Law, Corporate Governance and Partnerships at Work

Richard Mitchell is Professor in Labour Law in the Department of Business Law and Taxation at Monash University. He is author of numerous books, chapters, journal articles and research reports. He edited the Australian Journal of Labour Law from 1988- 2002, and is a former Director of the Centre for Employment and Labour Relations Law, Melbourne Law School. Anthony O'Donnell is Senior Lecturer in the School of Law at La Trobe University. He is the author of numerous publications in the area of labour law and corporate governance. Shelley Marshall is Senior Lecturer, Department of Business Law and Taxation at Monash University. She has published on aspects of corporate governance and corporate responsibility. Ian Ramsay is Harold Ford Professor of Commercial Law at the University of Melbourne where he is Director of the Centre for Corporate Law and Securities Regulation. He is the author of numerous books, chapters and journal articles. He is also a member of the Takeovers Panel, the Companies Auditors and Liquidators Disciplinary Board, and the Corporations Law Committee of the Law Council of Australia among other positions. Meredith Jones is a Senior Advisor for Research and Analysis, State Service Authority, Victorian Government. She carries out research on values and ethics in the public sector. She was previously a researcher for the project on which this book is based.

'This is an incisive analysis of the diverse ways that corporations mediate the impact on workers of recent changes in market competition. It is grounded in empirical reality via case studies of corporate governance in Australian companies and surveys of their directors. Theorists who emphasize national institutions, including legal systems, cannot explain why some companies treat their employees as assets and others as commodities. That's why this book is so important.' Sanford M. Jacoby, University of California, Los Angeles, USA 'Law, Corporate Governance and Partnerships at Work makes a fundamental contribution to the understanding of the role of the legal system in shaping corporate governance and workplace relations. It combines a wide-ranging theoretical inquiry with closely-focused empirical work which reveals the dynamics at play in this area of contemporary capitalism, as highlighted by the Australian case.' Simon Deakin, University of Cambridge, UK 'Drawing on the results of an extensive five-year research project, the authors empirically test a range of possible dependencies, and convincingly demonstrate the degree of heterogeneity which characterises different phenomena the law may seek to regulate.' Industrial Law Journal

• Preface; Chapter 1 Corporate Governance, Employment Systems and Workplace Partnerships in Australia; Chapter 2 Law and Regulatory Style in Australian Corporate Governance and Employment Systems; Chapter 3 Corporate Governance and the Management of Labour; Chapter 4 Attitudes and Outlooks of Australian Company Directors to Stakeholders; Chapter 5 The Interaction of Corporate Governance and Labour Management in Australian Companies; Chapter 6 Postscript;