The assessment will focus on your understanding of the concepts, theories and mechanisms that underlie corporate governance as well as your knowledge on recent developments. This assessment, which constitutes of an individual report that allows for theoretical articulation and critical evaluation. Individual Report (3000 words) (70% of Assessment 1) The press has continued to attribute financial scandals to the lack of adequate corporate governance mechanisms and yet it seems that these debacles continue to take place. It may be that these corporate governance controls do not exist or that they are ineffective; nevertheless, the literature provides contrasting views on their influence on various measures of performance.

You are required to: Critically discuss, with reference to contrasting views and theoretical perspectives in the literature, the nature and characteristics of corporate governance mechanisms that are effective in enabling corporate accountability and transparency and that reduce risk and promote performance?

You are required to: Select FOUR UK LSE public listed companies from different industries; please review the list of allocated companies before emailing your selection; there are up to 500 companies that you can choose from. Determine the existence of corporate governance mechanisms in your chosen companies. As the continued occurrence of financial scandals suggests, in practice these mechanisms may not be effective. What types of companies appear to have a larger proportion of corporate governancecharacteristics? Are corporate governance mechnisms more evident in better performing companies?

You are required to: Review your findings and critically discuss if there are some companies that are more effective in their management of governance issues? Is your theoretical approach consistent with your findings in practice? Is the press correct in consistently attributing these scandals to governance issues?