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This chapter focuses on critical thinking as a new, powerful, and specialized tool and technique for understanding and analyzing the subtle operations of the free enterprise capitalist market system and its ethics and morality. Everything in the world of consumers and market enterprise systems are determined by our supply–demand system that in turn are determined by our presumed limitless production–distribution and consumption (LDPC) systems. From a critical thinking viewpoint, we study the free enterprise capitalist system (FECS) as a dynamic, interconnected organic system and not as a discrete or compartmentalized body of disaggregate parts. Systems thinking with critical thinking calls for a shift of our mindset from seeing just parts to seeing the whole reality in its structured dynamic unity; both mandate that we see ourselves as active participators or partners of FECS and not as mere cogs in its wheels or as mere factors of its production processes. Critical thinking seeks to identify the “structures” that underlie complex situations in FECS with those that bring about high- versus low-leveraged changes in various versions of capitalism. Specifically, this chapter applies critical thinking to FECS as defined by its founder, Adam Smith, in 1776 to its fundamental and structural assumptions, and as supported or critiqued by serious scholars such as Karl Marx, Maynard Keynes, C. K. Prahalad and Allen Hammond (inclusive capitalism), John Mackey and Rajendra Sisodia (conscious capitalism), and others.

This paper narrates the efforts made in Italy after the end of the Second World War to develop an economic and social model in between corporate capitalism and planned economy, on the one hand, and shareholder versus stakeholder capitalism on the other. The result was the institutional infrastructure that supported the Istituto per la Ricostruzione industriale (IRI), a state-owned public holding in charge of managing the funds of the so-called Marshall Plan. The history of IRI illustrates the importance of a pragmatic approach to dealing with institutional constraints and opportunities when faced with the need to reconstruct destroyed economies in a context of very fragmented societies such as those of post-war Italy. The result was the resistance to an acritical adoption of the corporate American model and the definition of a more balanced form of capitalism. In an era of new recovery plans, there is a lot we can learn from IRI’s history.

This is the story of an ageing fitness fanatic and the financial sharks who circled his empire before destroying it. Peter Gosnell, The Daily Telegraph 17/4/2003:29. In 2001, Australian company HIH Insurance was placed into liquidation, with severe financial losses and devastating consequences for its employees and policyholders. Dubbed as ‘Australia’s biggest corporate collapse’ (Westfield 2003:241), the HIH case attracted a great deal of attention, not only because of its adverse economic and social impacts but also because it reads like a moral tale in which senior executives of a major business corporation infringe ethical principles and are chastised in the end for their greed, hubris and lack of social responsibility. An examination of media texts published as the case unfolded reveals a strong sense of moral indignation with the social consequences of the HIH collapse, reflected in particular in representations of the shamed executives as greedy, dishonest, arrogant and ruthless. This paper examines the discursive processes that generate representations of HIH senior executives in such dysfunctional terms. Its main contention is that these negative representations can be linked to the growing influence of discourses such as corporate social responsibility (CSR), conceptualised here as a counter‐hegemonic discourse that emerges in an era of increased reflexivity to challenge the legitimacy of dominant discourses of global capitalism. The structuring effects of these discourses are explored in this paper through a methodological framework that borrows from discourse analysis and narrative analysis. This framework reveals links between texts, discourses and macro‐systemic context ‐ or ‐ to borrow from Schegloff (1992) ‐ between proximate and distal contexts The first section of the paper discusses the methodological framework used in the study; the second section provides a brief overview of the broad social context within which the HIH narrative unfolds, and the third part examines the textual construction of the HIH narrative as a moral tale of advanced capitalism, paying particular attention to the portrayal of its key protagonists.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of corporate governance structures in the UK and Germany addressing the extent to which corporate governance structures may have been a contributory factor to the recent banking crisis. Following a review of shareholder and stakeholder theories of corporate governance and a comparative overview of corporate governance codes in the UK and Germany, the authors aim to provide some country level macroeconomic data and performance related data for a small number of large banks in the UK and Germany.

The paper is structured as follows. It first reviews the existing literature that underpins the stakeholder vs shareholder debate within corporate governance. It then reviews the current codes of conduct and governance structures implemented by UK and German banks. An analysis of the extent to which the banking crises can be attributed to failures in governance is presented and finally some conclusions and recommendations are outlined.

Findings suggest that while corporate governance in banks would appear to have been a significant factor in the recent banking crisis, based on the performance data, it cannot be said that a corporate governance approach based on either shareholder capitalism (UK) or stakeholder capitalism (Germany) is more at fault than the other. However, it is clear that UK and German corporate governance structures were not adequate to prevent the recent banking crisis and only time will tell whether the remedial actions taken have been sufficient. The present findings, in line with those presented in the Walker report in 2009, suggest that the codes of conduct in both countries were not adequate to deal with the complex issues caused by the financial crisis and that changes need to be implemented. The authors fully acknowledge that corporate governance only played a part in the financial crisis and in order to try to stop a repeat of this, the whole regulatory environment in both countries needs to be strengthened.

The main limitation of the study lies with a lack of complex analysis undertaken to support the findings.

The findings from the study suggest that, regardless of the type of governance in operation, current corporate governance rules were not adequate and that a new set of rules is needed in both the UK and Germany. The findings also suggest that the stakeholder/shareholder debate may not be as important as previously claimed and that regulators need to find good governance rules, regardless of theoretical underpinnings.

Governments across the world are currently cutting public spending in an extreme fashion and this is, partly, due to the banking crises. Therefore, poor governance in the banking sector is leading to massive social problems in the real world as governments cut services.

The paper is original as it is the first attempt to discuss the corporate governance failing and the banking crises from a shareholder/stakeholder perspective.

Strategies and policies aimed at alleviating poverty in Sub-Saharan African countries usually depend on capitalistically driven economic growth. However, the view that capitalism needs to reinvent itself to survive the crisis of confidence brought about by the recent global financial collapse depends on the extent to which such a shared value oriented, sustainable capitalist reinvention is embraced by emergent business leaders. A sustainable system of capitalism driven by business and community shared value can only take root if the hearts and minds of future business leaders are convinced of their cogency and appropriateness. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper reports the findings of an empirical study utilizing a Likert-type scale designed to measure corporate shared value (CSV) and corporate social responsibility (CSR) among a sample of fourth year accountancy students at a leading South African university.

Preliminary findings suggest that perceptions of this group of emergent leaders generally regard CSR rather than CSV as the “correct” business model for companies to follow. Although the sample is limited to one South African university and is relatively small, it contributes to the literature by offering insight into emergent business leaders’ perceptions and their view of the direction of CSR in South Africa should take.

Implications of the paper are that by offering insight into emergent business leaders’ perceptions of South African society and specifically their view of the direction South African CSR should take, the paper suggests prescriptive remedial steps in policy that educational and other learning institutions could take to engender appropriate social values in learners.

The study contributes to the literature by offering devised and tested measuring instruments for CSR and CSV in the South African context and gives insight into emergent business leaders’ perceptions and their view of the direction of CSR in South Africa should take.

The debate about corporate purpose is a recurring one that has re-emerged today. What should be the guiding principles of business: the pursuit of profit or a contribution to public interest? We trace key elements in this debate in Britain and America, from the interwar years, when John Maynard Keynes and Adolf Berle made important contributions, to the 1970s, when events ushered in a return to laissez-faire and the rise to dominance of the shareholder primacy model of corporate governance and purpose, to today. Both the earlier and the current debates are centered around whether we see business institutions as strictly private entities, transacting with their suppliers, workers, and customers on terms agreed with or imposed upon these groups, or as part of society at large and therefore expected to contribute to what society deems to be its interests. Whether current developments will ultimately produce a shift in corporate purpose akin to the one that followed the Second World War remains to be seen. But the parallels to the interwar debates, and the uncertain economic, political, and social environments in which they took place, are striking. Our objective is to see what might be learned from the past to inform the current direction of thought concerning capitalism and corporate purpose.

Despite profound differences, both the German Historical School and the critical theory of the Frankfurt School have in common a theoretical and cultural heritage in Central European traditions of social thought and philosophy. Although both schools often are perceived as quintessentially German traditions of economic and social research, their methodological presuppositions and critical intent diverge strongly. Since the objective of the Frankfurt School was to carry the theoretical critique initiated by Marx into the twentieth century, and since its members did so on a highly abstract level of theoretical criticism, the suggestion may be surprising that in terms of their respective research agendas, there was a common denominator between the German Historical School and the Frankfurt School critical theory. To be sure, as will become apparent, the common ground was rather tenuous and indirect. We must ask, then: in what respects did their theoretical and analytical foundations and orientations overlap? How did the German Historical School, as a nineteenth-century tradition of economic thinking, influence the development of the Frankfurt School?

Across much of the developed and developing world the last few years have been marked by protest against institutions and corporations. Much has been said about the significance of these protests, indeed books broadly supportive of anti‐corporate protest compete for ratings against management gurus in the best selling business book charts. In this paper we explore how the technology of marketing is implicated within the organisation and representation of anti‐corporate protests. We argue that the cynical and unreflexive manner in which cultural critics engage with marketing, and their attempts to distance marketing from activities that they privilege, may have consequences for the anti‐corporate movement. This paper concludes with a sense of pessimism about the current tactics employed by anti‐corporate protestors but hope in the potentiality of marketing to develop a sense of individual responsibility.