Tag: Governance

Encouraging employee share ownership doesn't create a "stakeholder society". Instead, it can lead to disasters like Enron, where workers have too much riding on the success of one firm.

John Mayo's account of his troubled tenure at Marconi should serve as a warning to managers. Success in business is achieved by supplying goods and services effectively; not by seeking to boost share prices.

The seeds of Argentina’s economic downfall were sewn early in the nation’s history. The distribution of land rights caused political and economic problems that would eventually cripple the country

It sat for 340 days, heard evidence from 195 witnesses and received over 4000 letters of objection. The public inquiry into Sizewell B was the second biggest ever - but it came to the wrong conclusion.

Lessons can be learnt from Railtrack’s failure. The government should re-appraise how projects should be financed and managed in the future.

Books that John has reviewed in the past...

Whilst both the government and the market plays ever closer attention to the dismal performance of Railtrack it is worth asking why a separate track authority was needed in the first place. Given that the financial case is so compelling, how might Railtrack now be renationalised so as to achieve autonomy with real accountability?

Since the early days of privatisation, there has been an evident need for a framework which gave operational autonomy and managerial responsibility in public services but which was not the framework of the plc. But there is merit in pluralism here too.

It is the state of economy that decides elections: Or so the theory goes. The evidence, however, suggests that voters do pay far greater attention to the issues and politicians really do mean what they say.

The management of public services is a key issue for the next five years. The process of re-appointing Tony Blair as Britain's CEO gives some pointers to how it should be done.