Dr. Onyeka Osuji, Reader in Law, has been busy this year publishing and presenting his research at an international conference. Here are a few updates on his recent activities:

Corporate Governance Publications

Edited book: F Ngwu, O Osuji, C Ogbechie and D Williamson (eds), Enhancing Board Effectiveness: Institutional, Regulatory and Functional Perspectives for Developing and Emerging Markets (Routledge 2019).

Enhancing Board Effectiveness seeks to examine the conceptualization and role of the board in a variety of contexts and articulate solutions for improving the effectiveness of the board, especially in developing and emerging markets. Enhancing Board Effectiveness therefore addresses the following central questions:

1. To what extent is the concept and role of the board evolving?
2. What rights, powers, responsibilities and other contemporary and historical experiences can enhance the effectiveness of the board, especially in the particular contexts of developing and emerging markets?
3. What socio-economic, political, regulatory and institutional factors/actors influence the effectiveness of the board and how can the policies and practices of such actors exert such influences?
4. In what ways can a reconstructed concept of the board serve as a tool for theoretical, analytical, regulatory and pragmatic assessment of its effectiveness?

In examining these issues, Enhancing Board Effectiveness investigates theoretical, socio-economic, historical, empirical, regulatory, comparative and inter-disciplinary approaches. Academics in the relevant fields of accounting, behavioural psychology/economics, development studies, financial regulation, law and management/organizational studies, political economy and, public administration will find this book of high interest.

Book chapter: O Osuji, ‘Club Theory and Performance Evaluation’ in F Ngwu, O Osuji, C Ogbechie and D Williamson (eds), Enhancing Board Effectiveness: Institutional, Regulatory and Functional Perspectives for Developing and Emerging Markets (Routledge 2019).

This chapter applies the club theoretic model to contextualise voluntary clubs in public interest regulation through corporate governance, particularly in the developing and emerging markets. Drawing on the political theory of corporation and the institutional perspective, the chapter proposes an enforced self-regulatory system for directors’ individual and collective performance evaluation that centres on voluntary clubs and is propped by facilitative public regulation. It argues that when voluntary clubs are properly and legally equipped to effectively perform corporate governance regulatory roles, directors, shareholders, market participants, stakeholders and society can all benefit.

While it frames corporate governance clubs within regulatory institutional frameworks, the chapter demonstrates the impact of voluntary rules, standards and procedures on individual director and board effectiveness and therefore aligns private governance with broader society expectations. It highlights internal, external and independent quantitative and qualitative methods for evaluating board performance and demonstrates how barriers to improvement can be identified and tackled and how positive factors for effectiveness can be recognised and improved on.

The proposals include research, training, education and other methods for continuous individual and collective development, operation of stringent voluntary clubs at industry and sub-sector levels, preventative, retributive and corrective enforcement measures, club membership as a prerequisite, performance-related certification, licensing and disqualification, and facilitative public regulation. 

Corporate Responsibility Publications

Book chapter: O Osuji, ‘Tackling Corruption through Corporate Social Responsibility’ in J Ellis (ed), Corruption, Social Sciences and the Law: Exploration Across the Disciplines (Routledge 2019)

This chapter examines how corporate social responsibility (CSR) can be used as an effective solution to official corruption, especially in developing countries. Despite wide-ranging legal interventions, official corruption persists as a significant public interest issue for various reasons. It is shown that the law’s limited scope and effectiveness has engendered alternative and complementary anti-corruption regulation opportunities within the scope of CSR. Ideally, CSR can help to identify gaps in substantive law and enforcement process and how to plug them. However, the anti-corruption impact of CSR seems modest to date.

The chapter proceeds to establish the theoretical linkages between CSR and anti-corruption principally through the political CSR, governance CSR and institutional theoretic models. It identifies effective self-regulation, accountability and responsible global leadership as the core principles of an anti-corruption CSR paradigm before outlining its components. It demonstrates how corporate conscience, whistleblowing and individual and collective responsibility can overcome informal signals and ends with a restatement of the challenges and opportunities in using CSR for anti-corruption promotion. Before concluding, the chapter outlines certain steps corporations can undertake to demonstrate anti-corruption CSR.

Conference paper: Dr. Osuji was invited to present at the Sixth Annual Conference of the Kuwait International Law School (May 2019) a paper entitled ‘Corporate Social Responsibility, Stakeholder Needs and Sustainable Development: Overcoming Contextual and Regulatory Challenges through the Values Paradigm’.

The emergence of sustainable development as a matter of global concern has been complemented by the recognition of the roles of different segments of society in promoting it. As the Sustainable Development Goals 2015 (SDGs) exemplify, corporations and other private stakeholders are increasingly regarded as active partners in the sustainable development agenda. The tools for advancing corporate and stakeholder involvement in sustainable development therefore includes corporate social responsibility (CSR), which was originally conceived as a voluntary management tool.

Four elements of CSR are arguably critical in relation to sustainable development. First, despite its traditional conception, one of the consequences of the growing global influence of CSR is that corporations, especially the large, high profile and consumer-facing ones, realistically do not have the option of ‘doing nothing’ with regards to socio-economic issues such as sustainable development. Second, the stakeholder framework of CSR implicitly acknowledges contextualism while sustainable development, as the SDGs show, also accept contextual priorities. Third, notwithstanding the universalist/internationalist theory, the concept of glocalisation recognises that local and global standards can co-exist in a mutually reinforcing manner. The fourth significant factor is the emergent recognition of CSR as a potential complementary regulatory tool by public and private authorities (Osuji, 2015; Osuji and Obibuaku, 2016). As exemplified by regulatory actions in some jurisdictions, the regulation of CSR enables its application to suit the sustainable development agenda of specific jurisdictional contexts. Overall, orthodox CSR practice seems to have followed a ‘stakeholder needs’ approach which can adapt CSR to promote sustainable development as a voluntary or regulated activity. 

Nonetheless, the following questions arise:

Drawing on the institutional, including Scott (2001, 2008), and stakeholder theoretic models, this paper argues that a stakeholder needs CSR model may be inadequate for advancing sustainable development, especially in an emerging country context. The issues this raises include disguised motivations, insufficient clarity of goals, unintended assumption of legal responsibility and covert corruption. An alternative to the stakeholder needs model is the values approach which has sociological and institutional foundations.

The paper demonstrates that a values paradigm is feasible and may be an imperative aid for applying the stakeholder needs CSR model to sustainable development. The values paradigm can improve effectiveness of a regulated CSR as a sustainable development promotion and private regulation mechanism.  

Corporate Regulation Publication

Edited book: J Griffin, HK Chan, O Osuji and H Choo, 3D Printing: the development of a technical licensing framework with a focus on China (Routledge 2019).

The book is an output of the AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) funded project, entitled ‘A Technological Licensing Framework for 3D Printed Content: A Focus on China’.

More specifically, it is a collection of materials, relating to empirical interviews, a work placement, workshops and publications that have been carried out in one of the world leading research projects into the legal impact of 3D printing. The project was funded by the AHRC and Newton Fund, and was largely carried out within China. It was designed to establish the perceived legal challenges faced by 3D printing companies, as well as a technical framework for an operational automated technical licensing system.

The main research questions addressed by this work are the following:

1. How can an automated licensing platform framework enable 3D printing companies to licence 3D printed content and files in new ways? Examples would be online databases and/or the printing of 3D computer game characters.
2. What is an effective technological solution to online licensing of 3D content?
3. What is the impact of such a system upon copyright law, in particular copyright law in China and copyright law internationally?
4. How will this pioneer the development of law that is digital in nature?