Looking East
Dr Jem Bendell Adjunct Associate Professor, Griffith Business School, Australia Chew Ng Professor of Accounting, Griffith Business School, Australia Niaz Alam Board Member, London Pensions Fund Authority/Senior Associate, Lifeworth As 2008 drew to a close, some of the long-term implications of the financial crisis were beginning to be seen. The shift... Read more
Hungry bubbles
Dr Jem Bendell Adjunct Associate Professor, Griffith Business School, Australia Niaz Alam Board Member, London Pensions Fund Authority/Senior Associate, Lifeworth Barbara Wettstein Research Officer, UNI Finance Global Union Olivier de Schutter: speculation in commodity markets has contributed to hunger Money, money, money. by mid-2008 money was certainly... Read more
Glassed: women and CSR
Dr Jem Bendell Adjunct Associate Professor, Griffith Business School, Australia Sandy Lin Research Associate, Lifeworth In June 2008, the 18th Global Summit of Women was held in Vietnam. Known informally as the ‘Davos for Women’, the Summit attracted over 900 participants from 72 countries and regions.1 The list of sponsors for the Global Summit... Read more
Sexpenses
Dr Jem Bendell Adjunct Associate Professor, Griffith Business School, Australia Lala Rimando Business Editor, Newsbreak magazine, The Philippines Ms Claire Veuthey Research Associate, Lifeworth Consulting, Switzerland Eliot Spitzer: was timing of scandal ‘too convenient’? Those seeking more leadership from government and judiciary on promoting... Read more
Talking Turns
Dr Jem Bendell, Adjunct Associate Professor, Griffith Business School, Australia Chew Ng, Professor of Accounting, Griffith Business School, Australia An important shift in power in the past years, now hastened by the economic crisis that began in 2008, has been away from the Western world, towards the rest of the world, including the East. That shift... Read more
Islamic finance
In November 2008, the US Treasury Department announced that it would convene an ‘Islamic Finance 101’ Forum to teach Islamic Finance to US banking regulatory agencies, Congress and other parts of the executive branch in Washington, DC.1 Collaborating with the Harvard University’s Islamic Finance Project, the purpose of this Forum is ‘to help... Read more
From bail-outs to better capitalism
People began to realise just how bad the situation with the financial industry was when governments began bailing out major banks and insurers. They started in the US, in March 2008, with investment bank Bear Stearns. Then, in the space of ten days in September 2008, the two mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taken over by the federal government... Read more
Inspi(RED) marketing or (RED)wash?
In June 2008 the largest student and alumni network on corporate responsibility, Net Impact, organised its first European conference; or, to be more precise, volunteers from the University of Geneva and INSEAD organised it ably for them. The efforts of students in bringing together hundreds of delegates for a packed programme indicates the importance... Read more
Olympian graft
As well as the year that China first hosts the Olympics, 2008 marked the 30th anniversary of the beginning of that country’s programme of economic reform. The major social and economic changes that have occurred in those 30 years mean that corruption has become a major problem in Chinese society, as temptations have grown and social traditions declined.... Read more
The Power Shift
In the 70’s the Japanese novelist Yasunari Kawabata proclaimed the 21st century to be the Asian Century.3 In the intervening years the growth of technology and industry across many parts of Asia has created a new level of economic power. Being so populous, half of the largest 10 private employers of the world are from Asia.4 Asia’s foreign... Read more
