Governing The Firm

Table of contents

This book uses economic theory to argue that worker-controlled firms are rare due to market failures rather than inherent organizational defects. The book will be of interest to scholarly researchers, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates in economics, especially in industrial organization, labor economics, comparative economics, organizational economics, and finance.

The corporate business enterprise is a core institution of capitalism. It holds immense political, economic, and cultural power in society. It mobilizes social and planetary resources to its utility in pursuit of private profit maximization and with little regard for social concerns. Its influence over so much of societal life and effects on the natural environment raise critical questions about the firm and its governance in democratic society. Various voices seek reforms of regulation and corporate governance practices to those shaped by the neoliberal policies persisting in the current decades. But prospects for amelioration within our current horizons of thinking appear elusive. This book contributes a distinctly social theoretical approach to the social problem of governing the firm. Its discussions complement debates in economics, politics, and law. Its critical social theorizations challenge conventional understandings of the firm and neoliberal legitimacies of its governance and posit alternatives. The book explores the social relations and moral fabric of the firm and the creativity of human action at work. It proposes a reimagined corporate governance premised on just recognition of that social vitality. It invites unprecedented collaboration for a robust participatory democracy for governing the firm and market action oriented to ecological and social sustainability.

This guide is a practical resource for those firms that want to provide better client service and at the same time, improve the working environment for both lawyers and staff. It provides strategies to change the climate of the law firm, boost morale, and effectively and efficiently manage the firm. Issues discussed range from leadership and partnership issues to the basics of running the office. Includes a companion CD-ROM with more than 25 model forms, agreements, worksheets, questionnaires, policy forms, and more.

Tackles one of the most enduring and contentious issues of positive political economy: common pool resource management.

This volume introduces the reader to national standards to illustrate the growing body of law that governs lawyer conduct: the American Bar Association’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct, the American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Law Governing Lawyers, and selected federal statutes and rules. New to the 2024-2025 Edition: 2023 American Bar Association Model Rules of Professional Conduct, as amended through December 2023

This book transposes the ‘free-energy principle’, as espoused by the neuroscientist Karl Friston, to strategic governance, and forming the new concept of Free-Energy Governance (FEG). This concept lays the foundation for a new logic of governing continuous transformation. In addition to guiding the structure, cognition, and capabilities of success in strategic renewal, FEG provides a systematic and practice-relevant approach to predicting a firm’s potential for entropy. Using this new concept, the author shows that the success of continuous strategic renewal and business innovation, elements crucial for firm survival, are determined by the triplet of a firm’s structure, cognition, and dynamic board capabilities. “How to govern large organizations in times of high uncertainty and permanent change? To answer this pressing question, ... Bijan Khezri has been the first to apply [the free energy] principle to management science ... This book is an eyeopener for every reflective leader. ̈ Professor Oliver Gassmann, Director of the Institute of Management and Technology, University of St. Gallen “I really enjoyed reading this book. It was both exciting and reassuring to see how the same fundamental ideas can be found in fields as disparate as nonequilibrium steady-state physics and theories of governance.” Professor Karl. J. Friston; Director of the Wellcome Centre for Human Neuroimaging “Using a term often applied to best-selling novels, ‘it is a page turner’ in which I learned something new in every chapter! Every board member, all executives and scholars interested in strategic leadership and governance must read this book if they wish to remain relevant in the coming transformational decades.” Michael A. Hitt University Distinguished Professor Emeritus, Mays Business School, Texas A&M University Former President, Academy of Management, and former Editor, Academy of Management Journal "We could not ask for a better author to initiate this new conversation in the board research community and convey its merits to the world of board practice." Martin Hilb Professor Emeritus, University of St. Gallen Founder and Managing Partner, International Board Foundation and President of Swiss Institute of Directors “Set against a wide swath of literature, the book impressively makes the case for a new logic of strategic renewal in which the board of directors plays a central role.” Professor Constance E. Helfat, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth

Governing the New Europe provides a comprehensive and scholarly account of the changing political map of Europe as it emerges from the Cold War. Exploring the variations of liberal democracy and market economy among the European states, as well as current trends in these directions, the contributors to this volume, all leading authorities in European politics, consider whether a common political model has begun to emerge out of historic European diversity. Beginning with a discussion of the political, economic, and cultural development of Europe from a historical perspective, the focus of the book shifts to an examination of the changing forms of European democracy and the move from public ownership and planning to privatization and deregulated competition. Further essays analyze the challenge to national party systems and electoral performance from emerging social movements and organized interest groups. Political and bureaucratic structures are also examined as is the new European constitutionalism reflected in the increasingly significant role of the judiciary. Lastly, attention is turned to several major themes in European politics: the changing foundations of foreign and security policy, the function of industrial champion firms, and the retreat from the welfare state. Primarily comparative in its scope, Governing the New Europe does devote particular attention to specific major states as well as to the importance of the European Union to the political life of member and non-member countries. Neither exaggerating the common features of the patterns that have emerged in contemporary Europe nor capitulating to the complexity of enduring differences and instabilities between states, Governing the New Europe will become one of the standard texts in its field. Contributors. Jack Hayward, Jolyon Howorth, Herbert Kitschelt, Marie Lavigne, Tom Mackie, Michael Mezey, Edward C. Page, Richard Parry, Richard Rose, Anthony Smith, Alec Stone