Re: EOnation: Finance & "the Knowledge Economy"

[Shann Turnbull <sturnbull@mba1963.hbs.edu>]

Dear Bob

Parts of the answer to your question may be in the paper I will be 
presenting next month to the First European Conference on Corporate 
Governance.  The abstract set out below ends with the statement that "This 
makes unitary boards inconsistent with convergence and knowledge intensive 
or network firms seeking to bond human capital with employee ownership"

"Why unitary boards are not best practice: A case for compound boards"

                      ABSTRACT

The paper identifies the manifold conflicts of interest inherent in firms 
governed by a unitary board and how they exacerbate information overload 
and bounded rationality while paradoxically not providing sufficient 
information, independent of management, to direct, monitor, control, and 
change management.  Compound boards introduce a division of power to 
mediate conflicts, allow access to superior feedback information from 
stakeholders, and enhance the cybernetic integrity of how a firm is 
governed.  Transaction byte analysis is used to explain bounded rationality 
and identify how compound boards decompose decision making 
labour.  Compound boards are identified as a necessary condition for 
reducing the cost of finance and developing (i) holonic architecture, (ii) 
social tensegrity, (iii) self-regulation and self-governance, (v) 
sustainable employee and/or other stakeholder participation in governance, 
and (vi) superior performance.  This makes unitary boards inconsistent with 
convergence and knowledge intensive or network firms seeking to bond human 
capital with employee ownership.

If the full paper could be of interest I can send it to you by e-mail.

Regards

Shann Turnbull

At 08:08 PM 19/10/2000, Bob Allan wrote:
>I have been doing some policy work in the UK on financing  employee
>ownership in the knowledge economy. I am  interested in contacting other 
>researchers who are focusing on employee owned  firm in the internet 
>world. Any suggestions?

Shann Turnbull
P.O. Box 266 Woollahra, Sydney, Australia, 1350
Phone: 02 9328 7466 office; 02 9327 8487 home
Fax: 02 9327 1497 home & office.  Mobile 0418 222 378
Outside Australia, replace first "0" with "61" after international access code
Life long E-mail: 
sturnbull@mba1963.hbs.edu  Alternate:sturnbull@optusnet.com.au
http://members.optusnet.com.au/~sturnbull/index.html