EDITORIAL

• Published date: 01 October 1993
• Date: 01 October 1993
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8683.1993.tb00033.x

EDlTORlA

L

171

EDITORIAL

t the beginning of the

1980s

the term

A

corporate governance

was not used: within

a

decade it was commonplace.

During the

’70s

the Oxford Centre for Man-

agement Studies, was a pioneer in director

level work.

A

new board room and residential

wing

was built to enable boards to work

together on their corporate strategies. At that

time

I

was Director of the Centre and pro-

posed that the Centre’s distinctive com-

petence should be board level issues. How-

ever, the Chairman of the Centre’s Council,

Mr.

Clifford Barclay, felt that the strategic

direction for the Centre should be middle

management not governance.

Consequently,

I

moved to Nuffield College,

where The Corporate Policy Group was

formed to research corporate governance.

When the results of those studies were pub-

@

Basil Blackwell Ltd.

1993.

108

Cowley

Rd, Oxford

OX4

1JF

and

238

Main

St,

Cambridge, MA

02142,

USA.

lished in the early

‘80s

as

Corporate Governance,

many people thought

I

meant

government,

whilst my college colleagues suggested that

“governance”

was an unfortunate choice; the

word, they said, had not been used since the

time of Chaucer!

Now, happily, the Oxford Management

Centre, renamed Templeton College follow-

ing Sir John Templeton’s important benefac-

tion, has rediscovered the importance of

corporate governance.

A

conference on the

subject was held there earlier this year. This

issue contains those papers, and Templeton‘s

Dr. Bim Prodhan provides a guest editorial.

Bob Tricker

Editor

University of Hong Kong Business School

Volume

1

Number

4

October

1993