Employee Representation in Corporate Boards

Many people in the English speaking world consider employee representation in the board to be a deviant exception. In fact, among 22 OECD countries, eight countries have legislation mandating employee representation in corporate boards. These countries include Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and France. Under these laws, employees or unions are allowed to elect or nominate representatives to attend and advise the board, or participate as full members and thereby 'codetermine' decisions. Germany has the most well-known and strongest scheme, where up to half of the Supervisory Board members represent employees.

Most econometric studies of board-level employee representation find that it has no clear adverse effects on company performance, although studies are conflicting on the particular issue of whether employee codetermination adversely impacts share prices. Meanwhile, a wide body of evidence does suggest that employee involvement in the board has a positive impact on trust, organizational culture and hence the effectiveness of implementing top-level corporate decisions.

I have just completed a comparative study as to why countries adopt codetermination. The comparative analysis highlighted two sets of factors or 'pathways' to codetermination.

Both pathways to codetermination are characterized by coordinated multi-employer collective bargaining, consensual political systems with strong proportion representation, and concentrated corporate ownership. The Scandinavian varient was characterized by stronger left political parties, and higher union density. An interesting result was that Scandinavian countries have both codetermination and relatively rules on investor protection and corporate disclosure.

Meanwhile, Germany, Austria and the Netherlands represent a more conservative pattern.

Unions and Social Democratic parties are less strong , but these countries also have weak investor protection and corporate disclosure.

These differences in the political strength of left and degree of investor rights suggest some interesting conjectures about the politics of corporate governance. In Scandinavia, the strength of unions and left parties allowed a political compromise with concentrated owners that involved not only codetermination, but usually also greater transparency and investor protection. In Germany, the comparative weakness of the unions and left led to codetermination rights, but allowed concentrated owners to shield themselves from both outside investors and employees representatives through less corporate transparency and investor rights.

The Scandinavian case has strong implications for the future of stakeholder models of corporate governance that seek to institutionalise strong rights for both shareholders and employees. In particular, these cases contradict the expected negative relationship between employee rights and legal rights for shareholders. This may suggest that employee representation may lead countries to adopt stronger legal protection for shareholders, either as a way for shareholders to counterbalance employee influence or more likely as a response to demands for greater transparency by employees themselves.

After Nine Days MP3

A new musical piece -- a loop-based improvisation around a drum track and layers of acoustic guitar. The mood seemed to resonate with nine days after the bombings on the London tube. 'As the world around you gets more uncertain, you get quieter and quieter..'
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=42681

An interesting article in the ever-so-popular 'Evening Standard' today comparing the time budget of British women in the 1950s and today. The time spent on 'housework' has been reduced by half (e.g. shopping, cooking, cleaning). Most of the extra time was taken up my paid employment, but what I found interesting is the time spent 'taking care of children' has not increased as a result. One hooray for female employment! But I think the much more emphasis needs to be put on children, by women AND men. Who spends time with them?

Google Earth

Today, I discovered Google Earth. I am very impressed with it, and found it quite informative even in its early stages. The resolution of the Tokyo map was good enough to locate the apartment building where I lived from 2002-2004. The satellite picture must be some years old, since another skyscraper is missing from the left-hand side of the picture, and the bits of green space around the house were built up before or during my time there:



Here my current place of employment in London:


Or a view from the other side:

London Accents

I found an interesting article from Laura Wright (Cambridge) n the BBC today regarding the speech patterns of Londoners. The main classifications of accents in London are based on the East/West axis of the city's geography, but perhaps more importantly rooted in social class. Not surprising, of course. But an interesting element of the article was the fact that children develop local accents, since their social contacts are quite limited to particular schools and localities. Whereas adults move throughout London, and therefore remain exposed to a variety of accents. This 'cosmopolitan' effect is one reason why working class speakers vary greatly across regions, whereas middle class speakers become homogenized.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/content/articles/2005/06/02/voices_laura_wright_feature.shtml

When I meet new people, they comment on my 'funny accent' or more likely 'lack of an accent' almost without exception. I find it slightly irritating, particularly when non-native speakers of English begin to insist, 'But you don't sound American...' People often attribute this to my experience in speaking German, but actually I always believed it started much earlier and had different roots.

In high school, I am fairly confident that I had a 'Californian accent' or regional way of speaking. I spent one year on exchange in Germany during the 11th grade, but I don't think it changed at that point. A year later, going to university in the mid-western United States, I was determined to speak proper English! After three years in Wisconsin, I then spent one year in London. At that time, people didn't systematically comment on my accent, despite occassional remarks about not sounding 'too American.' It was really arriving in New York City that people began remarking on my 'accent', and haven't stopped to this day. In New York, a large portion of my social contact was with non-native speakers of English, particularly East Asians. My 'lack of accent' probably does not reflect an adopted 'German-ness' from speaking German, but simply my sustained exposure to very diverse patterns of regionally varied, as well native and non-native English speech.

Kouta MP3

August 9, 2005. London.

Late night. A helicopter is whizzing around above like mad. While it happens sometimes, I am never quite sure if its the police, the queen or BBC helicopters. But there is something disturbing about it.

I recorded one of the kouta pieces called 'Eng Kai Na' that I rehearsed for the Hiroshima event. For the curious, its now on-line here. Its a slow piece, and a kind of sad mood. But I think its evocative of some of the sounds of the shamisen. Its now on my sound page:
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=42681

Lately, I have also been recording some live loop-based material playing layers of guitars and electronic drums into my Headrush delay/looping unit, and recording into my home computer. The live loops build and build, one layer at a time. I edited one, now entitled 'Green the Brook', to make 8 minutes into a more concise piece! But its all a single live improvisation.

Enjoy!

60th Anniversary of Hiroshima Bomb

August 6th, London.

On Saturday, I attended a 60th Anniversary ceremony and exhibition dealing with the bombing of Hiroshima. It is such an unimagineable atrocity, and so alarming to watch the profileration of nuclear weapons today. I was struck by the message of the Buddhist priest, who talked about the importance of inner peace in achieving peace in the world. Meanwhile, we could all here the police sirens and helicopters passing through central London, which formed a backdrop to the ceremony up on the rooftop garden at the Brunei Gallery. Somehow the message seems very close to home after the London bombings . The exhibition continues for several weeks, and features an interesting array of artworks from British and Japanese artists inspired by the events. I was particularly moved by the wall made from paper cranes! For me, the traditional symbol seemed the most powerful.

http://www.afterhiroshima.org/

Up on the rooftop garden, I got a chance to play 'Rokkudan' as part of the Japan Music Society from SOAS.


Then a personal highlight was to play a 20 minutes solo set on the shamisen down in the gallery. The shamisen is a traditional Japanese three-stringed instrument used in a wide variety of ways across the various genres of Japanese music. I played three 'kouta' or short songs, followed by one faster tsugaru pieice and one section of a nagauta piece from the play 'miyakodari'. Then I closed with another series of three kouta pieces. I enjoyed playing in the space, and hopefully playing a supportive role adding to the mood in the gallery room.



Lots of supportive friends came out. Thanks guys!