Projet 6
Potentiels conflits de rôles vécus par les membres de comité de retraite

Description

A l'exception de certaines unions de construction et de détail, la représentation syndicale sur les comités de retraite est encore relativement peu commune. Cependant, il y a une tendance significative récente vers l'administration à base paritaire de caisses de retraite assez larges impliquant des syndicats du secteur public et leurs employeurs gouvernementaux. Un comité de retraite administré à base paritaire est composé de directeurs d'employeurs et de syndicats qui ont typiquement des idéologies, des valeurs et des objectifs très différents. Ces membres représentant l'employeur et le syndicat travaillent avec les gestionnaires de fonds, qui sont souvent des représentants de l'industrie financière, pour gérer la caisse de retraite.

Puisque la présence des représentants syndicaux est un développement assez récent, les rôles qu'ils jouent sur le comité, les perspectives qu'ils apportent et les défis auxquels ils font face ne sont pas complètement compris. Les membres de comité de retraite nommés par leur syndicat doivent satisfaire aux exigences de la responsabilité fiduciaire en prenant des décisions financières difficiles concernant la caisse de retraite. Typiquement la responsabilité fiduciaire requière que les membres choisissent des options d'investissement basées strictement sur des facteurs financiers. Cependant, ces membres de comité de retraite représentent aussi le syndicat (union) et ses membres, qui ont souvent des opinions très différentes concernant l'investissement sain et viable des membres de comité de retraite nommés par leurs employeurs ou les conseillers financiers.

De cette manière le membre de comité de retraite nommé par son syndicat joue un rôle multiple sur le comité de retraite et occupe une position qui se situe entre les objectifs et les valeurs de l'employeur, des conseillers financiers et des membres du syndicat. Cette étude explorera ce terrain d'entente, les conflits de rôles que peuvent vivre les membres de comité de retraite ainsi que les difficultés liées à l'ambiguïté de leurs rôles. Un questionnaire sera donné à un large échantillon de membres de comités de retraite afin de recueillir de l'information sur le rôle qu'ils jouent sur les comités de retraite, les tâches qu'ils assument et comment ils remplissent leurs multiples obligations vis à vis leur syndicat, leur employeur et les conseillers financiers du régime.

Pour plus d'informations, veuillez contacter Johanna Weststar : johanna.weststar@utoronto.ca

Outputs

Présentations d'Universitaire

Anil Verma and Johanna Weststar - "Labour’s Voice in Labour’s Capital: Preliminary Results from a Survey of Labour Representatives on Pension Boards". 14 octobre 2005. Conférence Des régimes de retraite qui travaillent pour nous, Toronto, Canada.

Anil Verma and Johanna Weststar - "Effective Labour Representation on Pension Bodies". June 5, 2005. Canadian Industrial Relations Association (CIRA) Annual Meeting, London, ON, Canada

Anil Verma and Johanna Weststar - "Labour and Pension Funds: A Study of Labour Representative on Pension Boards, Trustees and Committees". 17 octobre 2004. Conférence Des régimes de retraite qui travaillent pour nous, Winnipeg, Canada.

Bibliographie

Wall Street is gaining attention with a battle between some of the top names in financial economics. The capital-asset pricing model (CAPM), which is used to assess risk and return, has come under fire. Two economists have released a paper claiming that the key analytical tool used by the model does not really explain why returns on shares differ.

In this book chapter, Adam focuses his attention on organizational boundaries and examines in considerable detail that the special roles organization develop for carrying out the “acquisition” and “disposal” functions which must take place at system boundaries. Central to the chapter is a new structural model of organizational boundary systems, which specified both the unique properties of boundary roles and the major sources of influence on the behavior of people who occupy such roles. Particular emphasis is given to the “bargaining” activities required of boundary role occupants. Research evidence relevant to each of the major sources of influence on boundary role behavior is reviewed, including several findings which have emerged from recent research prompted by the Adams model. Throughout the chapter, the interdependencies among the components of the model are emphasized, and compelling arguments are advanced for the importance of considering behavior at organizational boundaries in “systems” terms.

It offers the brief description of the plan, including its general introduction, funding policy, pensionable service, benefits, disability pension, survivor pension, death benefit, withdrawal refunds, and income taxes. Every issue is touched upon rather briefly.

This article examines the legal basis for public pension fund trustees' consideration of goals that diverge from the direct financial benefits of investment safety and return. It does so in the context of a particular public pension system, the New York City Employees' Retirement System (NYCERS) and investments designed to promote economic development of a particular community or region. NYCERS is one of the largest public pension systems for municipal or state employees, indeed, one of the largest pension funds of any kind, in the United States." Much of the federal law applicable to NYCERS also applies to other public pension funds. In addition, the state and local statutes applicable to NYCERS are based, to a great extent, on common law concepts that have been incorporated into state and local legislation governing public pension funds in other jurisdictions. Some applicable New York common law differs from that governing public pension funds in other states, but most of the common law concepts are comparable to those in sister states. Thus, this examination of one specific retirement system should illustrate the complex interrelationships among local, state and federal law with which trustees of and counsel to public pension funds must be concerned.

In this article, the author suggests social/cultural processes of organization learning based on the idea of the learning community which gives emphasis on the social and relational processes within the group. Seeking the relationship between the social and cognitive aspects of learning, the author proposes the notion of socio-cognitive conflict as a vehicle for organizational learning. The essential idea of the concept, as the author introduces, is that a cognitive difference triggers learning only when the cognitive difference is also embedded in an 'appropriate' social relationship which leads to the awareness of, and the urge to solve, the cognitive difference. Actual learning in a socio-cognitive conflict takes place when the cognitive conflict is solved in the form of accommodation and transgression. According to the concept, learning occurs when cognitive divergence develops into cognitive convergence, which requires both to recognize the diversity of individual perspectives and to look for commonality between the individuals involving social relations. In order to describe the organizational conditions for this `meeting point', the notion of social architecture is introduced, where the conditions for a socio-cognitive conflict are created. The specific design for social architecture depends on the characteristics of the problem situation, which can be characterized along the dimensions of goal uncertainty and technical uncertainty. The proposal for social architecture for organizational learning is original and promising. That the author provides detailed account of types of social relations and dimensions of problem situations related to organizational learning is useful to researchers and practitioners in the area.

In this article, Brown and Perry produce a measure of reputation for corporate social performance. They statistically remove the financial performance halo from Fortune’s “Most Admired Corporations” attribute rating of “Responsibility to the community and environment” and present the results.

CA Magazine makes announcement of newly launched training programs for helping board members do their tasks. The training program contains multiple sessions covering a series of topics such as conflict and risk management, compliance, ethics, executive compensation, board ethics, the role of the audit committee, and relations with management.

Parliamentary Task Force on Pension recognizes the extreme poverty of elderly women, labour joins churches and anti-poverty and women's groups in calling for expansion of public pension plans to 50% of earnings. The studies made several recommendations that helped to shape the present system of tax assistance for retirement savings. Interestingly, the Parliamentary Task Force on Pension Reform did devote a half page to disability benefits even though no disability organizations appeared as witnesses or made submissions. Furthermore, the CPP disability program was not an explicit part of the Task Force's mandate and order of reference from the House of Commons. Most political and policy attention was on tackling poverty among current seniors, especially single elderly women, and on the issue of a homemakers pension. On disability benefits, MPs on the Task Force felt strongly in stressing the importance of the CPP meeting the more generous standards in the QPP at the time.

In February 1996, the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce (the "Committee") held hearings on a number of broad policy issues related to modernizing the Canada Business Corporations Act particularly as regards the corporate governance of Canadian public companies. Many witnesses raised questions about the behavior of institutional investors, in Canada especially as regards their governance. The Committee heard about how institutional investors have the capacity to influence corporations in which they invest and were told of the numerous shortcomings as to how some institutional investors are operated and governed. As a result, the Committee decided to conduct a series of hearings on the role and governance practices of institutional investors beginning on November 16, 1997.

In this chapter, the author challenges conventional interpretations of fiduciary responsibility, and argues that the “prudent man” rule has been used by the financial industry to bolster its control of workers’ pension funds and to prevent any union involvement. Through an examination of the leading cases in North America and Britain, it assesses the legal opportunities for union trustees to develop social investment strategies. It highlights recent Canada legal opinion, encourages trustees to work with their unions on economic development policy, and calls for a much stronger role for unions on pension investment education, investment policy, and economic development projects.

The book records the development of the program of adult education and economic cooperation sponsored by St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. The program dates from 1853 when a Catholic theological school was established at Arichat. In 1855 the school was transferred to Antigonish, named St. Francis Xavier, enlarged and converted into a liberal arts college. By 1939, the faculty was known for its interest in the people of its constituency. S.F.X extension workers organized mass meetings and small classes enrolling farmers, miners, and factory workers in economically oriented adult education programs. The study clubs proved an adequate means for organizing labor and credit unions and economic cooperatives. Eventually, the people owned their own lobster factories and marketing cooperatives; economic power of the masses was being achieved. Basic to the philosophy of the S.F.X. extension program was the belief that educational emphasis should be on the material and economic so that ultimately the common man would be free to devote his time and energies to cultural pursuits. Although the program repudiates Marxism, economic cooperatives are advocated, since they reward the members according to the people's creative and productive ability.

This article investigates how people’s seeking information behavior results in their actionable knowledge – knowledge directed at making progress on relatively short -term projects. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, the researchers engaged in two studies to identify and better understand the multiple dimensions of actionable knowledge. The first explores how people describe the sources and components of actionable knowledge. This qualitative study captures informant’s own descriptions of how they construct actionable knowledge. The second study explores how attributes of the knowledge seeker, source and relationship between the two predict receipt of components of actionable knowledge. Qualitative inquiry found that people cultivate different kinds of information relationships that are the source of five components of actionable knowledge: 1) solutions (both know-what and know-how); 2) reference knowledge (pointers to other people or databases); 3) problem reformulation; 4) validating information; and 5) legitimating information. A quantitative sample survey study revealed that, while source expertise predicted receipt of these components of actionable knowledge, so too did expertise of the seeker and features of the relationship between the seeker and source. Drawing from these findings, the researchers indicate some implications of the study of social capital and organizational learning.

Existing research on the choice of accounting methods for corporate reports emphasizes private interests. In particular, shareholders' interests predominate in studies of the effects of accounting information on individual users. Attempts at assessing the social value of accounting reports, using the approach of marginal economics to information or the analysis of economic consequences also exhibit, in their execution, a pronounced shareholder orientation. This paper suggests that an alternative approach, the Political Economy of Accounting, may be fruitful. This approach seeks to understand and evaluate the functions of accounting within the context of the economic, social and political environment in which it operates. Research within this framework is identified as having normative, descriptive and critical qualities, and the paper concludes with some illustrations of potential research areas.

In this book chapter, Baker and Archon have showed several major ways in which capital markets that seem “efficient” cause collateral damage that harms the economy and its workers. First, quick investment decisions that occur in an environment of relatively thin information can induce myopic behavior that causes investors to discount firms with longer-term competitive strategies and managers to raid long-term capacities to satisfy short term earnings. Secondly, this high transaction rate in the market for equities, the market for corporate control has also been accelerating in recent years. Third, the authors examined changes in the asset allocation policies of pension funds and found dramatic increases toward higher-risk equities and international investments. The fourth source of collateral damage discussed above was the exorbitant cost of operating financial markets, and the authors offer the securities transaction costs as one potential strategy for mitigating that damage. Finally, they discuss trends and patterns around the compensation of corporate executives and found that compensation levels have been growing, far exceed the rates at which executives from other industrialized nations are paid, and do not even seem to correlate with corporate performance.

In this book, Richard Deaton explores the factors involved in the high-profile issue of public policy, I an attempt to explain the imminence of the pension crisis. Expanding Marxist theory, Deaton views pension as central to the analysis of socio-economic development under conditions of advanced capitalism, and pension funds as possibly decisive instrument in the transition to socialism. With this theoretical framework, Deaton provides four converging considerations in Canada, the U. S. A., and the U. K., first, the inadequate level of retirement income of the elderly that results in their economic immiseration and social marginalization; second, the increasing proportion of the elderly in the population and the costs associated with supporting an aging population; third, the general and specific limitations of the employer-based occupational pension system; and fourth, the appropriation of the occupational and state pension systems by the corporate sector and the capitalism state as a source of investment and social capital to meet their finance requirements. This book identifies personal problems and structural issues which may have significance in terms of power, politics, and social change in the future. It makes a valuable contribution to Canadian scholarship in both policy analysis and critical theory. This is a provocative comparative inter-disciplinary study which will be of interest to those involved in social policy, economics, industrial relations, social work and others concerned with pensions and aging or with the social impact of public policies.

The central thesis of this book is that the past growth of employee pension funds has made them the dominant owners of equity capital in the United States, and the future accelerated growth will, within 10 years, place an unprecedented share of U.S capital effectively in the hands of its workers. In other words, the American workforce owns more than one third of the equity capital of American business through their pension funds. Using Socialist theory, the author argues that the US employees are the only true “owners” of means of production because they receive profits and they also have legal entitlements to capital through their pensions. The author presents an exposition of the problems generated by “pension fund socialism.”

In this book, the authors intend to provide readers with the tools for critical thinking about labour market problems. They aim to develop student facility with both theoretical and empirical issues. Another important organizing principle is the focus on public policy. The book is meant to provide a consistent theoretical framework that can be applied to both current and future policy issues. Superbly written and renowned for its treatment of theory, this book presents a well-balanced approach that establishes the relevance of the subject for future business professionals and economists alike. Updated statistically and theoretically, the book also includes a new chapter on Immigration, a full Glossary and an instructors package that contains test questions and overhead transparency masters.

The authors investigate the informational efficiency of mutual fund performance for the period 1965-84. Results are shown to be sensitive to the measurement of performance chosen. The authors find that returns on S&P stocks, returns on non-S&P stocks, and returns on bonds are significant factors in performance assessment. The authors also find that once they correct for the impact of non-S&P assets on mutual fund returns, mutual funds do not earn returns that justify their information acquisition costs. This is consistent with results for prior periods.

In this article, Fama and French find that a slowly mean-reverting component of stock prices tends to induce negative autocorrelation in returns. They also argue that the autocorrelation is weak for the daily and weekly holding periods common in market efficiency tests but stronger for long-horizon returns. In tests for the 1926-85 period, large negative autocorrelations for return horizons beyond a year suggest that predictable price variation due to mean reversion accounts for large fractions of 3 to 5-year return variances. They finally state that predictable variation is estimated to be about 40 percent of 3 to 5-year return variances for portfolios of small firms, and the percentage falls to around 25 percent for portfolios of large firms.

This technical report by the Canadian Labour Market and Productivity Centre (CLMPC) provides detailed investigation into many of issues and themes relevant to a pension investment role in Canada’s transition and adjustment to a new economy and employment base. The report aims to contribute meaningfully to an examination of the function and direction of pension investing of consequence to Canadian economic change. The author first provides a general summary of the outlooks of Canadian business and labour constituency views of pension investment from an economic change perspective. The author then gives emphasis on varied aspects of pension funds, including historical and current investment patterns and relationship of these to the economy. Upon a general introduction to four capital markets relevant to financing investment in Canadian economic change and restructuring and to which pension funds have some connection, the author closely looks at the role of pension funds in the Canadian venture capital market, in the Canadian middle market, in Canadian public securities exchanges with specific reference to investment in small-cap stocks, and in Canadian real estate markets and infrastructure investment, respectively. In the end, along with some suggestions for future work on this topic, the author discusses the character and extent of pension barriers to investment in private capital markets as well as some alternative policies and strategies for overcoming them, drawn from Canadian and international sources.

This study assess the economic impact of a major investment of public money in ensuring that Canadian children two to five years of age receive good quality early childhood education. The proposals that the authors evaluate are based on those put forward by the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada (CCAAC) to the Standing Committee on Human Resources Development in Halifax in December 1994 in Taking The First Steps — Child Care: An Investment in Canada's Future.

This book is an indispensable tool for understanding pension and benefit plans in Canada. It is divided into three parts. In Part One, the author provides detailed accounts of retirement income arrangements. Chapters in this part describe the pension programs sponsored by government and the variety of plans sponsored by employers in more detail. The typical terms and conditions found in employer plans are described, as are the considerations, including legislation, that an employer will take into account when deciding on these terms and conditions. While the focus is on registered pension plans, Part I also review other supplementary plans for executives and other retirement income and savings arrangements. Part Two provides an overview of employee benefits. The chapters describe major benefit category and address the variations and trends within each benefit. From a strategic perspective, it summarizes the administrative and financial considerations necessary for human resources professionals and financial officers. Part three is a brief outline of some the recent issues and trends that have occurred and are occurring in the pension and employment benefits sector. It provides some context and direction for managers thinking about the role of pensions and benefits with their particular organizations. In sum, the book, in easy-to-understand language, takes readers through comprehensive coverage on retirement savings arrangements, employee pensions and benefit and emerging issues.

This is a research report which tends to cast light on the drivers and barriers to the further adoption of Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) and shareholder activism by UK pension funds. The research takes a series of themes as its starting point to state how social, environmental and ethical (SEE) considerations are taken into account in the investment process, what is the significance of SEE issues in current investment practices, what are the roles members, advisers and others in the development of pension fund investment strategy, and what pension fund trustee investment training and the extent to which SEE issues are incorporated. Data are derived from a series of in-depth interviews with influential organizations in the pension fund industry and a large-scale questionnaire survey to 130 pension fund trustees. A series of commentaries from leading experts’ perspectives on the survey results are also taken into account. Based on these data, the researchers identify six areas of responsible corporate behavior including (1) good corporate governance, (2) quality of customer relations, (3) effective environmental management, (4) good employment practices, (5) communication and transparency on social and environmental practices, and (6) respect for local needs in the developing world. The finding also indicates that pension fund activism will have on the way companies manage environmental and social impacts in the longer term. Nonetheless, the research results reveal that many trustees believe that Government has an important role to play in encouraging the incorporation of social, ethical, and environmental issues into investment practice. This report provides invaluable challenges to all those interested in pension fund SRI and shareholder activism.

This report presents the findings of a survey of 101 member-nominated trustees of pension funds who are affiliated to the Trades Union Congress. The survey was conducted in September 2002 and focused on the social and environmental performance of companies. It explores both the views of trustees and the behavior of their pension funds. According to trustees’ responses to the survey questions, six areas of corporate behavior that would impact on the market value of the FTSE100 in both the short and longer terms are identified. As indicated in the report, “good corporate governance” and “quality of customer relations” would yield impact on the market value in the long term, while “good employee practices,” “communication and transparency on social and environmental practices,” and “effective environmental management” are believed to have some short-term, but substantial impact. In the meantime, most trustees believe that pension fund activism will change how companies manage in these areas. This survey provides a snapshot of current trustee attitudes to SRI, international development and related issues and will help inform the Just Pensions’ program over the coming years. The last section of the report by expert commentators provides insights helping to understand the complexities of the issues Just Pensions’ aims. A Just Pensions’ self-assessment survey in the Appendix to this report would be useful to the people who are interested in this area.

This is a conference presentation on the Annual Pensions at Work conference in 2004. In this PowerPoint presentation, the researchers provide a brief introduction to the Manitoba Center for Labour Capital. Topics include the background, aims and missions, and structural systems of the Center. In particular, the presenters give the emphasis on the knowledge and skill services of the center. The work plan of the Center is also briefly mentioned in the presentation.

This study documents the creation of The Manitoba Centre of Labour Capital (MCLC) which is a new organization created by the Manitoba Federation of Labour and some of the larger affiliates with support from the Crocus Fund, a Manitoba based labour sponsored fund. It describes the importance of creating this organization in relation to the overall agenda of the Manitoba labour movement. It also suggests that the importance of investment in Manitoba which in turn supports jobs and communities has been a priority for labour. In attempt to provide research support to labour leaders and pension activists within the province, this article presents its methodological approaches in a clear way. Its efforts to review the pension landscape in Manitoba, Canada and internationally could be useful information for researchers and practitioners in this area.

In this book, two internationally recognized experts in the field of pension fund lay out a comprehensive plan for effective fund management. With the help of domestic and global case studies they critically assess current approaches to pension fund management and isolate what works and what doesn't using their unique critically acclaimed "run-it-like-a-business" model.

This article focuses on salespersons' use of six upward influence tactics (UITs) with the immediate sales manager, and how salespeople use UITs to lessen the impact of two role stressors (perceived role conflict and role ambiguity) associated with the sales job. The researchers present this study which evaluates the potential moderating role of UITs on relationships between role stress and manager satisfaction and propensity to leave. Analysis of data gathered from a heterogeneous sample revealed differences in use of UITs between salespeople classified as either high or low in role stress. According to the study, salespeople who perceive high role conflict employ assertiveness and upward appeal UITs more frequently, while salespeople who perceive high role ambiguity use exchange and coalition-building UITs more frequently. Results also suggest that salespersons' use of assertiveness and ingratiation UITs exacerbate relationships between perceived role ambiguity and two outcomes: satisfaction with supervisor and propensity to leave. Implications of the study findings for sales managers are reviewed, as are implications for further research.

The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan is an independent corporation responsible for investing the fund’s assets and administering the pensions of Ontario’s 158,000 elementary and secondary school teachers and 97,000 retired teachers. The Government of Ontario and Ontario Teachers’ Federation, the plan’s co-sponsors, are responsible for ensuring the pension plan is fully funded and for setting plan benefit and contribution levels. Since 1990, the plan's co-sponsors, the OTF and the Ontario Government, have appointed individuals with a variety of backgrounds to the board of directors: investment experts, teachers, and business and human resources consultants, in order to ensure equal representation from the two sponsors. Each director is appointed for a two-year term and can only serve four consecutive terms. All directors serve on the Investment committee.

The Ontario Public Service Employees Union (OPSEU) Pension Plan was created to provide members and pensioners with a say in their pension plan through joint trusteeship. The OPSEU Pension Trust officially began operating on January 1, 1995. The Plan is jointly sponsored by the Government of Ontario and the OPSEU. The OPSEU Pension Trust manages one of Canada's largest pension funds and administers the OPSEU Pension Plan, with assets under management exceeding $10.5 billion, and with approximately 74,000 plan members and pensioners. The Board of Trustees of the OPSEU Pension Plan Trust Fund administers the OPSEU Pension Plan and is responsible for investing the Plan’s assets to support the cost of members’ and retirees’ pension benefits. The 10 member Board of Trustees includes five Trustees appointed by OPSEU and five appointed by the Government of Ontario.

In this article, the researchers present their study that explores the extent of social investment by labor-based pension funds and labor-sponsored investment funds in Canada. The data are a national sample of 189 pension funds with assets of at least $50 million (Canadian) drawn from the Canadian Pension Fund Investment Directory and 10 labor-sponsored investment funds. In addition, their analyses are based on the data derived from the survey that assesses all fund’s managers’ social investment practices, background characteristics, barriers to social investment, attitude to social investment, and rate of return. The findings show that there is little social investment among pension funds in Canada. The finding that labor-sponsored investment funds are more likely to engage in social investment suggests a significant correlation between the percentage of a pension fund's members that are unionized and the degree of social investment. However, the finding of the study also indicates importance of other social factors involving pension funds. In this end, the researchers draw attention to the necessity of having a supportive framework that determines whether or not an organization engages in social investment.

More often than ever before, workers are becoming owners of the companies that employ them. The book, Crossing the Line, is a groundbreaking describes this phenomenon of workers taking ownership, often when the companies they work for are in financial difficulty. Union-based and government subsidized investment funds have rapidly growing resources to finance these takeovers. The author looks at cases of employee ownership across Canada, including Algoma Steel, Nelco Mechanical, Pioneer Chainsaw and others. He also examines labour investment funds, such as Quebec's Solidarity Fund and the CFL's Working Ventures, as other ways for workers to "buy into" their workplace. The book should be of great interest to trade unionists and those who reflect on issues of job loss facing workers (and organized labour) today. The author’s case studies provide both inspiring and sobering local insights into the challenges facing those who espouse worker ownership as a way of contesting economic inequality and community degradation, or achieving workplace democratization. The book is highly recommended to anyone interested in understanding the current range of worker ownership schemes in Canada.

Is local economic development a "zero-sum game"? How do we know that "but for the incentives" the development would not have occurred? How important is "quality of life" in location decisions and local economic development? Is industry targeting a viable economic development strategy? This book tackles these and many other significant questions from various perspectives. Each chapter addresses a particularly pertinent issue in economic development. Following each chapter are commentaries written by an academic addressing research methodology and the other by a practitioner addressing both the question and the evidence. The chapters are concluded with the author of each chapter responding directly to the issues raised by the commentators. The result is a productive dialogue between academics, practitioners, and citizens concerned with economic development.

Corporate governance in Canada is changing in response to institutional investors and pressures for greater social responsibility of the board of directors. The effects on the traditional conduct of business are far-reaching and complex. These changes are disruptive of competition and create fears of personal liability in corporate directors. Oversight functions of institutional investors are preferable to legislative or court-ordered sanctions for personal liability.

In this article, the authors consider the impact of the institutional and market environment in which Canadian business operates on the structure of corporate and securities law. The authors argue that the linkages between markets and law have been neglected by scholars, judges, and regulators concerned with Canadian corporate and securities law, resulting in the adoption of approaches that are ill-suited to the Canadian environment. Canadian capital markets, for instance, are characterized by high levels of share ownership concentration, thin trading problems, intensive inter-corporate linkages, and possibly lower levels of efficiency. In sum, these factors make the problems occasioned by separated ownership and control much less acute in Canada than the problems of majority shareholder opportunism. These factors also suggest that regulatory initiatives should be structured in a way that distinguishes between the problems of large, intensively traded companies and smaller, thinly traded companies populated by retail investors. The authors consider these issues in the context of three case studies: the private agreement exception, poison pills, and a self-interested transaction.

In this piece, Roy Adams advocates fostering a more cooperative relationship between management and organized labour in Canada. He draws on evidence from the experiences of other countries to support this position, and searches for lessons on how to achieve such a change in Canada’s industrial relations system. Unfortunately, he does not provide a very satisfactory bridge between the rather lengthy historical summaries and the relatively brief lessons he gleans from them, leaving the reader wishing for further elaboration of his reasoning in order to put his conclusions on a firmer footing. Much of this elaboration is available elsewhere in Adams’ writings.

In this article, the researchers examine the relationship between ownership and control in relation to one set of financial institutions, namely pension funds. In discussing the issue of the ownership of funds, the researchers indicate that the ownership rights of the scheme members are severely circumscribed. Turning to the control issue, the authors report first on the recent increase in employee representation. As they look at the content of decision-making, they focus specifically on three areas: investment, information and the selection of professional staff; and then examine the structure of decision-making, looking both at institutional features (e.g. the relation between participation and collective bargaining) and financial practices. They conclude by stressing the diversity of types of influence exercised, suggesting the presence of complex and multiple relationships between ownership and control.

This article reports the findings of a two-year UK study at Glasgow University that investigates the issues of employee participation in the management of pension schemes. It is argued that although the issue of employee participation and industrial democracy has drawn attention of institutions and organizations, it is less clear what the impact of increased participation has been, and whether it will be sustained. To bridge the gap, the researchers undertake the study by collecting data including the survey of 500 pensions managers and 750 employee trustees, questionnaires, and case studies of 20 organizations (public/private). Based on the data, the researchers provide the description of the varied forms of employee participation. The findings suggest the link between participation in pensions and other forms of participation within the organizations associated with a number of organization features. The finding also suggests the relationship between the presence of employee trustees and other areas of participation, implicating the importance of employee involvement indecision-making in organizations. In this end, the researchers concluded by suggesting some explanations for the recent developments in this area, and relating them to other trends in participation.

SHARE (The Shareholder Association for Research and Education) is a national not-for-profit organization helping pension funds to build sound investment practices, to protect the interest of plan beneficiaries and to contribute to a just and healthy society. It works with pension trustees, plan administrators, and plan members to develop and implement sound programmes and practices that respond effectively to the needs of plan members and beneficiaries. Trusteed education is one of its four areas of operation that SHARE engages in. SHARE’s trustee education area offers educational programs especially designed to meet the needs of trade union representatives on a broad range of pension related topics, such as pension fundamentals, investment strategies, and fiduciary duties as well as aspects of shareholder activism and corporate governance. They are featured as week-long courses at beginner and intermediate levels for pension trustees and administrators. The SHARE trustee education program provides pension trustee with lasted information to support responsible pension governance in today’s complex investment environment.

The report points out that trusteed pension funds closed out the fourth quarter of 2003 with assets valued at a record high $624.2 billion. It also makes clear that pension funds are heavily invested in stocks.

Released by Statistics Canada, this is the third quarter estimates of Registered Pension Plans which are funded on a trusteed basis. The purpose of this survey is to provide data on the assets of these funds and on their revenues and disbursements. It covers trusteed funds in both the private and public sectors, and both defined benefit and defined contribution arrangements. The unit of collection and analysis is the plan's fund (its revenues, expenditures, and assets). The survey is a sample, namely those largest funds which when added together add up to 85% of the estimated value of the universe. There are 166 funds surveyed out of a universe of 3,193 active funds.

In this article, the researchers present two studies that investigate how high customer-contact service workers deal with perceived role conflict and stress and examine the relationship between role conflict, job satisfaction, and the coping tactics used by these workers. The studies uncover the tactics used, based on the following: (1) the use of more effort to satisfy demands of customers and management, (2) negotiating to alter role demands, (3) pre-empting tactics to avoid sent roles, and (4) avoiding tactics to avoid received roles. Results indicated that customer-contact workers use a variety of methods to control their work environment. The research indicates a link between job satisfaction and attributes of performance based on these tactics for frontline customer-contact workers. The interesting account of case analyses of sets of tactics used and the survey that related role conflict, role ambiguity and job satisfaction to the use of these tactics have important implications both for job design, employee training, performance appraisal, quality of work life, and marketing decisions in service organizations and for service industry researchers.

In this paper, Amihud et al. propose two econometric methods to improve the efficiency of the estimation and provide more powerful test statistics: joint pooled cross-section and time-series estimation and generalized least squares. Using these techniques, the authors find a highly significant relationship between average portfolio returns and systematic risk.

This article is an attempt to address the issue that judicial interpretation of trustee duties is lack in the investment context. The objectives of the article are, first, to reconsider the statutory and common law pertaining to the principles of prudence and loyalty in the context of socially responsible institutional investing and, secondly, to address the principal arguments raised a pension trustee’s consideration of non-financial criteria. To achieve these objectives, the second part of this article begins with a brief overview of socially responsible institutional investment and the two relevant fiduciary principles. The third part considers the principles of prudence and loyalty in detail, conducting a comparative analysis of pension benefits legislation and trustee legislation from all jurisdictions across Canada, and reviewing the common law from the U. S. and England. The fourth part draws from the analysis in the preceding chapter by critically examining six main arguments raised against the consideration of non-financial criteria by pension trustees. The fifth part provides a “how to” guide for pension trustees seeking to incoporate non-financial elements into their investment practices. The final part concludes with a re-statement and clarification of the two principles in light of the foregoing analysis. This article makes assumption that the duties are the same for all trustees and will continue to be treated in the same way by Canadian courts in the future.

Yaron presents “Fiduciary duty and the responsible trusteed” at the Pension Sense Conference held on November 27, 2003. In this conference presentation, Yaron gives detailed accounts of fiduciary, including definition, types, sources, and principles of fiduciary. Examples and data analyses are also provided, in an attempt to explain how fiduciary duties might be achieved in a specific investment context. In the end, Yaron gives an emphasis on ethics and trustee obligations in the investment screening process.

It is believed that pension trustees have an fiduciary obligation as part of prudent and loyal stewardship to oversee the voting of proxies, including establishing policy and monitoring voting in the best interests of plan members. However, as the author argues that such an obligation has generally been ignored when it comes to voting proxies and corporate engagement. Based on the observation, the author explores the relationship between proxy voting, corporate engagement, and firm financial performance and risk mitigation by posting a set of thought-provoking questions which regard pension trustees’ fiduciary responsibilities, the processes to fulfill such obligations, and strategies that deal with possible barriers. With these questions, the author explores whether pension trustees have fiduciary obligations with regard to these practices. Based on the reflection on these issues, the author also explores some possible reasons for the observed failure of pension plans as a group to exercise their franchise in keeping with fiduciary standards. The paper is concluded with suggested approaches for prudent proxy voting and corporate engagement by plan fiduciaries.

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