Title: The Corporate Governance of AI vs the AI of Corporate Governance: A Cross-National Perspective
Speaker:  Ruth Aguilera, Northeastern University
Host: Shuping Li, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University
When: 13:00-14:15, Sep 23, Wednesday, Beijing Time
Language: English
Where: Zoom
Register link: https://www.xcdsystem.com/iacmr/forms/index.cfm?ID=xgP5LpJ

Abstract

Corporate governance, and the two are being pulled in different directions. In this talk, I examine the corporate governance of AI: the fragmented regulatory landscape emerging across the United States, the European Union, and China, where a rights-based risk regime, a deregulatory market-driven approach, and a state-directed control model are producing three incompatible governance philosophies. Yet beneath this divergence, firms are converging on a common toolkit: board oversight committees, Chief AI Officers, fiduciary exposure under doctrines like Delaware’s Caremark, and mandatory disclosure. The talk then turns the lens around to consider the AI of corporate governance: how algorithmic tools are beginning to reshape board work itself, from AI-assisted risk monitoring to early proposals for AI-augmented decision-making at the board level. Drawing on comparative regulatory analysis and emerging corporate governance scholarship, I argue that the strategic governance frontier lies not in choosing among regulatory frames, but in understanding how they interact and ask what boards, managers, and policy makers should watch for next.

Speaker’s bio

Ruth V. Aguilera has an undergraduate in Economics from the University of Barcelona and a Master and PhD in Sociology from Harvard University. She is the Distinguished Darla and Frederick Brodsky Trustee Professor in Global Business at the D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University in Boston and a Visiting Professor in the Strategy Department at ESADE Business School. Ruth’s research, teaching and advising interests lie at the intersection of international corporate governance, global strategy, and corporate social responsibility/sustainability. She is the Deputy Editor at Journal of International Business Studies, was previously an Associate Editor at Academy of Management Review, Corporate Governance: An International Review, and Organization Science. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles, multiple book chapters, an edited book, and a forthcoming book on boards of directors. Ruth is a Fellow at the Academy of Management, Academy of International Business, and the International Corporate Governance Society and the Strategic Management Society.