Synchronizing Individual Corporate Self-Interest Goals and Sector Development Responsibilities: The BC Seafood Processing Industry Experience

In recent years, policy makers and regulators have increasingly focused their attention on reforms that would enhance the legal and institutional framework within which corporations operate. Central to these efforts is the question of corporate governance, that is, the adoption of value-maximizing norms and strategies regulating the decision-making process within a corporation. The review of corporate governance structures in this chapter describes four modes of decision making that display the positive responsibility models of corporate decision-making. The first model involves internal enterprise decision-making processes designed to more fully engage both labour and management in the overall definition and implementation of best practices and new business opportunities. The second model involves enterprises in joint decision making in the best interest of the sector; often the focus is on the human resource. The third model, the value chain, involves a series of businesses working together in order to respond more strategically to changes in the market. The fourth model is a regional decision-making process where a number of value chains operate in concert based on the global competitive advantage to be gained through inter-sectoral and intra-sectoral collaboration. An enterprise can operate following all four models or engage in any model independently of the others. Our contention is that a company that engages in these types of decision-making processes can meet the goal of corporate social responsibility without jeopardizing the decision-making authority or interests of the shareholder.