Entrepreneurs and Democracy
A Political Theory of Corporate Governance

This book provides an exploration of the political roots of corporate governance.

Pierre-Yves Gomez (Author), Harry Korine (Author)

9780521169608, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 16 December 2010

350 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.51 kg

Review of the hardback: 'If one benchmark for management and organization theory should be that it is relevant to practice and realistic in its assessment of it, then corporate governance must be judged a failure. On its watch the inability to pick empirical trends were legion, with Enron only being the most notable. Restricted theories, such as principal-agency theory, together with an excessive focus on performance and a merely ceremonial attention to legitimacy, together with the institutional specificities of comparative cases, entailed that economistic theory prevailed and the essential politics of governance and the processes of governmentality were under-specified. No more! Gomez and Korine have written a book that should rescue corporate governance from its ideologies and failures, restoring concern with governance where it belongs – as centrally located in classical political questions, by reconnecting issues of the political legitimacy of power in the corporation, the historical evolution of corporate governance forms, with questions of economic performance.' Stewart Clegg, University of Technology, Sydney

What legitimizes power within a corporation? This question is of concern to the millions of citizens whose lives depend upon the fate of business corporations. The rules, institutions and practices of corporate governance define the limits of the power to direct, and determine under what conditions this power is acceptable. Effective corporate governance has long been defined in terms of economic performance. More recent studies have focused on philosophical, political and historical analyses. Entrepreneurs and Democracy unites these strands of inquiry - the legitimacy of power, the evolution of multiple forms of governance and the economics of performance - and proposes a framework for future study. It explores the opposing tensions of entrepreneurial force and social fragmentation that form the basis of legitimate corporate governance in modern societies. In doing so, it identifies a common logic that links both the democratization of corporate governance and the growth of economic performance.

List of figures and tables
Introduction
Part I. Establishing the Ideological Foundations: The Contribution of Liberal Political Philosophy: 1. The invisible crown: political foundations of the legitimate entrepreneur
2. Society fragmented and the role of democracy
Part II. Understanding How Corporate Governance Evolves: The Contribution of History: 3. Familial governance (c.1800–1920): economic enfranchisement and the founder as entrepreneur
4. Managerial governance (c.1920–70): separation of powers and management as the entrepreneur
5. Post managerial governance (from c.1970): ownership of the large corporation reaches unprecedented mass and fragments into multiple poles
6. Interpreting public governance: representation and debate signify a new step towards democratization
Part III. Corporate Governance and Performance: 7. The pure economic model of corporate governance: an analysis
8. Critique of the pure economic model of corporate governance
9. Economic performance, corporate governance, and the fragmentation of ownership
Epilogue.

Subject Areas: Corporate governance [KJR], Entrepreneurship [KJH], Business ethics & social responsibility [KJG]