"Corporate Governance: The New Mantra"

Corporate governance has become the latest buzzword in the corporate sector in India. Kumaramanglam Birla was recently quoted as saying that the principal objective of good corporate governance is to enhance value. Stakeholder corporate governance is a system that effectively enforces accountability relationships between the executive management and the board of directors and also between the board of directors and shareholders of a company. Corporate governance assumes importance for publicity traded companies because of the separation between the management and the shareholders. This separation gives rise to the classic agency problem. Therefore, corporate governance system primarily addresses the agency problem.In the age of competitive Globalization and dynamic world, business enterprises need to focus on innovative practices which will help in maximizing stake and shareholders wealth. The fundamental concern of corporate governance is to ensure that the firm’s directors and mangers act ethically in the interests of he firm and its shareholders and that the mangers are held accountable to capital providers for the use of assets. The concept of corporate governance can be taken as a parallel to the quality practices under the ISO standard. It also involves entry of non-executive directors into the board, and making the members more positive and dynamic in their activities. All business information must be made available to them, and system controls are activated to ensure authenticity, timeliness and effectiveness of information. The basic principles of corporate of corporate governance are based on ethical parameters such as complete transparency, integrity and accountability. The present paper addresses the issues of corporate performance, transparency, strategies, executive functions, compensation and accountability, auditors and several related issues