Finance and Strategy Inside China by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789811328411
Publisher: Springer Singapore

2 A Conceptual Overview

2.1 Company Secretaries and Corporate Governance

Company secretaries are the name used in the British and other European companies. There are also other names for this important role in other countries. The American companies usually use the title of corporate secretaries, and in China, board secretaries or board of director secretaries are used to identify the key role to connect the board of directors and the top management team led by chief executive officers.

In this book chapter, we intentionally use the term of Company Secretary to concord with international English literature, but in China the term of Board Secretary (Chinese translation) is much more popular in business practice.

In Western countries, the job title “secretary” can refer to a variety of organizational positions or job roles, which could be very high or pretty low. It is the same as in China. The “secretary” as translated into an English word, also can be a large range of jobs, and however, could be classified with two categories: the party secretary (in Communist Party of China system) and administrative secretary (in governmental and organizational system). In Chinese, the party secretary pronounces as Shu Ji, and the administrative secretary pronounces as Mu Shu, and the two “secretaries” are also in different spelling letters. The former normally refers a key leadership or managerial role in different levels; and the later can be an important role but definitely not a key role in any levels, and mostly an assistant role in organizations.

As for the role of party secretary, it is the most powerful role in governmental agencies, and a very powerful in non-profit organizations, but not so powerful in companies, especially in some companies such as privately-owned companies, and public listed companies. Although all large companies have a Committee of CPC and the role of party secretary, the key leadership roles in companies are the Chair of Board of Directors, and the General Manager or CEO, rather than the party secretary. If the party secretary wants to be more powerful in decision-making and other corporate aspects, he or she must take a key administrative role such as Chair of Board Directors, Board Director or CEO (mostly the Chair).

As for the role of company secretary (or board secretary), it is only existed in the public listed companies, and the role is very important but not the most impotent. In these companies, the role of company secretary is higher in ranking and more powerful in management than the role of party secretary. Of course, a party secretary theoretically could become a company secretary, and vice versa.

Company secretaries derive from the corporate governance design in the British industrial revolution. In the early stage of this secretarial profession, the person in this position usually acts as a secretary to assist the board chair and other directors in their daily operations and communication. What are the functions of company companies in modern times? The answers lie in how they serve the corporations. In modern corporate governance mechanisms, company secretaries work

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