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The independent director and effective corporate governance

As a response to the rash of scandals in particularly USA and Europe in recent times, corporate governance has elicited a lot of interest worldwide. Today there is growing dialogue among the different stakeholders about corporate governance and how it should evolve to cope with the increasingly dyna...

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Main Author: Iwe, Chizoba David
Other Authors: Larkin, Mike
Format: Thesis
Language:English
English
Published: Centre for Law and Society 2026
Subjects:
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access_status_str Open Access
author Iwe, Chizoba David
author2 Larkin, Mike
author_browse Iwe, Chizoba David
Larkin, Mike
author_facet Larkin, Mike
Iwe, Chizoba David
author_sort Iwe, Chizoba David
collection Thesis
description As a response to the rash of scandals in particularly USA and Europe in recent times, corporate governance has elicited a lot of interest worldwide. Today there is growing dialogue among the different stakeholders about corporate governance and how it should evolve to cope with the increasingly dynamic and global nature of our capital markets. Worldwide, corporate reforms and other initiatives are being taken as remedies to rebuild trust in corporate governance. Corporate reforms have led to the introduction in many countries of various codes or guidelines for best practices in corporate governance. Until now, probably the most important basic ingredient of these reform initiatives has been the emergence of the ‘independent director'. The introduction of this concept of independent director is at the heart and soul of corporate governance.1 Although the relevance or otherwise of this class of director to corporate success has been the subject of robust discourse, it is generally accepted that a ‘lack of monitoring by independent, disinterested non-executive directors has been a major cause for the various corporate scandals that we have witnessed'.2 The first section of this study attempts a comparative analysis of various definitions (taken from corporate governance codes of various countries) of the independent director, taking a look at his role within the corporate structure. The second part examines the rationale for including the independent director on the board, his effectiveness, and his relevance in relation to corporate performance.
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institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language English
eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:32:08.355Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2026
publishDateRange 2026
publishDateSort 2026
publisher Centre for Law and Society
publisherStr Centre for Law and Society
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/42949 The independent director and effective corporate governance Iwe, Chizoba David Larkin, Mike Corporate governance USA Europe As a response to the rash of scandals in particularly USA and Europe in recent times, corporate governance has elicited a lot of interest worldwide. Today there is growing dialogue among the different stakeholders about corporate governance and how it should evolve to cope with the increasingly dynamic and global nature of our capital markets. Worldwide, corporate reforms and other initiatives are being taken as remedies to rebuild trust in corporate governance. Corporate reforms have led to the introduction in many countries of various codes or guidelines for best practices in corporate governance. Until now, probably the most important basic ingredient of these reform initiatives has been the emergence of the ‘independent director'. The introduction of this concept of independent director is at the heart and soul of corporate governance.1 Although the relevance or otherwise of this class of director to corporate success has been the subject of robust discourse, it is generally accepted that a ‘lack of monitoring by independent, disinterested non-executive directors has been a major cause for the various corporate scandals that we have witnessed'.2 The first section of this study attempts a comparative analysis of various definitions (taken from corporate governance codes of various countries) of the independent director, taking a look at his role within the corporate structure. The second part examines the rationale for including the independent director on the board, his effectiveness, and his relevance in relation to corporate performance. 2026-03-12T06:39:59Z 2026-03-12T06:39:59Z 2007 2026-03-12T06:37:02Z Thesis / Dissertation Masters LLM http://hdl.handle.net/11427/42949 en eng application/pdf Centre for Law and Society Faculty of Law University of Cape Town
spellingShingle Corporate governance
USA
Europe
Iwe, Chizoba David
The independent director and effective corporate governance
thesis_degree_str Master's
title The independent director and effective corporate governance
title_full The independent director and effective corporate governance
title_fullStr The independent director and effective corporate governance
title_full_unstemmed The independent director and effective corporate governance
title_short The independent director and effective corporate governance
title_sort independent director and effective corporate governance
topic Corporate governance
USA
Europe
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/42949
work_keys_str_mv AT iwechizobadavid theindependentdirectorandeffectivecorporategovernance
AT iwechizobadavid independentdirectorandeffectivecorporategovernance