Corporate Ethical Training: An Answer to White-Collar Crimes

The modern business corporation is a culturally significant component of American Society. It is facing a cultural invasion of the highest order. The categorical imperative, an unconditional principle that rational individuals must follow despite natural desires or inclinations to do otherwise, is today being called into question. This is most likely the result of grounding moral values upon information that is transient and unstable rather than upon established data. The social contract, which governs the formation and maintenance of individual morals, is a requirement in organizations that demands collective agency – employees acting together to set forth moral rules of behavior and eschew pernicious leanings and tendencies. From that perspective, ethical training becomes a key leveraging point in the disconnect between cultural expectations and individual behaviors in corporate America.

LEGAL REGULATION OF COMMERCIAL SECRETS IN THE LEGISLATION OF UKRAINE

The article analyses legal regulation of trade secret phenomenon in Ukrainian legislation as well as initiates ways of above-mentioned legislation improvement. Due to the process of information society formation in Ukraine, the issues of security and protection of rights for information resources of different access level enter into in the foreground of scientific discussions. Thus, there is intensive growth practical interest to trade secrets and other related concepts. One type of confidential information is the so-called �trade secret�. The issue of protection of trade secrets is not in fact a matter of protection of information security, because one of the main characteristics that determines the mode of access to trade secrets is the ownership of this information. The article describes the development of legislation devoted to trade secret at the contemporary stage as well as emergence of essential economic and legal conditions in Ukraine for practical implementation of legal mechanisms of commercially valuable information security and protection. The above-mentioned factors determine urgency of the issue. So called �trade secret� is a king of classified information. The issue of trade secret protection at is core is not in the framework of information security; by virtue of the fact that the key characteristic that influences the access mode to trade secret is the right of ownership of this information. The definition of trade secrets given in the Civil Code of Ukraine is formulated taking into account modern international legal approaches to the understanding of trade secrets (TRIPS and NAFTA) and at the appropriate legal and technical level, although not without certain shortcomings. This definition has a cross-sectoral significance in the system of legislation of Ukraine and is applied when clarifying the content and qualifications of not only civil but also labor, administrative, criminal, procedural and other legal relations. The aim of the article is to analyze domestic legislation in order to expose the essence of trade secret and related concepts. The author determines that the establishing of information constituting a commercial secret list, which cannot be restricted to business entities access, is not sufficient. There is the need at the level of legislation to establish a special mechanism and general criteria for determining information as s trade secret. It would help citizens to exercise their right to file requests to private business corporation. During the writing of the article the following conclusions were reached. In the case of crimes against trade secrets, in fact, the criminality of the act is determined not by law, but by order of the owner of the information or the head of the enterprise, which is not a legal act. In our opinion, this situation is absurd, especially given the imperfection of the legislation governing the ownership of information. Therefore, two ways to solve the problem can be proposed, either by legislatively establishing an exhaustive list of information that can be declared a trade secret, or by abolishing criminal liability

Corporate governance issues surrounding executive compensation and executive severance

This paper seeks to explain why and how executive severances of publicly-traded Canadian and U.S. companies have reached the financial levels they have, generating public and shareholder outrage and causing governments on both sides of the border to introduce new legislation. The paper investigates the role of the CEO, boards and shareholders in the setting of executive compensation. As the origins ofthe three roles lie in business corporation law, the legislative framework of Canadian and U.S. companies is presented to permit the reader to understand the legal accountabilities and rights of each of the three parties. The paper identifies that executives may exercise substantial influence over boards, possibly impeding effective governance. The paper concludes that effective governance, including greater board independence and board competence in executive compensation matters will help to improve board functioning and minimize the effects of the agency problem, cronyism and managerial power.

Corporate governance issues surrounding executive compensation and executive severance

This paper seeks to explain why and how executive severances of publicly-traded Canadian and U.S. companies have reached the financial levels they have, generating public and shareholder outrage and causing governments on both sides of the border to introduce new legislation. The paper investigates the role of the CEO, boards and shareholders in the setting of executive compensation. As the origins ofthe three roles lie in business corporation law, the legislative framework of Canadian and U.S. companies is presented to permit the reader to understand the legal accountabilities and rights of each of the three parties. The paper identifies that executives may exercise substantial influence over boards, possibly impeding effective governance. The paper concludes that effective governance, including greater board independence and board competence in executive compensation matters will help to improve board functioning and minimize the effects of the agency problem, cronyism and managerial power.

The Value of Trust as a «Glue» of a Modern University’s Corporate Culture

The article states the stratification of the university’s corporate culture as its traditional cultural base into the institutional and administrative (realizing the «third mission» of the university and bearing the tendency of its transformation into a business corporation) and the culture of the teaching staff (which has preserved the traditional university functions) and culture. There are suggested ways to eliminate this mismatch.The authors substantiate the role and significance of the ideological attitude of the university’s corporate culture to trust as a «glue» of its stratified cultural base, which maintains a balance between the traditional and modern university’s mission (the concept of «glue» is suggested by the Russian researcher L. Gudkov, who uses this term to denote a mechanism holding society together into a unity and a whole).The methodology of conceptual reasoning is based on a sociocultural approach that suggests considering changes of any social institution in the context of responding to the challenge of the globalized world of network structures and market relations.The article identifies the causes and consequences of lacking coordination in the cultural base of the university.Communicative rationality, which, as a style of scientific and philosophical thinking, initiates the construction of modern social ontologies, is proven to be a possible complementarity instrument («glue») of the two university cultures. It is argued that today trust reveals its not only psychological, but also ontological and epistemological significance, orienting both components of corporate culture towards their unity in implementing of the university’s research and educational missions together with its «third mission».The article originally defines the university’s corporate culture as focused on the formation of students’ trust as a key factor of sparing life in the modern world with its ideological, economic, and political tensions. On this basis, it is proposed to form a university management strategy and to restructure the educational process.