Corporate Governance

1 John Deere Pl  Moline, IL 61265

Corporate governance is defined as the relationship among various participants in determining the direction and performance of corporations.  These relationships have great effect because the attitudes and actions of top management trickle down into the other levels of employees.  John Deere has many things in place to insure that the companies core values of integrity, quality, commitment, and innovation are met.

They have written a few codes in order to ensure company wide compliance. One of the codes that John Deere has put into place is a Code of Ethics.  Their current code of ethics was adopted on December 3, 2003 in order to satisfy the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002.  Before this code was created, the company had a Business Conduct Guidelines document which guided the actions of employees.  In their code of ethics, John Deere addresses the issues of fair dealing, conflicts of interest, protection of company assets, confidential information, integrity and disclosures, and waivers.  They also provide a way for employees to anonymously report complaints through a hotline number, over the internet, or through the mail. After setting rules for conduct, the company gives the consequenses for violations of the code.  It is important to identify and enforce these issues throughout the entire company.  A code of ethics should be enforced and a part of the culture of an organization.  This document should not exist simply to satisfy governmental rules and regulation, but should be an expectation of those who work in the company.

Another corporate governance document that John Deere has written is the policies of their board.  The Board of Directors his held accountable and ruled by some policies that the company has put in place.  These polices are there to try and limit the power of the board and ensure that they are ethical and keep the companies interest in mind.  These policies govern five key topics of the Board.  First the policies include rules of board composition and functions.  These describe the role of the board of directors and who the board should include. Most of the policies fall under this topic.  The second topic is that of the board meetings.  This section describes when, where, and who should attend such meetings.  It also talks about how the meetings should be conducted.  The policies document then describes the committees that the board can form.   The fourth section is about how the board should be compensated for being a Board member and carrying out such duties. The fifth and final section talks about how top management should be evaluated and how they should plan for succession.

Supplier Code of Conduct

The Supplier Code of Conduct makes an attempt to ensure ethical and responsible behavior from all of the participants in the John Deere supply chain.  This is increasingly important as the world comes into a new age of a world economy.  We do not have the luxury of understanding everyone's culture.  Where something like bribery may be accepted in some countries as a good business practice, it may not be acceptable in others.  These types of things are addressed in the supplier code of conduct.

The last two documents on the John Deere website are complementary documents to the ones above.  They farther identify the companies core concepts and beliefs.  They try to spell out practices and polices in more detail so that employees and investors can better understand their culture and way of business. The Guiding Principles focuses on defining the company values, business conduct, constituencies, social responsibility, diversity, environment, and brand identity.  These are all vital to the company culture.  The last document found on the John Deere website is the code of business conduct.  This document is the largest of their corporate culture documents and includes a lot of different things. From how to treat others in the workplace and the community, to how to maintain integrity and loyalty to the company, John Deere covers all of their expectations of employees in this thirty four page document.

These documents all provide a written documentation of what these relationships should look like within John Deere's corporation.  They try to provide an ethical sound relationship between all of the employees of the company while still holding them accountable for their actions and decisions.