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Stakeholderism, Corporate Purpose, And Credible Commitment, Lisa Fairfax
Stakeholderism, Corporate Purpose, And Credible Commitment, Lisa Fairfax
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One of the most significant recent phenomena in corporate governance is the embrace, by some of the most influential actors in the corporate community, of the view that corporations should be focused on furthering the interests of all corporate stakeholders as well as the broader society. This stakeholder vision of corporate purpose is not new. Instead, it has emerged in cycles throughout corporate law history. However, for much of that history—including recent history—the consensus has been that stakeholderism has not achieved dominance or otherwise significantly influenced corporate behavior. That honor is reserved for the corporate purpose theory that focuses on …
Restoration: The Role Stakeholder Governance Must Play In Recreating A Fair And Sustainable American Economy A Reply To Professor Rock, Leo E. Strine Jr.
Restoration: The Role Stakeholder Governance Must Play In Recreating A Fair And Sustainable American Economy A Reply To Professor Rock, Leo E. Strine Jr.
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In his excellent article, For Whom is the Corporation Managed in 2020?: The Debate Over Corporate Purpose, Professor Edward Rock articulates his understanding of the debate over corporate purpose. This reply supports Professor Rock’s depiction of the current state of corporate law in the United States. It also accepts Professor Rock’s contention that finance and law and economics professors tend to equate the value of corporations to society solely with the value of their equity. But, I employ a less academic lens on the current debate about corporate purpose, and am more optimistic about proposals to change our corporate governance …
Quasi Governments And Inchoate Law: Berle's Vision Of Limits On Corporate Power, Elizabeth Pollman
Quasi Governments And Inchoate Law: Berle's Vision Of Limits On Corporate Power, Elizabeth Pollman
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In honor of the Berle X Symposium, this essay gives prominence to key writings of the distinguished corporate law scholar Adolf A. Berle, Jr. from the 1950s and 60s. By the early 1950s, Berle had rejoined academic life after years in government service. When he returned to scholarly writing, Berle repeatedly highlighted the problem of economic power in corporations. He wrote about this as both an issue of “bigness” as an absolute matter and relative to particular industries in terms of concentration. He conceded that history had vindicated the late Professor E. Merrick Dodd’s view that directors of large corporations …
Performance Track’S Postmortem: Lessons From The Rise And Fall Of Epa’S “Flagship” Voluntary Program, Cary Coglianese, Jennifer Nash
Performance Track’S Postmortem: Lessons From The Rise And Fall Of Epa’S “Flagship” Voluntary Program, Cary Coglianese, Jennifer Nash
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For nearly a decade, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) considered its National Environmental Performance Track to be its “flagship” voluntary program — even a model for transforming the conventional system of environmental regulation. Since Performance Track’s founding during the Clinton Administration, EPA officials repeatedly claimed that the program’s rewards attracted hundreds of the nation’s “top” environmental performers and induced these businesses to make significant environmental gains beyond legal requirements. Although EPA eventually disbanded Performance Track early in the Obama Administration, the program has been subsequently emulated by a variety of state and federal regulatory authorities. To discern lessons …