Recent years have seen a number of scandals that have revealed sometimes shockingly poor standards of corporate governance in well-known companies and shown that some directors had regard only to their own interests while others were hopelessly ineffective. Managers may run a company but it is the job of directors to make sure it is run well and in the right direction.

This is a clear and lively guide to the role and responsibilities of directors, including case studies that illustrate poor standards of corporate governance. The A-Z entries cover such concepts and terms as: Agency theory, Audit Committee, Corporate veil, Deep pocket syndrome, Disclosure, Ethics, Games directors play, Helicopter vision, Keiretsu, Log rolling, Mentor, Non-executive director, Poison pill, Shareholder value, Stakeholder theory, Tokenism, Two hat dilemma, Unitary board, War room, Yakusa, and Zaibatsu.

Extensive appendices provide codes of best practice and checklists that will be of of immense practical help to those involved in setting and raising standards of governance in their organisations.