company rules for ethical behaviour and Corporate Governance

Corporate Governance is, literally, company, government, translated as””. The term “Corporate Governance” and is captured in the narrower sense, the leadership organization of large (listed) companies. It then goes specifically to the rights and obligations of bodies such as the Board of management and the Supervisory Board.

Today, the term is in part very widely used in the sense of “corporate governance”.

For German companies the German Corporate Governance code significantly, for the first time in 2002 by a government Commission developed and has since been updated. It is in the recommendations of the Code to so-called “soft law”, i.e. they are not legally binding, deviations must be disclosed. Furthermore, the code also contains a relatively non-binding suggestions (www.corporate-governance-code.de).

In 2009, the code was extensively modified. It was said in the preamble, up to and including 2008, that the code is intended to clarify the rights of shareholders, as is now seen, the obligation of the Board to ensure, in accordance with the principles of the social market economy for the stock of the company and its sustainable creation of value. It is expressly pointed out that the interests of the employees and other stakeholders are taken into account. According to the experience of the financial crisis, is required by the company, overall, a more sustainable and more responsible economic Action, which no longer appears to be secured by a one-sided focus on Shareholder Value.

The latest Changes were also made in respect of the remuneration of managers. The remuneration is to be more long-term success, you should not incentives to Take unreasonable risks, the amount of severance pay is to be reduced, and the remuneration of management Board members are disclosed under attribution. In the filling of management Board members and Supervisory Board members, care shall be taken to increase the participation of women and foreigners.

This post is an excerpt from the new book on corporate ethics.

How can be implemented the business ethics as a Management responsibility? A stronger orientation of the corporate guide on the guiding principle of a life-serving economy is more and more demanded. Elisabeth Gödel discusses the philosophical foundations of ethics and clarifies the relationship of ethics and Economics. The focus is on the institutionalisation of ethics is on the level of the individual company.