Business for Society

Description

Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of figures List of tables Acknowledgements Introduction 1 A historical perspective on the hijacking of business responsibility towards society 1.1 What does hijacking consist of in managerial studies? The premises: recuperation of the critique of capitalism Our position: critique of management is hijacked by dominant theories 1.2 How agency theory hijacked managerialism Evolution towards the managerial theory of the firm A separation of ownership and control does not mean disregarding corporate social responsibility 1.3 How does hijacking operate? The strengths of the dominantideology and the weaknesses of representations of critical opposition in the field of science and society Some critical theories in the management knowledge fieldshow significant weaknesses, among them authors'desires to produce something 'compatible' with extant management theories Critical theories are progressively distorted by their ownsupporters to meet the objectives of mainstream ones,no matter what fundamental contradictions such a process may engender The constraints of management practice which could beinvoked by critical theories about responsibility areneutralized, and instead turned into new assets for use at management's discretion In the end, a few fundamental criteria torn from thecritical theory are absorbed into the mainstream,completing the hijacking process and making it possible in theory as well as in practice 1.4 Conclusion Note 2 Management knowledge and value 2.1 Management is at risk from pretence of knowledge The influence of Friedman's position on business-and-society studies The bias of the agency model as mainstream Lessons to be learned ten years down the line from the explosion of the financial crisis 2.2 The structuration of management knowledge is based on categories and fuzzy integrative theories: an opportunity for hijacking Philosophical categories of knowledge are toxic to ethical management Integrative management theories eliminate the very idea of conflict 2.3 The ecology and the economy of management knowledge as a support for hijacking The ecology of management knowledge: digestingcriticism to make it compatible with current practices The economy of management knowledge: metrics and rankings to maintain an illusion of normal science 2.4 Conclusion Note 3 The business for society project against hijacking: a genetic analysis and sketch of a genetic draft 3.1 Introduction 3.2 Repairing the institutional machine Competitive formatting of scientific content sterilizes management thought The financialization of science promotes 'double blind' evaluation Transferring criteria of excellence from 'hard science' leads to the standardization of management science De-financializing research to stem the conformism 3.3 Repairing the intellectual machine Some intellectual virus polarizes managerial concepts to 'society for business' 3.4 Repairing management knowledge by making society the centre of our intellectual patterns 3.5 Conclusion: when repairing means curing … Note 4 Accounting for society 4.1 Context: the great transformation of accounting, from accountability to financialization Triggers and forms of the accounting revolution Impacts of the accounting revolution: invasive reporting and the procyclicality of standards A call for inventing or re-creating multiple accounting standards 4.2 Conceiving an efficient and impactful social disclosure mechanism: a task for the multiple accounting perspective? 4.3 Theoretical perspectives on CSD The social legitimacy perspective The perspective of asymmetric information The institutional perspective 4.4 Attempts to standardize CSD: the need for a common CSR 'grammar' 4.5 Social reporting and social performance: what is the relationship? 4.6 A synthesis: CSD as a multifunctional tool 4.7 Conclusion Notes 5 Finance for society 5.1 Context: the 'global financializing' of society The financialization of business The dematerialization of value Banks disintermediate their activities, as do states 5.2 On the investor side: revisiting finance through ethical and socially responsible principles Beyond maximization of economic utility: the ethical and socially responsible investor The ethical and socially responsible investor is not a monolithic entity The risks of mainstreaming ethical finance 5.3 On the company side: revisiting the concept of value maximization Societal care as a form of risk protection Notes 6 Governance for society and democracy: on the necessity of new paradigms 6.1 The company and the inter-regulation of the three spheres of Society–Politics–Business/the company and democracy The influence path of Business → Politics → Society The influence path of Business → Society → Politics Studying and measuring the systemic influence ofcorporations on governance within state and society 6.2 Alternative modes of 'corporate' governance: democracy within the firm 6.3 Conclusion Notes References Index