Law, Corporate Governance and Partnerships at Work A Study of Australian Regulatory Style and Business Practice

This book examines how businesses manage their labour systems, and particularly how they manage the complex interaction of factors which give rise to instances of 'partnership' style relations between businesses and their employees. The book draws from the literature concerning 'Varieties of Capitalism' (VoC) and the different institutional and regulatory designs inherent in different types of political economy. The book is informed by a new and extensive set of empirical data from Australia that examines the activities of national and multinational business corporations, their outlooks and relationships with stakeholders, and relates these to new and evolving theoretical frameworks based in political economy and law. The book places the Australian regulatory model within this international debate, and assesses the extent to which the system does or does not fit into the general categorisation created in the VoC literature.

Preface; Chapter 1 Corporate Governance, Employment Systems and Workplace Partnerships in Australia; Chapter 2 Law and Regulatory Style in Australian Corporate Governance and Employment Systems; Chapter 3 Corporate Governance and the Management of Labour; Chapter 4 Attitudes and Outlooks of Australian Company Directors to Stakeholders; Chapter 5 The Interaction of Corporate Governance and Labour Management in Australian Companies; Chapter 6 Postscript;

Richard Mitchell is Professor in Labour Law in the Department of Business Law and Taxation at Monash University. He is author of numerous books, chapters, journal articles and research reports. He edited the Australian Journal of Labour Law from 1988- 2002, and is a former Director of the Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law, Melbourne Law School. Anthony O'Donnell is Senior Lecturer in the School of Law at La Trobe University. He is the author of numerous publications in the area of labour law and corporate governance. Shelley Marshall is Senior Lecturer, Department of Business Law and Taxation at Monash University. She has published on aspects of corporate governance and corporate responsibility. Ian Ramsay is Harold Ford Professor of Commercial Law at the University of Melbourne where he is Director of the Centre for Corporate Law and Securities Regulation. He is the author of numerous books, chapters and journal articles. He is also a member of the Takeovers Panel, the Companies Auditors and Liquidators Disciplinary Board, and the Corporations Law Committee of the Law Council of Australia among other positions. Meredith Jones is a Senior Advisor for Research and Analysis, State Service Authority, Victorian Government. She carries out research on values and ethics in the public sector. She was previously a researcher for the project on which this book is based.