Zusammenfassung
Roughly speaking, Enron has done for reflection on corporate governance what AIDS did for research on the immune system. So far, however, virtually all of this reflection on and subsequent reform of governance has come from those with a stake in the success of modern capitalism. This paper identifies a number of governance challenges for critics of capitalism, and in particular for those who urge corporations to voluntarily adopt missions of broader social responsibility and equal treatment for all stakeholder groups. I argue that by generally neglecting the governance relation between shareholders and senior managers, stakeholder theorists have underestimated the way in which shareholder-focused governance can be in the interests of all stakeholder groups
Siehe den Gesamtinhalt dieses Dokumentes
Auszug
What Can the Stakeholder Theory Learn From Enron?*
1. Introduction
Those with a direct stake in the success of capitalism-the 'Right', if you will- reacted quickly to some of the challenges posed by the scandals of the 'Enron era'. Their favourite weekly magazines, like The Economist and Business Week, ran a string of feature investigations and cover stories with titles like "American Capitalism Takes a Beating", and "The Crisis in Corporate Governance". And a number of specific legal and regulatory changes designed to prevent further scandals ensued. I will argue that critics of capitalism-the 'Left', if you will-have at least as much to learn from the challenges of governance posed by these scandals. There is little evidence that this learning has yet begun.2. What's left?Let us pause briefly to reflect on the nature of "the left" and its contemporary critique of capitalism. Of course, the nineteenth-century labels of "left" and "right" are now more likely to obscure rather than clarify our understanding of contemporary political movements. It used to be easy: those on the left called for less (or even the abolition of) private enterprise and more "state ownership of the means of production"; and those on the right called for the reverse, that is, more private enterprise and smaller government. By the 1970s, for reasons we will discuss later, the trend for more and more "nationalization" of industry began to slow and re...Siehe den Gesamtinhalt dieses Dokumentes
Geförderte Links
