Political Power and Corporate Control

Political Power and Corporate Control PDF Author: Peter A. Gourevitch
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400837014
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 365

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Book Description
Why does corporate governance--front page news with the collapse of Enron, WorldCom, and Parmalat--vary so dramatically around the world? This book explains how politics shapes corporate governance--how managers, shareholders, and workers jockey for advantage in setting the rules by which companies are run, and for whom they are run. It combines a clear theoretical model on this political interaction, with statistical evidence from thirty-nine countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America and detailed narratives of country cases. This book differs sharply from most treatments by explaining differences in minority shareholder protections and ownership concentration among countries in terms of the interaction of economic preferences and political institutions. It explores in particular the crucial role of pension plans and financial intermediaries in shaping political preferences for different rules of corporate governance. The countries examined sort into two distinct groups: diffuse shareholding by external investors who pick a board that monitors the managers, and concentrated blockholding by insiders who monitor managers directly. Examining the political coalitions that form among or across management, owners, and workers, the authors find that certain coalitions encourage policies that promote diffuse shareholding, while other coalitions yield blockholding-oriented policies. Political institutions influence the probability of one coalition defeating another.

Political Power and Corporate Control

Political Power and Corporate Control PDF Author: Peter A. Gourevitch
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400837014
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 365

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Book Description
Why does corporate governance--front page news with the collapse of Enron, WorldCom, and Parmalat--vary so dramatically around the world? This book explains how politics shapes corporate governance--how managers, shareholders, and workers jockey for advantage in setting the rules by which companies are run, and for whom they are run. It combines a clear theoretical model on this political interaction, with statistical evidence from thirty-nine countries of Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America and detailed narratives of country cases. This book differs sharply from most treatments by explaining differences in minority shareholder protections and ownership concentration among countries in terms of the interaction of economic preferences and political institutions. It explores in particular the crucial role of pension plans and financial intermediaries in shaping political preferences for different rules of corporate governance. The countries examined sort into two distinct groups: diffuse shareholding by external investors who pick a board that monitors the managers, and concentrated blockholding by insiders who monitor managers directly. Examining the political coalitions that form among or across management, owners, and workers, the authors find that certain coalitions encourage policies that promote diffuse shareholding, while other coalitions yield blockholding-oriented policies. Political institutions influence the probability of one coalition defeating another.

Corporate Control, Corporate Power

Corporate Control, Corporate Power PDF Author: Edward S. Herman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521289078
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 452

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Book Description
Deep and detailed research into the workings of corporate enables Professor Herman to throw considerable light on how the board of directors operates, how important outside directors are, how new members are selected, and how multiple directorships interlock the large corporations. Throughout the book the author contrasts the power of the managers with that of other interest groups - bankers, family - and he concludes that power lies with the managers. But this has not changed the basic objectives of the corporation - the pursuit of growth and profits - nor has it enhanced social responsibility. After thorough investigation Edward Herman concludes that government regulation has done surprisingly little to reduce the autonomy of the corporation. Just as the influence of bankers and investors has been resisted, so has the effect of regulation. Improved communications and controls, geographic dispersion, and the enhanced adaptability and mobility of the large corporation have all played a part in maintaining corporate power and managerial control. Corporate Control, Corporate Power will be essential reading for executives, policy makers, regulators, and all those concerned to make the corporation more responsible and accountable.

Corporate Control, Corporate Power

Corporate Control, Corporate Power PDF Author: Edward S. Herman
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Big business
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description


Quiet Politics and Business Power

Quiet Politics and Business Power PDF Author: Pepper D. Culpepper
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139491857
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
Does democracy control business, or does business control democracy? This study of how companies are bought and sold in four countries - France, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands - explores this fundamental question. It does so by examining variation in the rules of corporate control - specifically, whether hostile takeovers are allowed. Takeovers have high political stakes: they result in corporate reorganizations, layoffs and the unraveling of compromises between workers and managers. But the public rarely pays attention to issues of corporate control. As a result, political parties and legislatures are largely absent from this domain. Instead, organized managers get to make the rules, quietly drawing on their superior lobbying capacity and the deference of legislators. These tools, not campaign donations, are the true founts of managerial political influence.

The Political Power of Global Corporations

The Political Power of Global Corporations PDF Author: John Mikler
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 0745698492
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
We have long been told that corporations rule the world, their interests seemingly taking precedence over states and their citizens. Yet, while states, civil society, and international organizations are well drawn in terms of their institutions, ideologies, and functions, the world's global corporations are often more simply sketched as mechanisms of profit maximization. In this book, John Mikler re-casts global corporations as political actors with complex identities and strategies. Debunking the idea of global corporations as exclusively profit-driven entities, he shows how they seek not only to drive or modify the agendas of states but to govern in their own right. He also explains why we need to re-territorialize global corporations as political actors that reflect and project the political power of the states and regions from which they hail. We know the global corporations' names, we know where they are headquartered, and we know where they invest and operate. Economic processes are increasingly produced by the control they possess, the relationships they have, the leverage they employ, the strategic decisions they make, and the discourses they create to enhance acceptance of their interests. This book represents a call to study how they do so, rather than making assumptions based on theoretical abstractions.

Corporate Corruption

Corporate Corruption PDF Author: Marshall Clinard
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313367914
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
In recent years, the media have been full of stories about ethical decline. Illegal dealings have been uncovered in the banking and savings and loan industries as well as the highest levels of Congress and government administration. Even television evangelism has been seriously tarnished by scandal. Corporate Corruption is the first wide ranging book to turn the spotlight on the unethical and illegal behavior of America's giant corporations and their executives: the prestigious Fortune 500. While avoiding the undignified zealotry of tabloid muck-raking, this well-researched volume explores corporate abuse and examines the disparity between the facts of corporate misconduct and the glowing image that advertising and other media portray of these corporations. Marshall Clinard identifies the auto, oil, pharmaceutical, and defense industries as the major offenders. He devotes a chapter to each of these areas in addition to chapters on corporate violence, corporate bribery, and a final discussion of how to correct these widespread abuses. Although their massive productive capacities and innovative powers have contributed immeasurably to the high standard of living that many Americans enjoy, far too often corporations have abused the public trust, the people who use their products, their own employees and stockholders, the environment, and even the Third World that they profess to help. From illegally disposing of hazardous waste to defiance of health and safety standards to price-fixing, corporate violations cost hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of lives. The magnitude of their offenses becomes clear when one considers that a single corporate offense may run into millions of dollars in losses, while the average cost of a burglary is $600 and the average larceny $400. In some cases, the cost of a single case of corporate misconduct may exceed a billion dollars. Having published three earlier books on corporate misbehavior and having received two grants from the U.S. Department of Justice to make specific corporate studies, Clinard is well-qualified to bring insight, experience, and unblinking scrutiny to what he describes as a story that must be told. Corporate Corruption is a must for anyone concerned about the widespread breakdown of ethics in contemporary society and the role played by large corporations when they abuse their power. It is also of interest to persons involved in business management, complex organizations, criminology, general ethics, and, in fact, to any responsible customer.

Monopolized

Monopolized PDF Author: David Dayen
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620975424
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 441

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Book Description
From the airlines we fly to the food we eat, how a tiny group of corporations have come to dominate every aspect of our lives—by one of our most intrepid and accomplished journalists "If you're looking for a book . . . that will get your heart pumping and your blood boiling and that will remind you why we're in these fights—add this one to your list." —Senator Elizabeth Warren on David Dayen's Chain of Title Over the last forty years our choices have narrowed, our opportunities have shrunk, and our lives have become governed by a handful of very large and very powerful corporations. Today, practically everything we buy, everywhere we shop, and every service we secure comes from a heavily concentrated market. This is a world where four major banks control most of our money, four airlines shuttle most of us around the country, and four major cell phone providers connect most of our communications. If you are sick you can go to one of three main pharmacies to fill your prescription, and if you end up in a hospital almost every accessory to heal you comes from one of a handful of large medical suppliers. Dayen, the editor of the American Prospect and author of the acclaimed Chain of Title, provides a riveting account of what it means to live in this new age of monopoly and how we might resist this corporate hegemony. Through vignettes and vivid case studies Dayen shows how these monopolies have transformed us, inverted us, and truly changed our lives, at the same time providing readers with the raw material to make monopoly a consequential issue in American life and revive a long-dormant antitrust movement.

The New Corporation

The New Corporation PDF Author: Joel Bakan
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 1984899732
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
A deeply informed and unflinching look at the way corporations have slyly rebranded themselves as socially conscious entities ready to tackle society's problems, while CEO compensation soars, income inequality is at all-time highs, and democracy sits in a precarious situation. “A very important book, an arresting study directed to a central issue of the times” (Noam Chomsky), from the author of The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power. Over the last decade and a half, business leaders have been calling for a new kind of capitalism. With income inequality soaring, wages stagnating, and a climate crisis escalating, they realized that they had to make social and environmental values the very core of their messaging. The problem is corporations are still, first and foremost, concerned with their bottom line. In lucid and engaging prose, Joel Bakan documents how increasing corporate freedom encroaches on individual liberty and democracy. Through deep research and interviews with both top executives and their sharpest critics, he exposes the inhumanity and destructive force of the current order--profit-driven privatization subverting the public good, governments neglecting duties to protect the environment, the increasing alienation we experience as every aspect of life is economized, and how the Covid-19 pandemic lays bare the unjust fault lines of our corporate-led society. Beyond diagnosing major problems, in The New Corporation Bakan narrates a hopeful path forward. He reveals how citizens around the world are fighting back and making gains in ways that bolster democracy and benefit ordinary citizens rather than the corporate elite.

Rethinking Corporate Governance

Rethinking Corporate Governance PDF Author: Alessio Pacces
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135099413
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 492

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Book Description
The standard approach to the legal foundations of corporate governance is based on the view that corporate law promotes separation of ownership and control by protecting non-controlling shareholders from expropriation. This book takes a broader perspective by showing that investor protection is a necessary, but not sufficient, legal condition for the efficient separation of ownership and control. Supporting the control powers of managers or controlling shareholders is as important as protecting investors from the abuse of these powers. Rethinking Corporate Governance reappraises the existing framework for the economic analysis of corporate law based on three categories of private benefits of control. Some of these benefits are not necessarily bad for corporate governance. The areas of law mainly affecting private benefits of control – including the distribution of corporate powers, self-dealing, and takeover regulation – are analyzed in five jurisdictions, namely the US, the UK, Italy, Sweden, and the Netherlands. Not only does this approach to corporate law explain separation of ownership and control better than just investor protection; it also suggests that the law can improve the efficiency of corporate governance by allowing non-controlling shareholders to be less powerful.

The Transformation of Corporate Control

The Transformation of Corporate Control PDF Author: Neil Fligstein
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674903593
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
In this book Neil Fligstein takes issue with prevailing theories of the corporation and proposes a radically new view that has important implications for American competitiveness.