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Book part
Publication date: 24 March 2021

Jonathan Preminger

Following critiques of shareholder capitalism and calls for reform of the corporation, employee-owned firms have attracted public and government attention in the UK and elsewhere…

Abstract

Following critiques of shareholder capitalism and calls for reform of the corporation, employee-owned firms have attracted public and government attention in the UK and elsewhere, based on the view that these alternative organizations serve a broader public purpose. However, despite attempts to broaden the measures for evaluating organizations and take seriously the social effects of business decisions, we lack a holistic framework for evaluating this public purpose that addresses aspirations like participation, democracy, equality, solidarity, and strong community relations alongside financial resilience and profitability. This study proposes that a solution can be found in Selznick’s concept of “moral community.” Selznick argued that community, conceived as a response to the perceived unravelling of the social fabric, plays a vital role in countering the excesses of capitalism. Using this as a yardstick to evaluate employee ownership (EO) in the UK, the author argues that the EO organizational field is indeed an embodiment of a moral community. It successfully infuses a broad range of social values into economic pursuits, nurtures an inclusive sense of the “common good,” and mitigates the alienation resulting from an increasingly marketized society. At the same time, the EO moral community does not reject capitalism as such, aspiring to connect with and reform existing political, financial, and legal structures as opposed to positioning its own institutions as an alternative to them. There are, therefore, limits to the challenge that the EO community levels against the current socioeconomic order.

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Organizational Imaginaries: Tempering Capitalism and Tending to Communities through Cooperatives and Collectivist Democracy
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83867-989-7

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Book part
Publication date: 2 September 2016

Bernard Paranque and Hugh Willmott

From a perspective of ‘critical performativity’, John Lewis is of special interest since it is celebrated as a successful organization and heralded as an alternative to more…

Abstract

Purpose

From a perspective of ‘critical performativity’, John Lewis is of special interest since it is celebrated as a successful organization and heralded as an alternative to more typical forms of capitalist enterprise.

Methodology/approach

Our analysis uses secondary empirical material (e.g. JLP documents in the public domain, histories of John Lewis and recent empirical research). Our assumption is that engagement and interrogation of existing empirical work can be at least as illuminating and challenging as undertaking new studies. In addition to generating fresh insights, stimulating reflection and fostering debate, our analysis is intended to contribute to an appreciation of how structures of ownership and governance are significant in enabling and constraining practices of organizing and managing.

Findings

The structures of ownership and governance at John Lewis, a major UK employee-owned retailer, have been commended by those who wish to recuperate capitalism and by those who seek to transform it.

Research limitations/implications

JLP can be read as a ‘subversive intervention’ insofar as it denies absentee investors access to, and control of, its assets. Currently, however, even the critical performative potential of the Partnership model is impeded by its paternalist structures. Exclusion of Partners’ participation in the market for corporate control is reflected in, and compounded by, a weak form of ‘democratic’ governance, where managers are accountable to Partners but not controlled by them.

Practical implications

Our contention is that JLP’s ownership and governance structures offer a practical demonstration, albeit flawed, of how an alternative form of organization is sufficiently ‘efficient’ and durable to be able to ‘compete’ against joint-stock companies.

Originality/value

By examining the cooperative elements of the John Lewis structures of ownership and governance, we illuminate a number of issues faced in realizing the principles ascribed to employee-owned cooperatives – notably, with regard to ‘democratic member control’, ‘member economic participation’ and ‘autonomy and independence’.

Details

Finance Reconsidered: New Perspectives for a Responsible and Sustainable Finance
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78560-980-0

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 27 January 2022

Joost Luyckx, Anselm Schneider and Arno Kourula

The currently dominant version of the corporate form – the profit-maximizing corporation – is one of the most influential organizational forms in contemporary society. It is also…

Abstract

The currently dominant version of the corporate form – the profit-maximizing corporation – is one of the most influential organizational forms in contemporary society. It is also one of the most criticized organizational forms, especially with respect to questions of purpose, participation, and ownership. The corporation’s strong focus on profit maximization and its non-democratic nature, as it excludes non-shareholding stakeholders from participating in how the corporation is run, have all attracted significant criticism. There are, however, several debates over alternative ways of organizing besides the corporation. In this chapter, we review the most influential of these: co-operatives, state-owned enterprises, democratically organized firms, social enterprises, stakeholder firms, and firms based on the sharing economy business model. We first analyze how these alternative ways of organizing do things differently with respect to questions of purpose, participation, and ownership and then we discuss how these different approaches can inspire efforts to reform the corporation.

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The Corporation: Rethinking the Iconic Form of Business Organization
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-377-9

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Book part
Publication date: 11 December 2023

Devaka Gunawardena and Ahilan Kadirgamar

The popular uprising in Sri Lanka on July 9th, 2022, led to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fleeing the country. It represented a stunning culmination of a wave of protests during…

Abstract

The popular uprising in Sri Lanka on July 9th, 2022, led to President Gotabaya Rajapaksa fleeing the country. It represented a stunning culmination of a wave of protests during the recent past. The proximate cause of the uprising was the worst economic crisis that Sri Lanka had experienced since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The breakdown was long in the making since the island nation became the first country in South Asia to take the neoliberal turn in the late 1970s. The dramatic collapse was catalyzed by a sovereign debt crisis with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine. Nevertheless, like all great revolts, it has led to a counter revolution by the ruling class, including the reconfiguration of the old regime.

We examine the tremendous consequences of recent events, both in terms of Sri Lanka's long history of struggles involving working people and the global unravelling underway. We explore whether Sri Lanka is a harbinger of more global political economic changes to come. The process includes the possibility of systemic resistance to financialization in the scores of countries in the Global South experiencing tremendous debt distress. In this regard, we ask whether Sri Lanka's revolt could yet become a revolution. To frame the potential implications, we turn to a deeper interrogation of classic Marxist theories and concepts.

Book part
Publication date: 18 August 2014

Sarah Stookey

The purpose of this chapter is to make the case for significant change in the content and structure of undergraduate business education in the United States. The premise is that…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this chapter is to make the case for significant change in the content and structure of undergraduate business education in the United States. The premise is that business education is generally effective at Getting Things Done – but that generally what it Gets Done is the Wrong Things – advancing destructive tendencies in capitalism – rather than the Right Things – fostering sustainable and democratic alternatives.

Design/methodology/approach

The chapter advances a viewpoint about the current weaknesses and potential strengths of undergraduate business education, relative to the goal of creating more sustainable, community-based economic and social organization. It is structured as a reflection on the history of business education in the United States and on the author’s experience as a professor at a public university.

Findings

The analysis suggests that while undergraduate business education in the United States serves largely to buttress unsustainable and fundamentally destructive tendencies in capitalism the social characteristics of the students and the fundamental nature of the material also makes it – in an apparent paradox – potentially a very rich process, system and venue for fostering more sustainable, community-based economic and social organization.

Originality/value

The value of the chapter lies in the author’s relatively rare perspective as an activist-oriented critical management professor in a U.S. business school. The combination of theoretical and political perspective and experience in the classroom and the larger University offers the possibility of stimulating new avenues of discussion, especially among academics and administrators dissatisfied with the current state of educational practice.

Details

Getting Things Done
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-954-6

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Book part
Publication date: 5 November 2016

Çağrı Eryılmaz

During Gezi Protests of June 2013, hundred thousands of people from different and even opposite groups were together on the streets of Turkey against government for a month. The…

Abstract

During Gezi Protests of June 2013, hundred thousands of people from different and even opposite groups were together on the streets of Turkey against government for a month. The abruptness, severity, diversity and creativity of Gezi Movement make it unique among urban movements in Turkey. Protesters not only challenged the police violence and authoritarian policies but also defended public spaces of their city. My analysis of Gezi Movement is based on the comparison of Lefebvre, Harvey, and Bookchin who all integrated the critique of capitalism and revolutionary vision into urban movements. However, they are different in terms of what revolution, city, class, citizen, and urban social movements are. Gezi Movement is discussed through the similarities and differences of three approaches.

Gezi Movement is a good example of New Social Movements which lacks an organization, hierarchy and a leader. As an urban movement it provided a glimpse of heterotopia of Lefebvre where many different groups and identities challenge the abstract space of neoliberal capitalism. The protesters, as the producers and the consumers of urban commons claimed Gezi Park and Taksim Square as Harvey stated. The transformation of protests into neighborhood forums despite losing power and participation shows the civic potential of urban movement that may develop direct democracy of citizens as a revolutionary alternative to capitalism. The spatial analysis of Gezi Movement provided insight to the revolutionary potential of urban movements in neoliberal age.

Details

Public Spaces: Times of Crisis and Change
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78635-463-1

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 23 August 2012

Fred Block

This article argues that social scientists should reconsider the analytic value of the term “capitalism.” The paper argues that the two most coherent definitions of capitalism are…

Abstract

This article argues that social scientists should reconsider the analytic value of the term “capitalism.” The paper argues that the two most coherent definitions of capitalism are those derived from classical Marxism and from the World System theory of Immanuel Wallerstein. Marx and Engels’ formulation was basically a genetic theory in which the structure of a mode of production is determined by the mode of surplus extraction. During the course of the 20th century, however, Marxist theorists had to modify this framework and the result has been an uncomfortable hybrid. Wallerstein resolved these tensions by redefining capitalism in terms of the logic of a world system. However, his argument has difficulty in explaining the consequential variations over time in the specific rules and institutional structures that operate at the global level. The article goes on to argue in favor of Karl Polanyi's concept of market society because it focuses attention on the political governance of market societies at both the national and the global levels.

Details

Political Power and Social Theory
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78052-867-0

Abstract

Details

Corbynism: A Critical Approach
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78754-372-0

Book part
Publication date: 31 October 2014

Lauren Langman

To resurrect and renew the tradition of the early Frankfurt School, whose of Marxist–Hegelian dialectical approach to understanding the societal conditions of its emergence – post…

Abstract

Purpose

To resurrect and renew the tradition of the early Frankfurt School, whose of Marxist–Hegelian dialectical approach to understanding the societal conditions of its emergence – post World War I Germany, the rise of fascism, New Deal politics, the defeat of fascism, and the subsequent rise of consumer society – remains relevant to studying present circumstances, stressing the cultural dimension of capitalism, the proliferation of alienation, ideology, and mass media, and, finally, the nature of the society-character/subjectivity nexus.

Methodology

Employing a comparative historical approach to the study of alienation, ideology, and character, to articulate social-theoretical standards for critical social research today.

Social implications

Global civilization faces an array of crises, beginning with economies whose lack of growth or stability the ability of a large segment of the world’s population to obtain jobs conducive to a decent standard of life. With governments’ inability to implement public policies to buffer instabilities, cultural values are in crisis as well.

Findings

Reviving the framework of early Frankfurt School Critical Theory is necessary to promote a better world.

Originality

Reconstructing key concerns of the Frankfurt School is conducive to critiquing this tradition’s recent preoccupation with communication and recognition, and demonstrates how the first generation’s legacy helps us understand contemporary social movements of the Right and the Left, in ways that are similar to the Weimar Republic in Germany. Both the Right and the Left being products of legitimation crises that trigger a desire for regressive or progressive social change – the Right would restore a mythical past, the Left would foster a new social order based on humanistic concerns.

Details

Mediations of Social Life in the 21st Century
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78441-222-7

Keywords

Abstract

Details

The Ideological Evolution of Human Resource Management
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78743-389-2

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