Presenting a comprehensive overview of the changes in policies and economic doctrines of the American economy following the 2008 global financial crisis, this book critically examines the reformation of the corporate landscape. Observing the growth of oligopolistic market tendencies and increased economic concentration, it draws on scholarly literature from economics, management studies and legal theory to provide an integrated perspective on the causes and consequences of the crisis. Discussing the growth of oligopolistic market niches in the American economy, chapters explore their causes, including the influence of "anti-antitrust" scholars on legal enforcement practices and the resulting relaxation of antitrust law. The book highlights their consequences, including the growth of monopsony and labor market concentration. Alexander Styhre uses aggregate economic equality data across the book to show that the working class in advanced economies have not been compensated for the globalization of the economy. It concludes by looking towards the long-term consequences of rising economic concentration, examining non-traditional labor contracts, new employment relations, lower entrepreneurial activities and lower labor compensation in the new corporate landscape. This informative book will be useful to students and scholars of business ethics and trust, corporate governance and organization studies. It will also be a critical read for policy makers concerned with the causes and consequences of economic inequality.

The legal, regulatory and ethical frameworks guiding governance decisions are highly politicised and subject to intense debate. This book discusses governance theory in relation to corporations, universities and markets. Confronting the challenges of governing these three core areas, Alexander Styhre explores the connections between governance and the production of economic value, shareholder value and economic equality. An in-depth overview of recent governance literature in management studies, economics, legal theory and economic sociology, exposes how governance theory affects securities markets, commodities trade, university ranking and credit scoring cases. The author examines how changes in competitive capitalism and the wider social organization of society are recursively both determined by, and actively shaping the underlying governance ideals and practices. Identifying the difficulties involved in balancing freedom and control in governance policy, he highlights the key concerns confronting governments, regulatory agencies and transnational agencies: how to ensure the efficient use of economic resources to avoid economic inequality without undermining the legitimacy of the current market-based economic model. Essential reading for academics and graduates in management and the social sciences, as well as policy makers and management consultants, The Unfinished Business of Governance gives exceptional insight into the challenges facing governance within free markets.

The shift from managerial capitalism to investor capitalism, dominated by the finance industry and finance capital accumulation, is jointly caused by a variety of institutional, legal, political, and ideological changes, beginning with the 1970s' down-turn of the global economy. This book traces how the incorporation of businesses within the realm of the state leads to both certain benefits, characteristic of competitive capitalism, and to the emergence of new corporate governance problems. Contrasting economic, legal, and managerial views of corporate governance practices in contemporary capitalism, the author examines how corporate governance has been understood and advocated differently during the New Deal era, the post-World War II economic boom, and after 1980 in the era of free-market advocacy. Covering the theory of the firm from the New Deal era until the post-2008 financial crisis, the book connects contemporary theories with their original legal roots, demonstrating inconsistencies in contemporary understanding. It also points at the differences between legal theory and neoclassical economic theory regarding the theory of the firm. The book examines how the entrenchment of shareholder welfare governance turns a blind eye to legal theory and corporate law, leading to theoretical inconsistencies and practical concerns, and criticises the agency theory argument in favour of unrestricted shareholder welfare governance. A comprehensive review of the literature on corporate governance, both in legal theory and in economics and management studies is included. This enlightening and informative book is essential reading for corporate governance scholars, management studies researchers, legal theorists and business historians.

Knowledge management presents a new way of understanding organizations and companies, and is especially suited to sophisticated and highly technical firms and operations such as those in the construction industry.

This new book draws on hard data from three separate research programs in Sweden and shows how the concept of knowledge can make sense in the construction industry, an industry which can be viewed in essence as being engaged in the material transformation of "nature into buildings." In particular it explores and examines three different businesses: a medium sized construction firm; Wing rdh Architecture, Sweden s most prestigious architecture firm; and BESAB, a specialist concrete injection firm working on underground construction. An emerging theme is the situational and context-bound nature of knowledge in the construction industry, thus showing "knowledge" to be a remarkably heterogeneous concept.

A range of readers should find the book useful, from students and construction managers through to researchers.

With more than 14,000 business schools worldwide, what is included in their curricula matters for how the economy and the corporate system are managed. Business schools should be subject to scholarly inquiries and critical reflection. While many studies of business schools examine its general role in the tertiary education system and in society more broadly, this volume examines how one specific theoretical perspective and a normative model derived therefrom were developed and gradually appropriated within the business school setting. This volume demonstrates that agency theory, based on a daring conjecture that firms can be construed as bundles of contacts, rose to prominence in the business school context. It examines how the elementary proposition of agency theory, that the firm is to be considered theoretically and practically as a "nexus of contracts," was never consistent with corporate law and contract law, and it was empirically unsubstantiated. Business schools are under pressure to teach not only practically useful theories and models, but also theories that are also scientifically qualified. Despite having this ambition, certain theories are widely taught despite failing to live up to such declared ambitions, which means that business schools may be criticized for including theories on ambiguous grounds in the curricula. This book examines how business schools seek to honour the ambition to teach both scientifically verified theories and practically useful concepts and models, and how the tensions derived from this duality may be problematic to handle. It will be of interest to researchers, academics, and advanced students in the fields of management education, organizational studies, and legal theory.

Social science theorists from various scholarly disciplines have contributed to a recent literature that examines how the finance industry has expanded and now wields increasing influence across a variety of economic fields and industries. In some cases, this tendency towards a more sizeable and influential finance industry has been referred to as "the financialization" of the economy. This book explains how what is referred to as the finance-led economy (arguably a more neutral and less emotionally charged term than financialization) is premised on a number of conditions, institutional relations, and theoretical propositions and assumptions, and indicates what the real economic consequences are for market actors and households. The book provides a theoretically condensed but empirically grounded account of the contemporary finance-led economy, in many cases too complicated in its design and rich in detail to be understood equally by insiders-empirical research indicates-and lay audiences. It summarizes the relevant literature and points at two empirical cases, the construction industry and life science venturing, to better illustrate how the expansion of the finance industry has contributed to the capital formation process, and how the sovereign state has actively assisted this process. It offers a credible, yet accessible overview of the economic conditions that will arguably shape economic affairs for the foreseeable future. The book will find an audience amongst a variety of readers, including graduate students, management scholars, policymakers, and management consultants.

The economic system of competitive capitalism has proven to be both resilient and flexible over time and has contributed to the economic welfare of citizens in liberal and coordinated market economies in diverse regions and countries. At the same time, over the entire post-World War II period, there has been a notable endemic shortage of affordable housing in many advanced economies. This book points at both the causes and the consequences of this circumstance and provides an integrated economic and legal view of how housing production is dependent on housing finance, which, in turn, means that legal conditions and the sovereign state play an active role. Further, the book contributes to the literature from two otherwise partially separated disciplines-housing and urban development studies on the one hand and the institutional centrality of the finance industry in the contemporary economic system on the other. The author asserts that although somewhat assimilated due to the ambitions of policy makers to optimize social and economic welfare for their constituencies, the combining of these two realms of expertise generates many favorable outcomes, but also some costs derived from finance industry instabilities. The book connects theoretical perspectives and provides an empirical explanation for how affordable housing is generated in an actual real world economy context. The book will be relevant to the work of a number of academic disciplines including economics, government studies, housing policy and urban planning, social geography and law and society.

Reproductive medicine has been very successful at developing new therapies in recent years and people having difficulties conceiving have more options available to them than ever before. These developments have led to a new institutional landscape emerging and this innovative volume explores how health and social structures are being developed and reconfigured to take into account the increased use of assisted reproductive technologies, such as IVF treatments. Using Sweden as a central case study, it explores how the process of institutionalizing new assisted reproductive technologies includes regulatory agencies, ethical committees, political bodies and discourses, scientific communities, patient and activists groups, and entrepreneurial activities in the existing clinics and new entrants to the industry. It draws on new theoretical developments in institutional theory and outlines how health innovations are always embedded in social relations including ethical, political, and financial concerns. This book will be of interest to advanced students and academics in health management, science and technology studies, the sociology of health and illness and organisational theory.

Social science theorists from various scholarly disciplines have contributed to a recent literature that examines how the finance industry has expanded and now wields increasing influence across a variety of economic fields and industries. In some cases, this tendency towards a more sizeable and influential finance industry has been referred to as "the financialization" of the economy. This book explains how what is referred to as the finance-led economy (arguably a more neutral and less emotionally charged term than financialization) is premised on a number of conditions, institutional relations, and theoretical propositions and assumptions, and indicates what the real economic consequences are for market actors and households. The book provides a theoretically condensed but empirically grounded account of the contemporary finance-led economy, in many cases too complicated in its design and rich in detail to be understood equally by insiders-empirical research indicates-and lay audiences. It summarizes the relevant literature and points at two empirical cases, the construction industry and life science venturing, to better illustrate how the expansion of the finance industry has contributed to the capital formation process, and how the sovereign state has actively assisted this process. It offers a credible, yet accessible overview of the economic conditions that will arguably shape economic affairs for the foreseeable future. The book will find an audience amongst a variety of readers, including graduate students, management scholars, policymakers, and management consultants.

The Institutional Theory of the Firm examines recent and previous organization theory literature to advocate what Evans (1995) refers to as the "embedded autonomy" of the firm, as well as its role in being simultaneously anchored in, for example, corporate legislation and regulatory practices on the national, regional (i.e., within the European Union) and transnational levels, while at the same time being granted the right to operate with significant degrees of freedom within this legal-regulatory model. Seen in this view, the embedded autonomy of the corporation represents a theoretical view of the corporation that complements the market-based image of the corporation in economic theory. When advocating the institutional theory model, three forms of embedded autonomy are examined. First, the corporation is enacted as a legal entity sui juris-as a freestanding "legal person" in corporate law and within the regulatory framework that serves to enforce legislation in everyday life settings. Second, the corporation is embedded within what social theorists refer to as moral economies, the norms and values that regulate what are the socially acceptable and legitimate means for conducting business. Third and finally, the corporation is embedded in governance, a relatively complex economic concept that denotes legal and regulatory control on the societal and economic system levels, and on the level of the individual corporation. By combining the three forms of embeddedness, sanctioned by law, norms, and governance, the embedded autonomy of the firm is secured on the basis of a variety of social practices and resources. This book brings together a diverse literature including management studies, economic sociology, legal theory, finance theory, and mainstream economic theory to advance the argument that the corporation is best understood as what is embedded in a social and economic context, yet best serving its defined and stipulated ends by assuming considerable degrees of freedom to operate in isolation from various stakeholders. It will be of relevance for a variety of readers, including graduate students, management scholars, policy-makers, and management consultants interested in organization theory and management studies.

In this insightful book, Alexander Styhre examines how corporations, often understood primarily as economic entities or legal devices, seek to influence and shape the market and the wider society in which they operate. Given the scope of such activities in most advanced economies, Styhre argues that corporations are political agents in their own right and that they must be critically analyzed in these terms. The book discusses the history and mechanisms of corporate law and the introduction of regulatory control to show how this has led to the development of a 'market for political influence' in the form of the lobbyism industry, think tank scholarship and advocacy, and donations to politicians and their parties. Theoretical perspectives are complemented by empirical studies as chapters analyze a variety of practices, such as corporate social responsibility commitments, in the light of corporations' political objectives. Management studies scholars and graduate students will benefit from the broadened perspective this book adds to organization theory and management studies literature. It will also prove an insightful read for policy makers and those working in regulatory agencies, as well as management consultants.

Highly original and based on unique empirical research in the fields of organization theory and organization behaviour, this work makes an invaluable contribution to the literature on bureaucracy and innovation. Focusing on a study of two major companies working with innovation and new product development Styhre's critical analysis pushes the boundaries of bureaucracy studies beyond its current entrenched position. Departing from the traditional view that bureaucratic organizations are inefficient, incapable of responding to external changes, unable to orchestrate innovative work and provide meaningful jobs for its co-workers, this empirical study underlines the merits of a functional organization, the presence of specialist and expertise groups and hierarchical structures. Analyzing the literature of bureaucracy, the new forms of post-bureaucratic organizations and drawing on the philosophy of Henri Bergson, the author offers a model of bureaucracy, capable of both apprehending its functional organization and its continuous and ongoing modifications and changes to adapt to external conditions. Innovative and compelling, this book is an excellent text for advanced students of organization and management theory and managerial strategists and decision-makers across the globe.

The Making of Shareholder Welfare Society traces and accounts for the debates and discussions between law and economics scholars and mainstream legal scholars, management theorists, and economic sociologists. This is done in detail to demonstrate that the shareholder welfare society was built from the bottom up, beginning with theoretical propositions regarding alleged market efficiencies and leading all the way to the idea that a society characterized by economic freedom and efficiency maximization pave the way for uncompromised shareholder welfare, in turn being good for everyone. This book is of relevance for a variety of readers, including graduate students, management scholars, policy-makers, and management consultants, as well as those that are concerned about how the economic system of competitive capitalism is now in a position where it is riddled by doubts and concern, not the least as the levels of economic inequality is soaring. It addresses the topics with regard to corporate governance, accounting and society and will be of interest to researchers, academics, students, and members of the general public that are concerned about the economic system of competitive capitalism.

Not Required for Text Type.

The advancement of the life sciences and the technosciences has enhanced the longevity of citizens in the Western world, and half of the generation born in the first decade of the new millennium is now expected to live to the age of one hundred years. In a society with such longevity and affluence, consumption of health-related goods and services such as pharmaceuticals and scanning procedures may be seen as a sustainable source of income for the industries that promote it. Though the healthcare sector has traditionally been organized in the public sector in Europe and in the private sector in the US, the recent advancement of new therapies and direct-to-consumer marketing have opened up new streams of consumption and revenue for health care goods and services around the globe. This book examines the so-called 'bioeconomy' as a new economic and commercial field that emphasizes the management of individual life, including the regulation and control of weight and food consumption and other issues pertaining to individual well-being. In addition, the bioeconomy includes a variety of practices based on commercial interests such as organ donations, reproductive medicine and technologies, and what has been referred to as the tissue economy - the various forms of trade with human tissues. Author Alexander Styhre provides a thorough introduction to the bioeconomy, exploring this new and unique intersection of the life sciences and the technosciences with more traditional consumer markets.

In all periods of time, there is a perceived shortage of qualified, credible, and robust leadership skills. At the same time, what is regarded as skilled leadership is contingent on economic, political, institutional, and cultural conditions specific for a period of time or a local setting. Leadership in the era of managerial capitalism was focused on planning and administration, and was seated in large-scale, divisionalized corporations. In the 1970s, this economic model started to wane and leadership was advanced as the solution to a series of economic and social concerns, now being a matter of meaning-making in the face of uncertainty and ambiguity. With the expansion of the finance industry and the deregulation of finance markets in the 1990s and in the new millennium, yet another leadership model increasingly prioritized economic value creation. In parallel to the economic, political and institutional changes, the idea of leadership has been strongly informed by new ideas about individualism and masculinity, adding to the understanding of leadership as what is anchored in widespread social beliefs about for example healthy life styles, the virtues of physical exercise, and novel gender relations. Aimed at scholars, researchers, students and policy makers in the fields of Leadership, Management History and Organizational Theory; Leadership Varieties examines predominant ideas about the qualities and virtues of leadership in a historical and cultural perspective.

After the financial collapse of 2008 and the bailing out of banks in the US and the UK, the long-term viability of the neoliberal doctrine has come under new scrutiny. The elimination of regulatory control, the financialization of the economy including the growth of increasingly complex financial innovations, and the dominance of a rentier class have all been subject to thorough criticism. Despite the unexpected meltdown of the financial system and the substantial costs for restoring the finance industry, critics contend that the same decision-makers remain in place and few substantial changes to regulatory control have been made. Even though neoliberal thinking strongly stresses the role of the market and market-based transactions, the organization theory and management literature has been marginally concerned with neoliberalism as a political agenda and economic policy. This book examines the consequences of neoliberalism for management thinking and management practice. Managerial practices in organizations are fundamentally affected by a political agenda emphasizing competition and innovation. Concepts such as auditing, corporate social responsibility, shareholder value, and boundariless careers are some examples of managerial terms and frameworks that are inextricably entangled with the neoliberal agenda. This book introduces the literature on neoliberalism, its history and controversies, and demonstrates where neoliberal thinking has served to rearticulate managerial practice, including in the areas of corporate governance, human resource management, and regulatory control of organizations.

Vision and visuality are two concepts widely discussed and debated in philosophy and social science literature. Some authors even suggest that the entire Western intellectual tradition is strongly shaped by the paradigm of vision; the inspection and analysis of specimens collected from social reality are regarded as the only legitimate source of truth. However, in organizations, a variety of visual practices are employed in for instance science-based innovation in for instance the pharmaceutical industry and in architect work. Such visual practices include the use of various technoscientific machinery and tools to more mundane uses of full-scale models and photos in architect work. In comparison to the various linguistic perspectives on organizations, vision and visuality remain surprisingly little theorized and examined in the organization literature. Visual Culture in Organizations offers an introduction to the literature on vision and visuality that is relevant to organizational theory (comparing and contrasting it to the well-documented area of linguistic theory in organizations), proposes a theoretical framework for visual culture in organizations, and provides empirical illustrations to the theoretical framework. The book shows that visual practices are a central procedure in the day-to-day routines of organizations and are long overdue for close examination.

The advancement of the life sciences and the technosciences has enhanced the longevity of citizens in the Western world, and half of the generation born in the first decade of the new millennium is now expected to live to the age of one hundred years. In a society with such longevity and affluence, consumption of health-related goods and services such as pharmaceuticals and scanning procedures may be seen as a sustainable source of income for the industries that promote it. Though the healthcare sector has traditionally been organized in the public sector in Europe and in the private sector in the US, the recent advancement of new therapies and direct-to-consumer marketing have opened up new streams of consumption and revenue for health care goods and services around the globe. This book examines the so-called 'bioeconomy' as a new economic and commercial field that emphasizes the management of individual life, including the regulation and control of weight and food consumption and other issues pertaining to individual well-being. In addition, the bioeconomy includes a variety of practices based on commercial interests such as organ donations, reproductive medicine and technologies, and what has been referred to as the tissue economy - the various forms of trade with human tissues. Author Alexander Styhre provides a thorough introduction to the bioeconomy, exploring this new and unique intersection of the life sciences and the technosciences with more traditional consumer markets.

Rapid advances in the life sciences means that there is now a far more detailed understanding of biological systems on the cellular, molecular and genetic levels. Sited at the intersection between the life sciences, the engineering sciences and the design sciences, innovations in the biomaterials industry are expected to garner increasing attention and play a key role in future development. This book examines the biomaterials innovations taking place in corporations and in academic research settings today.Biomaterials Innovation offers a comprehensive overview of life science innovation and presents empirical research in the field of biomaterials innovation. Alexander Styhre examines innovation management practices in the field of biomaterials development and explains institutional changes in the biomaterials industry. The demand for accomplishing biocompatibility between the human body and the materials developed is highlighted, as is the relationship between financial markets and biomaterials companies. Finally, the author discusses the therapeutic, regulatory and managerial implications of biomaterials innovation. Biomaterials Innovation will be required reading for any researcher, policy-maker or student interested in innovation management, the life sciences and the development of health care therapies. Contents: 1. Life and Materiality, Nature and Artifice: Transgressing the Divide 2. Bios, Materiality, and Biomateriality 3. Innovation Management and Innovation in the Life Sciences 4. Shifting Institutional Logics in Biomaterial Companies 5. The Epistemology of Biomaterials: How Biomaterials Become Embodied 6. Financing Biomaterials Innovation: Selling Science in Venture Capital Markets 7. Biomaterials Innovation: Re-creating the Human Body Appendix: Methodology of the Studies Bibliography Index

Vision and visuality are two concepts widely discussed and debated in philosophy and social science literature. Some authors even suggest that the entire Western intellectual tradition is strongly shaped by the paradigm of vision; the inspection and analysis of specimens collected from social reality are regarded as the only legitimate source of truth. However, in organizations, a variety of visual practices are employed in for instance science-based innovation in for instance the pharmaceutical industry and in architect work. Such visual practices include the use of various technoscientific machinery and tools to more mundane uses of full-scale models and photos in architect work. In comparison to the various linguistic perspectives on organizations, vision and visuality remain surprisingly little theorized and examined in the organization literature.

Visual Culture in Organizations offers an introduction to the literature on vision and visuality that is relevant to organizational theory (comparing and contrasting it to the well-documented area of linguistic theory in organizations), proposes a theoretical framework for visual culture in organizations, and provides empirical illustrations to the theoretical framework. The book shows that visual practices are a central procedure in the day-to-day routines of organizations and are long overdue for close examination.

Highly original and based on unique empirical research in the fields of organization theory and organization behaviour, this work makes an invaluable contribution to the literature on bureaucracy and innovation. Focusing on a study of two major companies working with innovation and new product development Styhre's critical analysis pushes the boundaries of bureaucracy studies beyond its current entrenched position.

Departing from the traditional view that bureaucratic organizations are inefficient, incapable of responding to external changes, unable to orchestrate innovative work and provide meaningful jobs for its co-workers, this empirical study underlines the merits of a functional organization, the presence of specialist and expertise groups and hierarchical structures. Analyzing the literature of bureaucracy, the new forms of post-bureaucratic organizations and drawing on the philosophy of Henri Bergson, the author offers a model of bureaucracy, capable of both apprehending its functional organization and its continuous and ongoing modifications and changes to adapt to external conditions.

Innovative and compelling, this book is an excellent text for advanced students of organization and management theory and managerial strategists and decision-makers across the globe.

In all periods of time, there is a perceived shortage of qualified, credible, and robust leadership skills. At the same time, what is regarded as skilled leadership is contingent on economic, political, institutional, and cultural conditions specific for a period of time or a local setting. Leadership in the era of managerial capitalism was focused on planning and administration, and was seated in large-scale, divisionalized corporations. In the 1970s, this economic model started to wane and leadership was advanced as the solution to a series of economic and social concerns, now being a matter of meaning-making in the face of uncertainty and ambiguity. With the expansion of the finance industry and the deregulation of finance markets in the 1990s and in the new millennium, yet another leadership model increasingly prioritized economic value creation. In parallel to the economic, political and institutional changes, the idea of leadership has been strongly informed by new ideas about individualism and masculinity, adding to the understanding of leadership as what is anchored in widespread social beliefs about for example healthy life styles, the virtues of physical exercise, and novel gender relations. Aimed at scholars, researchers, students and policy makers in the fields of Leadership, Management History and Organizational Theory; Leadership Varieties examines predominant ideas about the qualities and virtues of leadership in a historical and cultural perspective.

The Making of Shareholder Welfare Society traces and accounts for the debates and discussions between law and economics scholars and mainstream legal scholars, management theorists, and economic sociologists. This is done in detail to demonstrate that the shareholder welfare society was built from the bottom up, beginning with theoretical propositions regarding alleged market efficiencies and leading all the way to the idea that a society characterized by economic freedom and efficiency maximization pave the way for uncompromised shareholder welfare, in turn being good for everyone. This book is of relevance for a variety of readers, including graduate students, management scholars, policy-makers, and management consultants, as well as those that are concerned about how the economic system of competitive capitalism is now in a position where it is riddled by doubts and concern, not the least as the levels of economic inequality is soaring. It addresses the topics with regard to corporate governance, accounting and society and will be of interest to researchers, academics, students, and members of the general public that are concerned about the economic system of competitive capitalism.

Knowledge management presents a new way of understanding organizations and companies, and is especially suited to sophisticated and highly technical firms and operations such as those in the construction industry. This new book draws on hard data from three separate research programs in Sweden and shows how the concept of knowledge can make sense in the construction industry, an industry which can be viewed in essence as being engaged in the material transformation of "nature into buildings". In particular it explores and examines three different businesses: a medium sized construction firm; Wingardh Architecture, Sweden's most prestigious architecture firm; and BESAB, a specialist concrete injection firm working on underground construction. An emerging theme is the situational and context-bound nature of knowledge in the construction industry, thus showing "knowledge" to be a remarkably heterogeneous concept. A range of readers should find the book useful, from students and construction managers through to researchers.