Problem
Case Study Analysis: Corporate Governance at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia: Not "A Good Thing"
Knowing how to analyze a case will help you attack virtually any business problem. A case study helps you learn by immersing you in real-world business issues - and makes you a decision-maker. A case presents facts about a particular organization and you must focus on the most important facts and use the information to determine the best (of multiple alternatives) course(s) of action to deal with the problems you identify.
A case study analysis must not just summarize the case. It should identify key issues and problems, and outline and assess alternative courses of action.
If you haven't already, access this case study from the coursepack link under Harvard Case Studies in your syllabus.
For this problem, you will look more closely at corporate governance. Specifically, you will learn that you need corporate governance in an organization along with how this controls different decisions. You will look also at the internal and external mechanisms.
In addition to the requirements for the analysis of a case study outlined in the Assignment details document below, please specifically answer the following questions:
A. How did Stewart's control of the board interfere with directors' carrying out their fiduciary duties?
B. What changes in the makeup of the board would have improved governance?
C. How might changes in corporate bylaws have improved governance?
D. Evaluate how Sarbanes-Oxley Section 404 may have helped the company.