A comprehensive account of the contribution and failings of one of the most important institutions in the world - the corporation. It gives an accessible and insightful analysis of why the problems of the corporation - financial crises, mismanagement, poverty, and pollution - are increasing and what can be done to address them.
Does business just exist to maximise shareholder profit? The belief it does has had disastrous consequences for our economies, environment, politics, and societies, argues Colin Mayer. In an urgent call for reform, he sets out an agenda to remake the corporation into a powerful force for promoting economic and social wellbeing in its fullest sense.
The book draws on history, philosophy, psychology, and biology as well economics, law, and finance to describe what has gone wrong, what needs to change, and how to fix it. It sets out the big challenges that capitalism must address and how it should set about doing that.
The debate over corporate governance, or how companies are controlled, has flourished vigorously for several years in the U.S. and has now spread to the U.K. This book collects papers by leading academics, bankers, and consultants which discuss major issues in corporate governance in the U.K., Germany, and Japan. It examines the role of shareholders, company boards, and managers under a market-based system as exists in the U.K. and the U.S. in comparison with the insider system found in Japan and, to a lesser extent, Germany. The issue of the effectiveness of the British system and how it might be made more efficient through increasing the accountability of company boards to shareholders, both directly and via the capital market, is extensively discussed.