This book offers insight in the teaching of moral dimensions and ethical aspects of professional responsibilities and corporate governance. It is premised on the proposition that professionals in financial services are of paramount social importance and significance. While one might have expected that financial service providers occupy universal respect society it has on the contrary met with criticism particularly in the wake of high profile corporate collapses and the global financial crisis.

This book is a timely reminder for financial service professionals of their role in the highly competitive and complex business environment. This book is based on one key theme: the long-term viability of companies, and professional reputations, that is dependent on the effective and ethical interactions of individuals and organisational governing bodies. Ethical dispositions underpin behaviours, which collectively, provide the framework for good leadership and good governance. This book aims to build the foundation for professional ethics in client-based and company contexts by offering a rich base of knowledge, theories and principles, flowing with practical examples of best practice to help set one’s professional career on a ‘good’ path.

In general, this book is useful for those about to commence a career in business and seek an introduction to the basic principles of ethics and governance. Chapter 1 introduces various concepts of ethics and governance that are used throughout the remaining chapters of the book. In particular, we draw attention to the nature of ethics, ethical decision making, why ethics is important to our everyday working lives and why well-intentioned people do not always make good decisions in real-world contexts. The following chapters (chapters 2-13) are structured on three different perspectives.

The first section of this book (Chapters 2 and 3) examines classical notions of ethics (consequentialism, deontology and agent-based ethics) to provide the foundation in understanding ethics and the knowledge required to make principled-based ethical decisions. While this section may on the surface appear to be highly philosophical, they are for the most part a reflection of how we make decisions in our everyday lives.

The second section of this book (chapters 3 to 8) deals with the notion of professionalism and ethics in professional practice as well as organisational contexts. In this section, we begin to understand what it means to be a professional by highlighting fiduciary responsibilities to those who rely on the services we provide. To this end, chapters 4 and 5 outline in some detail professional responsibilities and codes of ethics. This section also alerts you to the problems that are typically faced by professionals in public practice (Chapter 6) while chapters 7 and 8 examine ethics from an organisational perspective and the problems that are typically faced by professionals employed in a corporate environment.

The third and final section of the book looks at corporate ethics in a regulated environment while integrating the debate on corporate governance. Chapters 9 to 11 examine the notion of corporate governance, agency theory (chapter 9) and the mechanisms that help reduce the agency problem (chapter 10). In chapter 11 we offer a closer examination of role of boards and executive remuneration in controlling the agency problem that are widely regarded as central to corporate governance. Whilst chapters 9 to 11 are not culturally specific, they are generally based on governance systems developed and relied upon in Anglo-Saxon countries such as Australia, the UK and the US. Chapters 12 and 13 on the other hand, adopt a global perspective of governance and examine different country systems that vary in thinking and approach.