Inequality, Inc.

To engage with inequality, I explore how corporate governance theory is based on inherently contingent ideas of the legal and organizational structuring of the modern public corporation in a corporate ‘architecture’, and how these contingent ideas affect the distribution of privileges, protections and proceeds to different types of actors. I argue that the currently dominant corporate governance theory ignores a specific corporate architecture that provided internal and external legitimacy to the modern public corporation by embedding a set of trade-offs between constituent groups and cementing those trade- offs into a broader institutional setting. Ignoring this architecture leads to the redirection of the privileges and protections embodied in the modern corporation to the exclusive benefit of an implicit coalition of market value-oriented shareholders and managers, while the risks to all other actors, interests and timeframes are relegated to the status of ‘externalities’. I explore how a focus on contingent conceptions of the modern corporation and of corporate governance provides an organizational-level explanation for growing inequality with which existing sectoral and state-centric approaches and means for engagement can be complemented

The Nature and Purpose of the Corporation -A Roundtable Discussion

(henceforth SD): What has been really interesting throughout the event -for me at least -has been the discussion of philosophy and political economy with respect to differing sites of agency. We've heard many very different accounts: some which focus upon individuals, others on classes, others on parties, others still on social movements. We've also heard a few smart-arses using the term agency ironically, between parentheses, under-erasure, and so on. What I haven't yet witnessed, however, is a serious attempt to theorise the agency of the corporation. That's what I'm shortly going to ask the panel to start doing. So, audience, from your left to your right -geometrically but perhaps also politically speaking, let me briefly introduce our three speakers. Here we've got Martin Parker who is probably going to tell us something about radical and alternative forms of organising. There we find Jeroen Veldman who will likely speak about the legalities and metaphysics of the corporate form

Inequality, Inc

To engage with inequality, I explore how corporate governance theory is based on inherently contingent ideas of the legal and organizational structuring of the modern public corporation in a corporate ‘architecture’ and how these contingent ideas affect the distribution of privileges, protections and proceeds to different types of actors. I argue that the currently dominant corporate governance theory ignores a specific corporate architecture that provided internal and external legitimacy to the modern public corporation by embedding a set of trade-offs between constituent groups and cementing those trade-offs into a broader institutional setting. Ignoring this architecture leads to the redirection of the privileges and protections embodied in the modern corporation to the exclusive benefit of an implicit coalition of market value-oriented shareholders and managers, while the risks to all other actors, interests and timeframes are relegated to the status of ‘externalities’. I explore how a focus on contingent conceptions of the modern corporation and of corporate governance provides an organizational-level explanation for growing inequality with which existing sectoral and state-centric approaches and means for engagement can be complemented

Reforming HMRC : Making it Fit for the Twenty-First Century - First Stage Report

Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs (HMRC) performs a vital task in collecting taxes, enforcing lax laws and delivering services to taxpayers. Against a background of reductions in resources, it has experienced considerable difficulties in meeting the service expectation of taxpayers and challenging organised tax avoidance. This policy paper investigates the difficulties and makes recommendations to strengthen HMRC and its public accountability

Corporate Governance for Sustainability

The current model of corporate governance needs reform. There is mounting evidence that the practices of shareholder primacy drive company directors and executives to adopt the same short time horizon as financial markets. Pressure to meet the demands of the financial markets drives stock buybacks, excessive dividends and a failure to invest in productive capabilities. The result is a ‘tragedy of the horizon’, with corporations and their shareholders failing to consider environmental, social or even their own, long-term, economic sustainability. With less than a decade left to address the threat of climate change, and with consensus emerging that businesses need to be held accountable for their contribution, it is time to act and reform corporate governance in the EU. The statement puts forward specific recommendations to clarify the obligations of company boards and directors and make corporate governance practice significantly more sustainable and focused on the long term

The Nature and Purpose of the Corporation : A Roundtable Discussion

Publisher PDFPreprintNon peer reviewe

Politics of the corporation

The corporate form and its capacity for agency is recognized in political theory, but not adequately understood. As a result, important shifts in the relative position of the state and the corporate form are not addressed. Starting with a historical exploration of the theory of the corporation, I show that the corporate form relies on multiple theoretical backgrounds, which makes it inconsistent. An important part of this inconsistency is the dominance of a post-1970s theory of the corporate form, which formed the background for New Public Management. This theory supported a reduced status of the state and its regulatory powers and an increase of the relative power of the corporate form. I evaluate some consequences of this inconsistent theory for the contemporary debate with regard to the ‘demise of the state’

Governance Inc.

The use of the nomer ‘corporate’ is hardly an issue in contemporary scholarship on corporate governance. I will argue that this nomer is important for two main reasons. First, the corporate form distinguishes itself from any other form of business representation. In this sense, it is important to know exactly how this form is different to understand how conceptions of ‘corporate governance’ relate to different forms of representation. Second, it is my contention that the use of a particular understanding of incorporation directly informs the concept of internal governance in terms of constituency, structure, ownership and the locus of corporate agency. It is in this sense that I argue that the identification of corporate constituencies and the allocation of agency and ownership is a precondition of business ethics. With this aim in mind, I explore the governance in corporations as the result of the legal understanding of incorporation and the separate legal entity. I explore two historical positions from which five legal positions on the separate legal entity can be derived. These five positions provide reference points for the attribution of ownership and agency between the separate legal entity and the aggregation of individuals that together make up the corporation. Incorporation, as the legal act that constitutes the corporation, can then be shown to adopt multiple and mutually exclusive positions. These positions are central to the debate on the respective claims to agency and ownership between the separate legal entity and the aggregation of individuals. I then end the article by arguing that all concepts of incorporation create legal and economic issues regarding the allocation of ownership and agency, which makes their understanding and the choice behind them important for theories of governance

The Corporate Condition

In this dissertation I aim to establish that the contemporary theory of incorporation rests on incoherent assumptions. Using a historical approach, I distinguish three different historical discursive formations underlying the contemporary concept of incorporation. On the basis of a comparison of these three historical discursive formations I argue that the contemporary representation of incorporation is a result of the simultaneous use of these three formations, while the last discursive formation has become dominant. This leads to a description of two problems of justification. The first problem is that in the contemporary theory of incorporation the three historical discursive formations, with their mutually exclusive assumptions, are all maintained in order to retain their practical effects. The second problem is that the assumptions underlying the third discursive formation are dominant, although this discursive formation employs a theory of representation that rejects the fundamental assumptions of the previous discursive formations. Together, these two problems lead to a contemporary theory of incorporation that relates to three historical discursive formations for their effects, but relates incoherently and inconsistently to the historical justifications for these effects. I will argue that, as a result of this incoherence and inconsistency, the contemporary theory of incorporation introduces a singular reified representation, which leads to a reconceptualization of the basic concept of representation in the legal, economic, social and political systems of representations. Then, I will argue that this reconceptualization strongly favours incorporated reified singular legal representations over the legal, economic and political representation of natural persons. On this basis, I will conclude that the contemporary theory of incorporation leads to legal, economic, social and political theory that is based on fundamentally unequal types of representation with structural unequal attributions of agency, ownership and rights