Corporate Values Part IX – Aspen Principles

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This is a group I have recently come across:

The Aspen Corporate Values Strategy Group (CVSG) is focused on promoting changes in corporate and investment practice, as well as in public policy, to support long-term orientation in business decision making and investing. Short-term pressures in today’s capital markets restrict the ability of business to do what it does best—create quality goods and services, invest in innovation, and develop human capital. Rebalancing the short-term/long-term focus of business will make it possible to bring a wider view to the role of business, one that encompasses both fiscal and societal well-being.

They write in the attached document below:

The Aspen Principles represent an unprecedented consensus among companies, investors, and corporate governance professionals. In subscribing to these principles, and moving to implement them in their own organizations, subscribers are leading by example and taking a stand that a long-term focus is critical to long-term value creation.

As operating companies and institutional investors, we agree to:

• Work together and with others in the spirit of continuous improvement and ongoing communication, dedicating real resources to identifying and testing best practices for creating long-term value at our own firms;
• Support each other’s efforts to promote metrics, communications, and executive compensation that create long-term value; and
• Support each other even in the face of internal and external pressures to compromise on these principles and default to short-term thinking.
• We issue these principles as a call to action, and urge adoption of the Principles among other operating companies and investors. We believe the Aspen Principles, broadly adopted, can quite literally transform our capital markets – reinvigorating the ability of business to serve as the driver of long-term economic growth on a national scale, and to more fully serve the public good.

We particularly encourage boards of directors to consider the appropriate means to implement these principles.

There are some very useful ideas in this short document and if it suits you I am sure they would love to talk to you in more detail.

http://viewer.docstoc.com/
Aspen Principles –

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