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Defaults in corporations, financial institutions and semipublic organizations have resulted in (corporate) governance Codes and Law provisions that aim to improve governance, risk management and policy making by executive and non-executive directors of involved boards in The Netherlands and across the globe. The aim of this chapter is to discuss how semipublic organizations deal with public interest and the contribution of multiple stakeholder team production theory (MSTP) to effectively deal with the issue of how to include interests of different stakeholders and the general public interest in the governance of and policy making by boards of semipublic organizations. This includes the identification, raising awareness and analysis of various interests and their implications.

The authors use a literature review and their own experience.

Based on our literature review and experience converging in a case study design, we hold that a semipublic organization’s exposure to public interests and how it deals with that will remain a critical issue.

We develop a research approach for dealing with stakeholders’ and the public interest and conclude that a governance perspective grounded in team production theory allows for a much better focused incorporation of possibly conflicting stakeholder interests, including public stakeholder interests and stakeholder commitment and cooperation than the dominant control perspective that is currently prevailing.

We contribute to the literature by arguing that the combined MSTP approach offers a pre-eminent approach to influence and shape board behaviour, an increased awareness of interests of different stakeholders coalescing in the public interest and an alternative, complementary view on decision-making by boards viewed as a team.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

THE opening months of the last war were conducted in a very leisurely fashion because the expected disasters had not befallen us. Not until our armies were rescued from the beaches of Dunkirk did the stark realities of the situation percolate into the public mind. Once the facts were understood the whole country was galvanised into activity.