Germany Denmark France and Italy Governance Codes

Governance Codes: Germany, Denmark, France and Italy
Although all four nations are members of the European Union and share notable similarities in their capitalist economic structures, Germany, Denmark, France and Italy also have historically exhibited some distinct differences in their corporate governance. For example, much like in the United States, in Germany and Italy the CEO and Chairman of the Board of directors is often the same figure, to ensure coherency of policies; in Denmark and France, these are usually fulfilled by different functionaries to ensure greater independent oversight and presumably more ethical independence of the board when advancing the interests of shareholders (Vintila & Raluca, 2015). German firms also have historically had a two-tier corporate board governing them, versus France and Italy, where corporations have a choice of one or two-tier levels of corporate governance (“Comparative Corporate Governance,” n.d.). But according to Baker (2006), although there has been considerable diversity in capitalist models between all the European Union nations, the greater consolidation of their economies, combined with the influence of the United States as a model of profitability, has caused a shift to a more American-style government code in many nations.
A good example of this, according to Baker (2006) is “the amendment of German corporate law in 1998 to include the ‘protection of shareholder value’ as a valid corporate objective for the first time in German history,” despite the fact that the idea that shareholder enrichment alone should be the objective of the firm has been commonly advocated in US economic theory and practice for many years (p.4). In other corporate governance codes, particularly those of the so-called “Mediterranean capitalist” countries of France and Italy, there has been a much stronger emphasis on protecting the rights of workers over shareholders (Baker, 2006, p.4). The great benefit of this is that homogeneity acts as a facilitator of economic cooperation in many instances, which is essential for corporations to thrive in the new, global economy. The downside to this is that many protections by workers have been lost as well as, arguably, a more retrained approach to profitability which can result in more ethical and sustainable actions by the firm.
References
Baker, J. (2006). Insiders, outsiders, and change in European corporate governance. Council for
European Studies Retrieved from: http://councilforeuropeanstudies.org/files/Papers/Barker.pdf
Comparative corporate governance. (n.d.). Retrieved from:
https://www2.ubishops.ca/faculty/cvalsan/corporategovernance/textmorecomparativecg.p df
Vintila, G. & Raluca, G. (2015). Comparative analysis regarding the principles contained in the
corporate governance code. Journal of Public Administration, Finance and Law, 7, 89- 97. Retrieved from: http://www.jopafl.com/uploads/issue7/A_COMPARATIVE_APPROACH_TO_CORPO RATE_GOVERNANCE_SYSTEMS_IN_TERMS_OF_CORPORATE_GOVERNANC E_CODES_OF_EMERGING_MARKETS.pdf