Reference no: EM132965693 , Length: word count:1000
ACCT 6013 Corporate Governance for Managers - Southern Cross University
Assignment 1
Case study: Amazon: president, CEO, and chair
Amazon was started by Jeff Bezos as an online bookseller from his home in Seattle, Washington State. He had previously been vice-president of a Wall Street firm. In July 1994, Bezos incorporated a company in the US state of Washington called Cadabra (from the conjuring phrase ‘abracadabra'). A year later, he incorporated Amazon in the state of Delaware, a state with friendlier companies legislation and company courts. The Cadabra business was backed into the new company.
Amazon then diversified with CDs, videos, and software, adding the downloading and streaming of film, and Kindles and other e-readers when the technology became available. But Amazon's great strength lay in its mastery of cloud computing, allowing it to offer infrastructure worldwide with merchandising platforms for its own and other companies' products. Amazon provides several websites in the USA, and others in Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Holland, India, Japan, and elsewhere. Amazon is the largest retailer in the United States, by market capitalization, having over-taken Walmart since 2015.
Corporate governance at Amazon
Amazon's website has a lot of corporate governance information on its investor relations home page including:
• financial reports;
• SEC filings;
• shareholder letters (including the founder's comments on corporate philosophy and policies);
• press releases on investor matters;
• shareholder webcasts and a webcast archive.
• The founder and other owners connected with him maintain their control over the company with a class of shares that have dominant voting rights.
• The board has twelve members and three standing committees:
• audit committee;
• nominating and corporate governance committees;
• leadership development and compensation committee.
On Wednesday 26 May 2021 Jeff Bezos has announced at the company's annual shareholder meeting that he will formally step down as Amazon CEO on July 5 2021. Andy Jassy, Amazon's cloud-computing boss, will take over Bezos' role.
Discussion questions:
1. Jeff Bezos has the title of president, chief executive officer, and chairman of the board. Some of the members of his board also carry multiple titles such as chairman, president, and CEO. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of such centralization of authority and power in one person.
2. Does Amazon have a well-balanced and effective board? Provide your evaluation and comments.
Assignment 2
1. Amazon (AMZN) - Top 5 largest companies in the World. Shares trade on the Nasdaq
Recent news:
Jeff Bezos to formally step down as Amazon CEO on July 5, Andy Jassy to take over. Once he steps down, Bezos will transition to executive chairman of Amazon's board.
The Seattle-based tech and online retail giant reported sales of $113bn for the three months between April and June - over $1.4bn a day. The figure was up from $88.9bn in the second quarter of 2020 but slightly lower than Wall Street had expected, and triggered a 5% slide in its share price in after-hours trading.
Amazon was one of the biggest winners of the pandemic as consumers switched more of their shopping online and businesses used its Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud- computing unit to shift business online.
Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) became the latest casualty of a tough earnings season on Friday, dropping more than 7.5% after missing Q2 2021 revenue expectations and issuing weak Q3 guidance. The e-commerce juggernaut earned $15.12 per-share, beating estimates by $2.88, while revenue grew 27.2% year-over-year to $113.08 billion, about $2 billion below consensus.
Other headlines report: The net worth of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos dropped by $13.5bn after the company reported earnings that were below the expectations of analysts.
Assignment Guidance
• Two short responses of 500-625 words each
• Maximum 1,250 words excluding reference list
• No ToC, No Executive Summary, No Conclusion needed
• Headings for each Q are fine and can help with structure
• 12pt, Times New Roman font, 1.5 spacing recommended
• Minimum 8 references. Maximum 14 References
• Minimum 4 peer-reviewed journal articles
Q1. Concentration of power:
Advantages? Disadvantages? Possible research search terms?
Recent example of concentration of power - Corporate fraud in Nasdaq listed company
- Nikola (NKLA) EV company
- former Executive Chairman of electric vehicle company Nikola, has been charged two counts of securities fraud and one count of wire fraud by a federal grand jury
Is this the result of a concentration of power?
Amazon working conditions
Q2. What is a well-balanced and effective board?
Balance?
- Director appointment
- female representation
- ethnic diversity
- leadership Effectiveness?
Tricker (2019, pp.430-431) outlines the six Cs:
- Commitment to M, V, S
- Culture - often reflected by the personal values and integrity of directors
- Collaboration - working as a team, communicating openly
- Competence - experience, skills and knowledge
- Creativity - encouraging unconventional ideas
- Contribution - achievement oriented board aiming to achieve goals and contribute to performance and position of company
Attachment:- Corporate Governance for Managers.rar