The Sarbanes–Oxley Act of 2002, also known as the "Public Company Accounting Reform and Investor Protection Act" and "Corporate and Auditing Accountability, Responsibility, and Transparency Act" and more commonly called Sarbanes–Oxley or SOX, is a United States federal law that set new or expanded requirements for all U.S. public company boards, management and public accounting firms. A number of provisions of the Act also apply to privately held companies, such as the willful destruction of evidence to impede a federal investigation.
Corporate governance is the collection of mechanisms, processes and relations used by various parties to control and to operate a corporation. Governance structures and principles identify the distribution of rights and responsibilities among different participants in the corporation and include the rules and procedures for making decisions in corporate affairs. Corporate governance is necessary because of the possibility of conflicts of interests between stakeholders, primarily between shareholders and upper management or among shareholders.
Investor relations (IR) is a strategic management responsibility that is capable of integrating finance, communication, marketing and securities law compliance to enable the most effective two-way communication between a company, the financial community, and other constituencies, which ultimately contributes to a company's securities achieving fair valuation. The term describes the department of a company devoted to handling inquiries from shareholders and investors, as well as others who might be interested in a company's stock or financial stability.
Analyst relations is a corporate strategy, corporate communications and marketing activity in which corporations communicate with ICT industry analysts who work for independent research and consulting firms such as the leading four.
Corporate transparency describes the extent to which a corporation's actions are observable by outsiders. This is a consequence of regulation, local norms, and the set of information, privacy, and business policies concerning corporate decision-making and operations openness to employees, stakeholders, shareholders and the general public. From the perspective of outsiders, transparency can be defined simply as the perceived quality of intentionally shared information from the corporation.
OTC Markets Group is an American financial market providing price and liquidity information for almost 10,000 over-the-counter (OTC) securities. The group has its headquarters in New York City. OTC-traded securities are organized into three markets to inform investors of opportunities and risks: OTCQX, OTCQB and Pink.
Corporate responsibility is a term which has come to characterize a family of professional disciplines intended to help a corporation stay competitive by maintaining accountability to its four main stakeholder groups: customers, employees, shareholders, and communities.
Securities regulation in the United States is the field of U.S. law that covers transactions and other dealings with securities. The term is usually understood to include both federal and state-level regulation by governmental regulatory agencies, but sometimes may also encompass listing requirements of exchanges like the New York Stock Exchange and rules of self-regulatory organizations like the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).
A tax advisor or tax consultant is a person with advanced training and knowledge of tax law. The services of a tax advisor are usually retained in order to minimize taxation while remaining compliant with the law in complicated financial situations. Tax Advisors are also retained to represent clients before tax authorities and tax courts to resolve tax issues.
The Investment Company Institute (ICI) is a global association of regulated funds, including mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, closed-end funds and unit investment trusts in the United States, and similar funds offered to investors in jurisdictions worldwide. ICI encourages adherence to ethical standards, promotes public financial literacy of funds and investing, and advances the interests of investment funds and their shareholders, directors, and advisers.
An earnings call is a teleconference, or webcast, in which a public company discusses the financial results of a reporting period. The name comes from earnings per share (EPS), the bottom line number in the income statement divided by the number of shares outstanding. The US-based National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) says that 92% of companies represented by their members conduct earnings calls and that virtually all of these are webcast. Transcripts of calls may be made available either by the company or a third party.
Corporate communication is a set of activities involved in managing and orchestrating all internal and external communications aimed at creating favourable point of view among stakeholders on which the company depends. It is the messages issued by a corporate organization, body, or institute to its audiences, such as employees, media, channel partners and the general public. Organizations aim to communicate the same message to all its stakeholders, to transmit coherence, credibility and ethics.
A Company Secretary (CS) is a senior position in a private sector company or public sector organisation. The title CS is an internationally recognised professional designation given to Company Secretaries. Also known as Compliance Officers, Legal Officers or Chartered Secretaries, it is one of the positions that is a part of the Key Managerial Personne - KMP of any company. Considered to be one of the fastest growing professions & most lucrative jobs in the corporate world because of the ever increasing compliances and the importance of corporate governance all over the world, a CS is considered to be an expert in fields like Corporate Laws, Economic Laws, Capital Markets, Securties Laws, etc. In large American and Canadian publicly listed corporations, a Company Secretary is typically named a Corporate Secretary. A Company Secretary is responsible for the efficient administration of a company, particularly with regard to ensuring compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements and for ensuring that decisions of the board of directors are implemented. Company Secretaries work in almost all fields of business and some are engaged in public practice work, others work in the private sector and some are employed by government bodies. It is the Company Secretaries that advise the Board of Directors in all legal matters of a company as they are considered to be the in-house legal officers of the company.
The Center for Audit Quality (CAQ) is an autonomous, nonpartisan, nonprofit public policy advocacy organization based in Washington, DC. It is affiliated with the American Institute of CPAs.
The Investor Relations Society is the professional body for investor relations professionals in the United Kingdom.
Corporate video refers to any type of non-advertisement based video content created for and commissioned by a business, company, corporation, or organization. Today, the vast majority of corporate video content is hosted online and is published on the company’s website page and distributed through social media or email marketing.
Public affairs generally refers to the engagement efforts between organizations, often times in the context of building business or governmental relationships. The industry has developed over recent years and is normally considered a branch or sub-discipline of public relations (PR). Having such a broad range of coverage regarding its definition, public affairs is, by nature, a hybrid of disciplines that relies heavily on strategic communication. While often equated with lobbying, this is usually only a small part of what a public affairs practitioner might do. Other typical functions include research, strategy planning and providing advice. Dr. Juan-Carlos Molleda writes, “Many types of organizations virtually and physically interact and communicate with publics and/or audiences outside of their own country of origin to build a dynamic set of relationships. Trade, direct foreign investment, political coalitions, worthy global causes, information flow, and social networking, among other phenomena, are increasing the complexity of those relationships dramatically”. Organizations who make use of public affairs are typically large companies, charities, trade unions, membership organizations and interest groups. They will either have staff working directly for them or employ a firm of public affairs consultants. Very often public affairs staff will work with their non-PR colleagues who are experts in a given field.
Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance (ESG) data refers to metrics related to intangible assets within the enterprise, a form of corporate social credit score. Research shows that intangible assets comprise an increasing percentage of future enterprise value. While there are many ways to think of intangible asset metrics, these three central factors together, ESG, comprise a label that has been adopted throughout the United States financial industry. They are used for a myriad of specific purposes with the ultimate objective of measuring elements related to sustainability and societal impact of a company or business.
GlobeNewswire provides press release distribution services globally, with substantial operations in North America and Europe.
Gary A. LaBranche, FASAE, CAE, is the president and CEO of the National Investor Relations Institute.
