Summary
Bhasa’s (2004) article, “Global corporate governance: Debates and challenges” offers an excellent picture of the current business situation where the changing operations have forced companies to reorganize their strategies to remain relevant to their respective clients. The article is founded on the awareness that well-laid business and political frameworks, for instance, corporate governance strategies, have the potential of attracting investors from all corners of the world. Such understanding forms the basis of globalization where geographical distance is no longer an obstacle for countries that wish to establish international businesses.
According to Bhasa (2004), the need for globalization in the industrialized and emerging economies has been accompanied by an increment in the amount of capital required to establish and sustain businesses internationally. Consequently, the situation has called for the development of business-friendly corporate governance strategies in countries that desire to succeed in today’s competitive commercial dealings. Bhasa’s (2004) article seeks to address the origin of corporate governance, which the author traces back to the World War II when nations had to change the way they carried out business, including opening avenues to allow the free movement of commodities to and from any country around the globe. The article reveals various theories on corporate governance structures, which the author categorizes into two: conventional and modern-day corporate governance systems.
Bhasa (2004) also addresses the challenges that countries and/or businesses encounter in their attempt to establish corporate governance practices that can woo rather than shunning away investors. However, following the difference in the cultural and legal frameworks in various countries, Bhasa (2004) concludes that corporate governance strategies may never converge to the extent that all nations around the globe adopt similar structures. In other words, the article points to the need for the development of other frameworks that can address the universal business demands.
Article Critique
Bhasa (2004) strategically drives his point home concerning the need for contemporary businesses to review their corporate governance strategies if they wish to remain relevant in today’s rapidly changing business atmosphere. The article has the strength of being founded on the current happenings where businesses have been exposed to substantial challenges following their continued growth in terms of size and productivity and the rising demand for a huge capital base to explore new markets. Bhasa’s (2004) article offers a detailed account of how the earlier establishment of domestic markets played a key role in persuading investors to establish gigantic businesses in foreign countries, a move that was accompanied by the need for strategic corporate governance frameworks. Such governance structures focused on cooperation among global nations.
To convince the reader about the importance of enhanced corporate governance structures, the article also offers an explicit account of the evolution of such systems, including the reason why conventional governance mechanisms cannot hold in today’s business world that is characterized by heightened globalization, technology, and competition. For instance, Bhasa (2004) asserts that the traditional governance structures are unable to address the situation in many continental and Asian nations that are characterized by resolute tenure morphology. In other words, such conventional frameworks were only applicable to the American business setting that consists of diffusely owned ownership mechanisms.
Bhasa (2004) provides an excellent plan of how the gap was sealed following the establishment of newer and relevant corporate governance theories such as the shareholder-stakeholder, concentrated ownership, and the comparative corporate governance hypotheses.
However, Bhasa’s (2004) work is not without cons. Firstly, the author presents many arguments that are not backed by relevant academic materials. It is indisputably clear that whatever Bhasa (2004) writes about is taken from the existing wide body of literature on the topic of corporate governance. Hence, it is very probable that the work is plagiarized. Besides, issues such as the lack of a literature review and the use of a few reference sources compromise the reliability of Bhasa’s (2004) work.
Nonetheless, as much as the article has various flaws, it is significant to society since it addresses issues that are relevant to the contemporary business world. Firstly, today, virtually all countries around the globe have well-founded and updated corporate governance and security structures, thanks to their understanding of the elements that investors look for when making global investment decisions. Secondly, the current article is highly valuable for companies that have never understood the essence of shifting from conventional to modern-day corporate governance mechanisms.
Bhasa (2004) reveals how the recent systems take into account elements such as “the behavioral patterns of individuals involved in the governance process, the role of politics, the influence of culture, and the role of country laws in facilitating international codes of conduct” (p. 8), all of which play a central role in the 21st-century global corporate governance endeavors. Besides, the article offers an insight into the various corporate governance theories, which scholars in the field can benefit from, especially when recommending the frameworks that best suit a particular business upon bearing in mind the various cultural, legal, and political systems in the respective target country. Also, interested parties get to know the obstacles that are linked to universal corporate governance, hence standing a better chance to develop mechanisms for addressing such challenges.
Reference
Bhasa, P. (2004). Global corporate governance: Debates and challenges. The International Journal of Business in Society, 4(2), 5-17. Web.