The concept of governance has become an important concept for the study of social and political relations. Governance is concerned with human interaction and its coordination, in and between organizations and communities. It asks what the forms, processes and mechanisms of governance are, as well as what they should be. To paraphrase the World Bank, governance is the exercise of authority and the use of institutional resources to manage a group’s problems and affairs. The “group” can be a society, a corporate organization, or a local community.
In general terms, there are three basic kinds of governance arrangements:
- Top-down methods that primarily involve governments and the state bureaucracy
- Market mechanisms whereby market principles of competition serve to allocate resources while operating under government regulation
- Collaborative networks, including both traditional organizations and emerging aggregations of partnerships and alliances.
Governance concerns the collective choice mechanisms, including the structural arrangements, through which groups of individuals make decisions. Corporate organizations, for example, often use the word governance to describe the manner in which boards or their like direct a corporation and the laws and customs (rules) applying to that direction. The term governance also occurs in information technology (IT) to describe the processes used by departments, teams or projects to perform functions, activities, or tasks. The concept of governance thus encompasses what is generally meant by “management.” It provides an integrating construct for all of the pedagogical and research functions carried out at Atkinson across the business, government, and not-for-profit sectors.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Governance
Four foci of attention seem especially relevant for our center:
Governance Arrangements and Collective Choice Mechanisms . This research area comprehends issues of good governance; participation; shared governance; the relationship between difference and equality in business, government, and non-profit settings, including relationships between boards of directors/trustees and managers; trends in voting; governance developments in developing and transitional states; international market arrangements, especially in finance; and issues of organizational design.
Ethics and Governance . Ethical principles, shared norms, and ideas about rights and obligations play important roles in the governance of diverse realms of interaction. It is important to understand and evaluate the complex ways these conceptual mechanisms underlie, enable and resist contemporary modes of governance.
Global Governance . Governance arrangements at the global level are evolving in a context of economic, technological and political changes. Research can help us understand these trends, studying the groups that influence the transformations on the basis of the interests, norms and institutions that are present in the global arena, such as governments, NGO’s, and multinational corporations.
Knowledge, Complexity and Governance . The issue of how systems of knowledge shape contemporary modes of governance defines a rich research domain. We may ask, on the one hand, whether some governance and knowledge sharing arrangements are more conducive to good governance than others; and, on the other hand, to what extent contemporary governance mechanisms and processes hinder our ability to deal with complex, knowledge specific social and policy challenges.
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Links to Governance Journals
Governance: An International Journal of Policy, Administration and Institutions Edited by: Robert H. Cox, Michael Barzelay - http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0952-1895&site=1
Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Institutions Edited by: Barry Carin, Richard Higgott, Jan Aart Scholte, Gordon Smith, and Diane Stone - http://www.rienner.com/viewbook.cfm?BOOKID=1310
Corporate Governance: An International Review Edited by: William Judge - http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0964-8410&site=1
Regulation & Governance Edited by: John Braithwaite, Cary Coglianese & David Levi-Faur - http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1748-5983&site=1
Economics of Governance Edited by: A. Glazer and K.A. Konrad - http://www.springerlink.com/content/104744/
International Journal of Electronic Governance (IJEG) Edited by: Panagiotis Georgiadis - http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=128#objectives
Journal of Management and Governance Edited by: Roberto D. Pietra - http://www.springerlink.com/content/102940/
International Journal of Disclosure and Governance Edited by: John Friedland - http://www.palgrave-journals.com/jdg/index.html
International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics (IJBGE) Edited by: Pervaiz K. Ahmed http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=70&year=2004&vol=1&issue=1
Links to Governance Research Institutes Worldwide
The Conference Board. This nonprofit membership organization, along with its Global Corporate Governance Research Center, regularly releases survey-based publications and reports, available online for a fee. - http://www.conference-board.org/knowledge/governance.cfm
European Corporate Governance Network (ECGN). This site provides an excellent list by country of governance codes, policies, and recommendations. ECGN is a nonprofit research network based at the European Centre for Advanced Studies in Economics and Statistics at the Universite Libre de Bruxelles. http://www.ecgi.org/
Australia/Pacific
City University of Hong Kong, Governance in Asia Research Centre - http://www.cityu.edu.hk/garc
Keio University, Graduate School of Media & Governance - http://www.mag.keio.ac.jp/index-e.html
University of Canberra, National Institute for Governance - http://governance.canberra.edu.au/
Africa
University of Durban- Westville, School of Governance Public Administration - http://www.udw.ac.za/faculties/lawecoman/gov/pubadmin/staff.html
European Universities/Institutes
University of Birmingham, Birmingham Business School Centre for Corporate Governance Research - http://www.business.bham.ac.uk/ccgr/overview.htm
The Global Corporate Governance Research Centre - http://www.conference-board.org/products/c-corporate.cfm
London School of Economics, The Centre for the Study of Global Governance - http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/global/
Queen's University, Belfast, Institute of Governance - http://www.governance.qub.ac.uk/
University of Warwick , Institute of Governance & Public Management - http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wbs/igpm/
North America
University of Ottawa , Center on Governance - http://www.socialsciences.uottawa.ca/governance/eng/
San Diego State University , Corporate Governance Institute - http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/corpgov/
Simon Fraser University, Institute of Governance Studies, Canada - http://www.sfu.ca/igs/
Center for Corporate Governance, Tuck School of Business - http://mba.tuck.dartmouth.edu/ccg/
UCLA Center for Governance - http://www.cfg.ucla.edu/index.php
