We Don’t Need You Anymore: Corporate Social Responsibilities, Executive Class Interests, and Solving Mizruchi and Hirschman’s Paradox

Previously, Northern Italian, Dutch, and then English entrepreneurs had dominated global trade in turn, and when after a century or so their respective hegemonies began to show cracks, each group refocused its efforts in the service of tapping already-accumulated wealth through financial speculation and, in the process, also financed the rise of their successors.20 If Dahrendorf was correct, and American capital was managed during the era of American industrial dominance by “a class of career bureaucrats, whose primary loyalty lay with their employer rather than with a class of property owners,”21 there are good reasons to believe that that has ceased to be the case. “Property owners,” meaning in the American case those who control and stand to benefit from financial activity (leaving aside the question as to whether shares of corporate stock should be defined as “property”), have absorbed these onetime “career bureaucrats” into their ranks. And as this subsumption has occurred, corporate executives have had no reason to either identify themselves as a distinct political grouping or proactively embrace civic responsibilities once thought necessary for maintaining a productive society. This Article will cover these issues in five Parts. Part II lays out Arrighi’s theory of hegemonic rise and decline in detail. Parts III, IV, and V apply Arrighi’s model of a three-stage hegemonic cycle to the assumption, application, and abandonment of corporate social responsibility on the part of American corporate leaders: first, when the United States became the world’s dominant manufacturer; then, in the post-war years when it became militarily and politically hegemonic as well, and finally, during this last generation, as the hypertrophy of the American financial sector masked the nation’s hegemonic decline. Part VI concludes by solving, in more detail, Mizruchi and Hirschman’s paradox

We Don’t Need You Anymore: Corporate Social Responsibilities, Executive Class Interests, and Solving Mizruchi and Hirschman’s Paradox

Previously, Northern Italian, Dutch, and then English entrepreneurs had dominated global trade in turn, and when after a century or so their respective hegemonies began to show cracks, each group refocused its efforts in the service of tapping already-accumulated wealth through financial speculation and, in the process, also financed the rise of their successors.20 If Dahrendorf was correct, and American capital was managed during the era of American industrial dominance by “a class of career bureaucrats, whose primary loyalty lay with their employer rather than with a class of property owners,”21 there are good reasons to believe that that has ceased to be the case. “Property owners,” meaning in the American case those who control and stand to benefit from financial activity (leaving aside the question as to whether shares of corporate stock should be defined as “property”), have absorbed these onetime “career bureaucrats” into their ranks. And as this subsumption has occurred, corporate executives have had no reason to either identify themselves as a distinct political grouping or proactively embrace civic responsibilities once thought necessary for maintaining a productive society. This Article will cover these issues in five Parts. Part II lays out Arrighi’s theory of hegemonic rise and decline in detail. Parts III, IV, and V apply Arrighi’s model of a three-stage hegemonic cycle to the assumption, application, and abandonment of corporate social responsibility on the part of American corporate leaders: first, when the United States became the world’s dominant manufacturer; then, in the post-war years when it became militarily and politically hegemonic as well, and finally, during this last generation, as the hypertrophy of the American financial sector masked the nation’s hegemonic decline. Part VI concludes by solving, in more detail, Mizruchi and Hirschman’s paradox

Stakeholder Theory and Marketing: Moving from a Firm-Centric to a Societal Perspective

This essay is inspired by the ideas and research examined in the special section on “Stakeholder Marketing” of the Journal of Public Policy & Marketing in 2010. The authors argue that stakeholder marketing is slowly coalescing with the broader thinking that has occurred in the stakeholder management and ethics literature streams during the past quarter century. However, the predominant view of stakeholders that many marketers advocate is still primarily pragmatic and company centric. The position advanced herein is that stronger forms of stakeholder marketing that reflect more normative, macro/societal, and network-focused orientations are necessary. The authors briefly explain and justify these characteristics in the context of the growing “prosociety” and “proenvironment” perspectives—orientations that are also in keeping with the public policy focus of this journal. Under the “hard form” of stakeholder theory, which the authors endorse, marketing managers must realize that serving stakeholders sometimes requires sacrificing maximum profits to mitigate outcomes that would inflict major damage on other stakeholders, especially society

Évolution du gouvernement des entreprises:l'émergence de l'activisme actionnarial au milieu du XXe siècle

(VF)L'histoire de l'activisme actionnarial telle qu'on l'a racontée a donné aux premiers "contestataires" moins d'attention qu'ils ne le méritent. Non seulement ils étaient célèbres à leur époque, mais ils ont soulevé des questions qui sont toujours d'actualité. Lorsque les questions de responsabilité et de gouvernement des entreprises ont refait surface dans les années qui suivirent, les nouveaux activistes ont pu faire valoir les précédents établis par ces pionniers. (gouvernement des entreprises - régulation publique - histoire économique - théorie actionnariale. (VA) Accounts of the history of shareholder activism have tended to give the early "gadflies" less attention than they deserve. Not only were they celebrated in their own time, they raised issues still relevant today. When issues of corporate governance and responsibility resurfaced in later years, the new activists would make use of the precedents set by these pioneers.gouvernement des entreprises;régulation publique;histoire économique;théorie actionnariale.corporate governance;public regulation;business history;shareholder theory.

Speaking Platitudes to Power: Observing American Business Ethics in an Age of Declining Hegemony

academic history, American hegemony, history of ethics, consequentialism, managerialism, Mill, Rawls, stakeholder theory, social contracting, utilitarianism, voluntarism,