This module is designed to provide students with an overview of important issues in the field of corporate governance. The study of corporate governance focuses on how, by whom and for whose benefit commercial and other organisations are controlled. Our primary focus in this module is on public corporations. The limited company is defined in part by the ‘separation of ownership and control.’ That is, that the people who direct and control the corporation and its resources very often do not actually ‘own’ it. Rather, in publicly listed companies at least, a diffuse and diverse body of shareholders are thought to hold a range of property rights. How, so the core corporate governance dilemma goes, is the organisation to be constructed so that the directors do not divert resources to themselves rather than working for the benefit of shareholders? What social role does the corporation have?
Researching an approved legal topic under supervision and presenting the results as a dissertation or report of 12,000 words maximum
What motivates legal research? In addition to the principles and methods that guide the design and implementation of a specific research project, we also ought to have some sense of the broader ‘research programme’ or ‘theoretical framework’ that animates our work. Students will be introduced to several important theoretical frameworks and research programmes from which they might draw some helpful inspiration. Legal scholarship is no longer limited to the analysis of legal doctrine. Many legal scholars engage in empirically-oriented research that investigates how law interacts with other social phenomena. Legal scholars hope to illuminate the causal connections between law and other aspects of the social world. Legal research of this kind is rewarding but it also comes with special methodological challenges. This module will introduce students to some fundamental principles of research design and methodology, covering both ‘qualitative’ and ‘quantitative’ social science methods.