A recent Financial Post article by Ed Waitzer, Director of the Hennick Centre for Business and Law at York University and partner at Stikeman Elliott and Marshall Cohen, chair of the Hennick Centre's Advisory Board and counsel at Cassels Brock & Blackwell, considers the difficulty in regulating corporate governance. Essentially, the authors argue that
[b]uilding layers of governance mechanisms in the hope of channelling behaviour often serves to frustrate meaningful stewardship on the part of corporate directors and management. Regulation of compensation, independence or other structural requirements will never be the answer, in isolation.
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Perhaps we must look deeper into the DNA of the corporate model to understand and affirm its role in creating long-term value for individuals, firms, shareholders and communities. For example, we need to understand better the role of culture, character and reputation — on management, on the board, on the institutional owner community — in defining and implementing a meaningful sense of “ownership” and responsibility. Perhaps we have to challenge the structural paradigm itself, if we are to achieve meaningful and permanent change.
