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Institutional Investors are financial institutions such as pension funds, mutual funds and insurance companies, that accept funds from third parties and invest them on their behalf[1]. According to the Cadbury Committee, they should play a key role in corporate governance and have a special responsibility to overview the compliance of corporate governance principles. The same view is shared also by the Grenbury Report, the Harper Report and also by many international codes and authors.

Notwithstanding, a recent study carried out by the OECD in the role institutional investors actually play in the promotion of corporate governance has found out that in practice this is not always the case. Institutional investors face some challenges such as the difficulty to closely monitor multiple investments and difficulty to attend shareholders meetings in foreign countries and exercise their voting rights. Also, the fact that they are usually paid for the amount of assets under management and not in relation to the profits generated by their investments creates a disincentive to actively participate and have a close involvement on the company’s management[2]. Rock’s study on institutional investors in corporate governance also shows how such investors have not been fulfilling the desired role of acting as protectors of corporate governance in private entities[3].

In an attempt to improve their cooperation with corporate governance, some institutional investors have created their own set of principles, to be applied in all their investments. Such is the case, for example, of the Hermes principles, which has published a set of twenty rules to be followed by its investee companies, including rules regarding communication, finance, strategy, social, ethical and environment[4].

In my opinion, although the efforts of institutional investors to promote good corporate governance practices are of course positive and should always be welcomed, I disagree with the phrase for comment this week that indicates that effectiveness and credibility of the entire corporate governance system depends largely on institutional investors exercising their shareholders rights.

Good corporate governance practices depend on the company as a whole and also on directors particularly, while institutional investors are normally minority shareholders that would not be able to make decisions on behalf of the company anyway. So, although they can make a positive contribution, the exercise of their shareholders rights is not in my view the crucial factor for good corporate governance practices.

[1] OECD, “The Role of Institutional Investors in Promoting Good Corporate Governance”, <https://www.oecd.org/daf/ca/49081553.pdf> accessed 3 March 2018.

[2] Ibid.

[3] E. Rock, “Institutional Investors in Corporate Governance”, University of Penn, Institute for Law and Economic Research Paper, 2015.

[4] “The Hermes Principles: What Shareholders Expect ot Public Companies – And What Companies Should Expect of their Investors” <https://www.ecgi.org/codes/documents/hermes_principles.pdf> accessed 3 March 2018.

 

 

 

Sample Solution

Sample solution

Dante Alighieri played a critical role in the literature world through his poem Divine Comedy that was written in the 14th century. The poem contains Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The Inferno is a description of the nine circles of torment that are found on the earth. It depicts the realms of the people that have gone against the spiritual values and who, instead, have chosen bestial appetite, violence, or fraud and malice. The nine circles of hell are limbo, lust, gluttony, greed and wrath. Others are heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. The purpose of this paper is to examine the Dante’s Inferno in the perspective of its portrayal of God’s image and the justification of hell. 

In this epic poem, God is portrayed as a super being guilty of multiple weaknesses including being egotistic, unjust, and hypocritical. Dante, in this poem, depicts God as being more human than divine by challenging God’s omnipotence. Additionally, the manner in which Dante describes Hell is in full contradiction to the morals of God as written in the Bible. When god arranges Hell to flatter Himself, He commits egotism, a sin that is common among human beings (Cheney, 2016). The weakness is depicted in Limbo and on the Gate of Hell where, for instance, God sends those who do not worship Him to Hell. This implies that failure to worship Him is a sin.

God is also depicted as lacking justice in His actions thus removing the godly image. The injustice is portrayed by the manner in which the sodomites and opportunists are treated. The opportunists are subjected to banner chasing in their lives after death followed by being stung by insects and maggots. They are known to having done neither good nor bad during their lifetimes and, therefore, justice could have demanded that they be granted a neutral punishment having lived a neutral life. The sodomites are also punished unfairly by God when Brunetto Lattini is condemned to hell despite being a good leader (Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). While he commited sodomy, God chooses to ignore all the other good deeds that Brunetto did.

Finally, God is also portrayed as being hypocritical in His actions, a sin that further diminishes His godliness and makes Him more human. A case in point is when God condemns the sin of egotism and goes ahead to commit it repeatedly. Proverbs 29:23 states that “arrogance will bring your downfall, but if you are humble, you will be respected.” When Slattery condemns Dante’s human state as being weak, doubtful, and limited, he is proving God’s hypocrisy because He is also human (Verdicchio, 2015). The actions of God in Hell as portrayed by Dante are inconsistent with the Biblical literature. Both Dante and God are prone to making mistakes, something common among human beings thus making God more human.

To wrap it up, Dante portrays God is more human since He commits the same sins that humans commit: egotism, hypocrisy, and injustice. Hell is justified as being a destination for victims of the mistakes committed by God. The Hell is presented as being a totally different place as compared to what is written about it in the Bible. As a result, reading through the text gives an image of God who is prone to the very mistakes common to humans thus ripping Him off His lofty status of divine and, instead, making Him a mere human. Whether or not Dante did it intentionally is subject to debate but one thing is clear in the poem: the misconstrued notion of God is revealed to future generations.

 

References

Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). Dante’s inferno: Seven deadly sins in scientific publishing and how to avoid them. Addiction Science: A Guide for the Perplexed, 267.

Cheney, L. D. G. (2016). Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno: A Comparative Study of Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro. Cultural and Religious Studies4(8), 487.

Verdicchio, M. (2015). Irony and Desire in Dante’s” Inferno” 27. Italica, 285-297.

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