A Guide to the fundamentals of sound Board governance
"Time's Up?" - Evaluating the Value for Money (VFM) of Board governance
In principle, a Board's VFM to stakeholders is the ratio of gross value-added (GVA) to gross cost (GC). So, the evaluation of board effectiveness/VFM should ideally include the experienced and skilled estimates of both factors.
This GC research that is being updated contributes to that process and should be replicated in other contexts. Of course, the reasonable assessment of GVA is much more fiendishly difficult!
It is, however, increasingly evident that many traditional models of the evaluation of Board GVA are unduly narrow in scope and can benefit from the insights of modern social and business behavioural sciences. Given the increasingly worrisome impact of corporate behaviour on the sustainability of societies and on the natural environment, the time for 20th century evaluations of Board GVA must surely have ended. Nature's unleashing of COVID 19 is surely a declaration to humanity of "time's up"!
Responsible Boards will be demanding insights that deploy credible social and business science knowledge to assist them in the effective discharge of their duty of care to all stakeholders.
Coping with COVID's Threat to Audit Quality
Coping with COVID's Threat to Audit Quality
"...The ability of entities to obtain data essential to the preparation of financial statements is considerably affected, particularly for those with significant operations in countries severely affected by COVID-19. This will result in delays in receiving financial data from subsidiaries or components for group audits and will be further exacerbated as more and more audit firm employees shift to working remotely. In some countries, secondments from other jurisdictions – relied on by audit firms to meet demand in busy periods – have been curtailed.
In such testing times, auditors are looking to develop and leverage alternative procedures to audit clients’ financial statements. By harnessing available technology, they may be able to better fulfil their audit obligations, mandatory isolation notwithstanding..."