ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a personal account of governance with regard to control and with regard to achieving excellence. It summarises the two dominant governance models—the Anglo-Saxon and Continental Europe. The chapter explores the increasing trend towards the growth of the Continental stakeholder model. It also explores a governance structure that enables employee ownership and the benefits that may flow from employee ownership in terms of real-ising the good dividends. Corporate governance is the system by which companies are directed and controlled. Boards of directors are responsible for the governance of their companies. The aim of shareholder governance is to enable investors to secure the best returns on their investment by making strategic changes. Within family businesses the owner-managers are placed in a different context and a potentially different set of governance needs. In the way that responsible leadership enables the good dividends, then governance overseas and controls the realisation of the good dividends.
