Schumpeter: Someone to watch over them

摘要

Is there any limit to the audacity of Scandinavians? Not con-tent with stirring up America's polarised politics by awarding Barack Obama a premature Nobel peace prize, they are also stirring up America's polarised debate on corporate governance.rnThis time the culprits are not the Norwegian politicians who award the peace prize, but the savvy investors who run Norges Bank Investment Management (nbim), which manages a state pension fund of $400 billion, nbim is trying to persuade four American companies-Harris Corporation, Parker Hannifin, Cardinal Health Incorporated and Clorox-to separate the jobs of chief executive and chairman of the board when they next appoint chief executives. The fund has already scored a notable success by persuading Sara Lee to split the two jobs. It says that this is only the beginning of its campaign.