This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project aims to research and demonstrate the feasibility of developing an automated and independent corporate governance rating system. The recent leadership scandals of companies such as Enron, WorldCom, and other high profile cases in the US and Europe have led to the growth of the corporate governance rating industry. This industry focuses on governance rating, proxy advisory, and consulting. Using over 200 governance variables in four corporate governance categories (i.e., governance and ethics, compensation, auditing and accounting, and finance), the project will employ intelligent information extraction technology on unstructured text and automated question answering system (based on securities domain-specific natural language) to generate corporate governance rating indices. Presently, the process of generating ratings and advisory information is labor intensive. This tool will automate the current information gathering and analysis processes used by governance analysts, industry regulators, and the investment community. If successful, the tool will reduce the cost of corporate governance analyses for individual and institutional shareowners, advisors, consultants, public companies, and government and market regulators
