The digital age : corporate governance and the active role of the shareholder

Abstract

The term paper in question deals with ‘The Digital Age: Corporate Governance and the Active Role of Shareholder’, which basically involves the management of a company and the roles and powers of a shareholder within a company, but in relation to digitisation. Digitisation was not sought after, until people started to depend on technological devices and instruments in order to go about with their daily routines and also at their work place. This is why the European Union has involved itself in many discussions and conferences in order to involves its Member States into a more digitised and technological era, which in turn enhances communication, transparency, accessibility and permanency. There have been in fact many proposals and debates with regard to issues such as e-voting, filing systems, inputting data into computerised systems and also amongst many others on-line registrations of a company. This poses an advantage when dealing with cross-border companies in the sense that communication is made easier by means of technological devices; procedures are less time consuming and also less costly. On the other hand, digitisation may be seen as disadvantageous on the ground that too much accessibility and transparency may influence a person when it comes to the processing of one’s data from one company to another. This is why data protection rules must always be followed together with the rules and regulations which are set out in each and every company, which may vary from one another. The role of the shareholder will also be viewed in great detail because it is quite interesting to see how they influence a company and their many powers in aiding in the management of a company. Although the shareholders appoint the Board of Directors of a company, any decision which is taken by the directors is always returned to the shareholders in order to give their consent on the decision in general meetings.