Who said what to whom capturing the structure of debates

Attendees initiated a lively discussion in the question and answer session following Giddens? One asked about the likelihood of a significant backlash among Europeans against the United States? Giddens acknowledged pockets of anti-Americanism in Europe and said that the future direction of this sentiment was somewhat unpredictable, but he surmised that Europeans would actually miss enlightened American leadership if the U.

As educators and shapers of public opinion, we have a responsibility to build a more enlightened globalized world, and American leadership is an important component of that. Two members of the audience addressed the theme of globalization and inequality. One questioned Giddens? Giddens acknowledged the relationship between these two factors, but he maintained that quality of life does depend on more than just income distribution.

Two countries with similar levels of economic inequality, he argued, can come out very differently on quality of life measures. Another attendee suggested that what really matters to the poor is not inequality or equality, but reducing absolute levels of poverty. In response, Giddens affirmed the importance of both redistribution and growth.

The upper strata may amass significant amounts of wealth during their lifetimes, he noted, but we should not let them pass all of this wealth on to subsequent generations. Redistribution is not the entire answer, however; growth is also crucial. If the gains of economic development can be shared by the poor, everyone will benefit. One member of the audience noted a "governance gap" in development policy and asked about the role of non-governmental organizations.

Giddens acknowledged that NGOs have an important role to play in governance, but that many NGOs are not themselves democratic and that we cannot run the world through NGOs. We still need to shift to a more sophisticated notion of governance, he argued, involving collaborative action of political leaders of the right persuasion.

Another attendee asked about the role of the corporate world in globalization. Giddens replied that he would like to see a new form of responsible capitalism that could profit while spreading the benefits of globalization. He suggested we take another look at the European social model as practiced in Scandinavia. As for specific policies, Giddens encouraged stricter regulation of tax havens and banking practices, to diminish capital flight, improve national economies and also spread social benefit.

Finally, one audience member noted the importance of immigration to continued economic dynamism and asked how Europe would manage this issue. Giddens responded that immigration is perhaps the most fundamental problem to face European democracies in the future. Structural racism runs deep in Europe, and the region has no real history of assimilating ethnically different groups. It will be hard, Giddens noted, for center-left governments to avoid being pulled to the right on the issue of immigration.

The only solution, he surmised, is to combine strict immigration control with good treatment of immigrants once they have arrived. Choose the summary speaker and either a chair or timekeeper from each group Step 5: Prepare the rest of the class Whilst the first three speakers are preparing their speeches: The summary speakers need to think what they think the biggest issues in the debate will be. Their speech will focus on three big issues and show why their side has won those issues.

The chairs, timekeepers and any other pupils should try to think what the other side might say and come up with rebuttal. Leave a reply Cancel You must be logged in to post a comment. Deciding how and how much to pay is particularly challenging. The past few decades have seen a dramatic rise in CEO pay relative to corporate performance and to the pay of the average employee. Some commentators defend the rise in executive pay as justified by the increased complexity and difficulty of the CEO job or by the returns generated for shareholders, but others see it as unmerited, excessive, and unfair.

These laws vary in their particulars but the evidence to date suggests that they have had little impact on executive pay levels, other than to slow the rate of growth in a few jurisdictions.

A more recent effort to curb CEO pay growth in the U. In , the proxy statements of most U. Another challenge for boards is selecting performance measures and setting targets for variable awards under annual bonus and long-term incentive programs.

Other widely used metrics are earnings, returns, sales, and cash flow measures. At the same time more boards are also setting targets using non-financial metrics related to innovation, quality, culture, or other dimensions of corporate strategy, including social and environmental performance. The prevalence of these measures is difficult to gauge but they appear to be gaining ground.

A study of large U. Critics of the prevailing system for selecting, evaluating, and rewarding corporate leaders point to the closed nature of the selection process, the narrowness of standard performance measures, the undue influence of executives whose own forecasts are used to set targets, the excessive complexity of many plans, and the outsized and sometime perverse rewards granted even to those who clearly fail at the job.

Whether valid or not, these criticisms raise a set of questions that every board should consider in carrying out its responsibility to ensure that effective leadership and management are in place.

Resource allocation and strategy. Corporations perform many functions in society one of which is mobilizing financial capital and allocating it to investment opportunities.

Typically, senior managers work with other members of the organization to carry out this activity, while the board plays an oversight role. When corporate resource allocation is done well, companies are able to evolve and renew themselves over time, while at the same time producing a continuous flow of products and services that meet the needs of their customers and a continuous flow of profits that can be re-invested in the business or paid out to shareholders.

In practice, however, resource allocation is extremely difficult, especially when it involves comparing businesses with different strategic characteristics, investments with long time horizons, or innovative projects with uncertain pay-offs—to name a few of the common challenges. The difficulty is compounded by pressures from shareholders with differing objectives, time horizons, and tolerance for risk.

As a consequence many managers give short shrift to strategic and human complexities when making resource allocation decisions and instead rely on standard financial tools such as discounted cash flow analysis.

Thus, factors such as an increase in carbon emissions or potential risks to customers or employees are not typically considered in making these decisions. In recent decades, this process and the resulting allocation of resources have come in for heightened scrutiny.

The growth in share buybacks in recent years has also been cited as further evidence of a bias toward short-term shareholders and declining corporate re-investment though academic opinion on this point is divided. Whatever the verdict on the significance of short-termism in the aggregate—which also remains a matter of debate among academics—surveys indicate that for many boards and managers the tensions between near-term expectations and longer-term needs are acute.

Such tensions are to some extent inherent in the job of governing, but the debate about short-termism suggests that the tensions can perhaps be better managed and somewhat mitigated through better oversight over strategy, more clarity about time frames, and improved communication with investors. But the debate also suggests the need for more radical innovation in how companies develop strategy and allocate resources.

A first step is for boards to better understand these processes, the time frames that guide them, and the extent to which they include human, environmental, and social considerations. These matters raise questions of business judgment that boards and executives will increasingly be expected to address.

Corporate performance. As fiduciaries, boards of directors are expected to keep a close watch on corporate performance. But what is corporate performance and how should it be assessed? Providers of capital, the prototypical users, seek performance information so that they can compare across opportunities to identify the best use of their capital and ensure effective ongoing stewardship of their investments. Other users may have different purposes — for example, a lender wanting to ensure timely payment of interest and principal, or a corporate center allocating resources to various divisions.

The board itself needs this information to assess the success of corporate strategy or to decide on executive compensation. Still others, such as a potential customer or employee, or a local community deciding whether to grant a zoning variance will likely have yet other needs. Such a variety of sources of demand for corporate performance information means that no one definition of performance or a simple measurement system will suffice.

When it comes to corporate financial performance, investors typically look to s tock price measures such as Total Shareholder Return or TSR and accounting numbers such as Return on Equity or Return on Assets. TSR, which is a direct measure of how much shareholders have benefitted, has become a significant determinant of executive compensation especially in the US. TSR provides an easy benchmark of relative performance across companies and over time.

However, if stock price is driven by biases of investors especially of those who are short-term shareholders, then TSR is less useful as a metric of long-term value creation, the elusive benchmark against which any performance metric ought to be assessed.

Measures based on accounting metrics are less subject to investor horizon concerns but are considered backward looking and subject to managerial manipulation. Moreover, accounting rules codified as generally accepted accounting principles or GAAP are slow to keep pace with rapid changes in business, technology, and organizational complexity. As a result, more managers are turning to alternative non-GAAP measures, such as adjusted income or cash operating return on assets, in an attempt to better describe the unique aspects of the business that are not captured by the conventional metrics.

Differing time horizons for assessing performance add further complexity to the challenge. Many stakeholders demand periodic assessment and reporting of performance, but operating and investment cycles do not conveniently correlate with calendar quarters or years. What then is the appropriate horizon?

In most jurisdictions, listed companies are legally required to report their financial performance annually, and in many cases quarterly or at least half-yearly. But other users, such as boards of directors, have the option of measuring and compensating performance over longer horizons. Go to the video of the debate on Frankenstein, and listen to the speech that begins at You have 15 minutes.

Then turn to a partner and share and comment on your intros. Could you relate to it? What could perhaps make it even more memorable? Often, when you prepare your speeches, the snappy intro will be one of the last things that you write, after you know what your arguments will be.

And sometimes you will get a good idea during the debate itself and maybe use something the opposing team has said as part of your intro. But always write the intro beforehand, then you can make adjustments during the debate if you want. In order to have a full argument we want not just a reason, but also evidence and explanation.

PEE stands for:. Remember to use the PEE model:. Afterwards, you can check out the video of the debate on set candy days, and see if perhaps you share some of the same arguments as the students in the video.

Write your own persuasive speech on a topic of your own choice. Make sure you follow the structure from above apart from rebuttal. Share in groups of three in class.

Your teacher might also ask you to hand it in as a written assignment.