achieved.
Outcomes-Based Governance: A Modern Approach to Corporate Governance was written to demystify outcomes-based governance and emerging corporate governance trends. The book also aims to aid their adaptability in emerging economies. The authors, from South Africa and Nigeria, have decades of experience and knowledge to share.
Behind Closed Doors by
Behind Closed Doors is unique. It opens the doors to the boardroom and explains what happens inside. Using his thirty years of board experience, Simon Laffin describes board issues, all of which he has experienced, and how boards deal with them. He gives over 150 tips, including how better decisions could be taken and how board directors can better join in those debates. He doesn't shy away from difficult topics; from how a company responds to a hostile take-over, to how to remove an underperforming director, and even how to handle sex in the boardroom: To name but a few. He argues strongly that boardrooms need more female and ethnic minority directors, and pinpoints the problem that underrepresented groups lack board experience and knowledge, something that this book can start to address. This book is about being a real director. How do you get to be one? How does it feel to join a board for the first time? How do you develop relationships with other directors? How do you make the right decisions? What do those financials mean? How should the board handle shareholders? How do you set executive pay? The book answers all these questions and more in an engaging style, packed with amusing anecdotes and much painfully-earned, real-life experience. It is a manifesto for more informed and effective boards. Reading this book will give directors a better understanding of the issues that arise inside the boardroom. His tips on building relationships and working together will make boards more cohesive teams. These will make be bigger contributions to better governance than the plethora of corporate regulation that is being developed and implemented globally. Politically-driven, populist, rule changes are challenged as the book demands evidence-based and tested regulation, focussed on people doing a difficult job, not easy targets for lazy blame. Behind Closed Doors sheds new light on the hidden workings of company boards, and will appeal to anyone interested in the boardroom; current directors; aspiring directors; commentators on, and students, of business; and even enlighted regulators.
AI and big data: disruptive regulation by
his provocative and timely book identifies and disrupts the conventional regulation and governance discourses concerning AI and big data. It suggests that, instead of being used as tools for exclusionist commercial markets, AI and big data can be employed in governing digital transformation for social good. Analysing the ways in which global technology companies have colonised data access, the book reveals how trust, ethics, and digital self-determination can be reconsidered and engaged to promote the interests of marginalised stakeholders in data arrangement. Chapters examine the regulation of labour engagement in digital economies, the landscape of AI ethics, and a multitude of questions regarding participation, costs, and sustainability. Presenting several informative case studies, the book challenges some of the accepted qualifiers of frontier tech and data use and proposes innovative ways of actioning the more conventional regulatory components of big data. Scholars and students in information and media law, regulation and governance, and law and politics will find this book to be critical reading. It will also be of interest to policymakers and the AI and data science community.
Tune In: How to make smarter decisions in a noisy world by 
Boards: A practical perspective by
Boards, the 2nd edition of the award-winning book, provides a practical, realistic, thought-provoking and useful guide to life as a board member.
Fully updated, the “Purpose”, “People” and “Process” structure continues to work well with new content covering the pandemic and its impact on boards and how they operate, diversity and inclusion, culture, stakeholder management, board reviews, smaller listed companies as well as the increased use of technology. This combined with a series of real-life dilemmas for readers to practice on, makes this book an ideal companion whether you are an aspirant, novice or seasoned campaigner.
Drawing on Patrick’s extensive range of experience working with and on boards in many sectors, in the UK and internationally, it is equally applicable to business, charities and social enterprises, professional services firms, public bodies and universities.
The book is also written in a highly accessible and engaging style that brings life and fun to what is a very serious topic.
Boards has won the HR & Management Category of the Business Books Awards for 2020, and in the judges' decision:
'An easy read, it delivers invaluable advice, with practical, real-life case studies, that enable the reader to better understand the challenges of working at board level. Whether you are a new or experienced board member, or on the senior leadership team working with board members, this is an invaluable guide that will enable, empower and enrich your understanding, interactions and contribution.'
Creativity Inc.: Overcoming the unseen forces that stand in the way of true inspiration by
The co-founder and longtime president of Pixar updates and expands upon his 2014 New York Times bestseller on creative leadership, reflecting on the management principles used to build Pixar's singularly successful culture, including all he learned in the past nine years that allowed Pixar to retain its creative culture while continuing to evolve.
For nearly twenty years, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, producing such beloved films as the Toy Story trilogy, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Up, and WALL-E, which have gone on to set box-office records and garner thirty Academy Awards. The joyous storytelling, the inventive plots, the emotional authenticity: In some ways, Pixar movies are an object lesson in what creativity really is.
As a young man, Ed Catmull had a dream: to make the first computer-animated movie. He nurtured that dream as a Ph.D. student, and then forged a partnership with George Lucas that led, indirectly, to his founding Pixar with Steve Jobs and John Lasseter. A mere nine years later, Toy Story was released, changing animation forever. The essential ingredient in that movie's success-and in the movies that followed-was the unique environment that Catmull and his colleagues built at Pixar, based on philosophies that protect the creative process and defy convention, such as:
- Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. But give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better. It's not the manager's job to prevent risks.
- It's the manager's job to make it safe for others to take them. The cost of preventing errors is often far greater than the cost of fixing them.
- A company's communication structure should not mirror its organizational structure.
- Everybody should be able to talk to anybody.
Creativity, Inc. has been expanded to illuminate the continuing development of the unique culture at Pixar. Featuring a new introduction, two entirely new chapters, four new chapter postscripts, and new reflections at the end, this updated edition details how Catmull built a culture that doesn't just pay lip service to the importance of things like honesty, communication, and originality, but commits to them. Pursuing excellence isn't a one-off assignment, but an ongoing, day-in, day-out, full-time job. And Creativity, Inc. explores how it is done.
