The Father of Corporate Governance

In the last 2 posts I talked about two of the key authors in my area of research. I believe that in order to find out the notion and the main rationality behind any theory or idea we need to know the people who introduced those theories for the first time.

Corporate governance has a root in history. In fact, since the ‘Agency Theory’ of Adam Smith people have become aware of the issue between owners and managers of a company. The first corporate governance code was published in 1992 by a committee managed by Sir Adrian Cadbury. Although it was the first official code for corporate governance, Adrian Cadbury regarded Bob Tricker as the Father of Corporate Governance. In this post I would like to introduce you with Bob, the father of corporate governance. In my view, if you are interested in the concept of corporate governance, it is highly recommended to watch one of Bob’s videos or read his interesting book about it.

Bob Tricker is an expert in corporate governance who wrote the first book to use the title Corporate Governance in 1984. The recent version of his book is still the main textbook for the subject of ‘Corporate Governance’ in UK and Australia. Bob’s academic story is very interesting. After a few years as a financial controller in industry and study at Oxford and Harvard, he was the first professor of information systems at the University of Warwick, then Director of the Oxford Centre for Management Studies and a Research Fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, where he undertook the research that led to his first book about corporate governance in 1984 as stated before. His original research study on aspects of corporate governance was The Independent Director in 1978. Subsequently, he wrote International Corporate Governance – text, cases and readings in 1994 and many theoretical and practice related papers and cases.

He is also the founder-editor of Corporate Governance: An International Review, and holds Honorary Professorships of The University of Hong Kong. This journal is most recognised journal in corporate governance that I use the articles for my research more than any other journal in the world. It is a peer-reviewed academic journal published six times a year by Wiley-Blackwell. I strongly recommend you take a look at its website here.

There are some other key authors in this area such as Thom Clarke that I mentioned in my previous post or Chris Mallin, Professor of Corporate Governance and Finance, and the Founder and Director of the Centre for Corporate Governance Research, at Birmingham University. However, I believe the way Bob explains this concept is something unique and different. this video is the first part of a set of videos from Bob explaining principles of corporate governance.