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Article
Publication date: 20 March 2024

Duane Windsor

This study aims to help develop “business principles for stakeholder capitalism” in two steps. First, the study defines internal logic of three theories of capitalism and two…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to help develop “business principles for stakeholder capitalism” in two steps. First, the study defines internal logic of three theories of capitalism and two variants within each theory. Second, it examines approaches to integration into modern democratic capitalism. Treating the three theories as substitutes identifies relative strengths and weaknesses; complementarity and partial overlap approaches to integration study the institutional settings within which stakeholder capitalism operates. Empirical outcomes reflect competition between market and stakeholder businesses for participants, with institutional conditions determining the scope of collective action.

Design/methodology/approach

The approach aligns three typologies in a unique conceptual arrangement defining the three theories of capitalism: forms of capitalism, potential failures of each form and associated types of goods. The first method examines the internal logic of each theory of capitalism. The second draws on traditional narrative review of references documenting each theory of capitalism and variants together with modern Marxist anti-capitalism.

Findings

Three typologies align uniquely with the theories of capitalism, each having two variants. Both variants of stakeholder capitalism are compatible with compassionate capitalism, constitutional government or polycentric governance but not with self-interest capitalism, dictatorship or Marxism. A theory of modern democratic capitalism allocates roles for private, club and social goods with empirically variable mixes occurring across countries. Competition among different types of enterprises provides an empirical test for comparative advantages of stakeholder capitalism. Future research should consider approaches for testing the proposed conceptual scheme in practice concerning capacity to deal with grand challenges, wicked problems and black swan events.

Research limitations/implications

Research approach is limited to logical examination of theories and literature documentation without direct empirical confirmation. The study does not address practical implications for managers and public officials or social implications concerning private incentives, stakeholder cooperation or collective action.

Originality/value

Originality lies in shifting terms of debate about stakeholder capitalism from advocacy of substitute theories to understanding of its relationship to market capitalism and collective action capitalism. Value lies in explaining desirability of theoretical integration of three types of capitalism into a comprehensive framework for modern democratic capitalism.

Book part
Publication date: 20 July 2023

Zahid Zamri

The debate between modernity and post-modernity has taken centre stage of philosophical discourse since before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even after the advent of the…

Abstract

The debate between modernity and post-modernity has taken centre stage of philosophical discourse since before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Even after the advent of the pandemic, it has yet to be resolved with each camp claiming to be the victor over the other, and therefore sealed a permanent dichotomy between both schools of thought. With COVID-19 menacing the world, it is timely to revisit the debate and to come to a conclusion that once and for all will dissolve the fissure between these two dominant theoretical paradigms. It is also hoped that the conclusion made can pave the way for a new theoretical paradigm that is more comprehensive and efficient in facing the post-COVID world. By referring to Southeast Asian communities namely the Malaysian, Indonesian, and Singaporean publics, the chapter puts forward the argument that the existing dichotomy between these two theoretical frameworks could no longer sustain its status-quo. This is because the abruption of confusions amongst the public over the issues surrounding the COVID-19 vaccines – and hence on modern science and modernity itself – requires us to stop from rigidly devoting ourselves towards either one of these theoretical paradigms. Based on the case studies, the chapter then suggests for revisions to be made by benefitting from the best of both theoretical paradigms and by omitting those concepts that are no longer effective to be adopted in facing the post-pandemic world.

Details

Pandemic, Politics, and a Fairer Society in Southeast Asia: A Malaysian Perspective
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80455-589-7

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 7 December 2023

Haiping Qiu

In the new development stage of comprehensively building a socialist modern state, it is imperative to adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese…

Abstract

Purpose

In the new development stage of comprehensively building a socialist modern state, it is imperative to adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, comprehensively summarize China's practical experiences in economic development, strengthen research on capital issues, construct theories of socialist political economy with Chinese characteristics regarding capital and provide scientific theoretical guidance for further promoting the positive role of various types of capital while preventing and overcoming their negative effects, which is a major theoretical issue and a glorious task for the theoretical and economic circles in China.

Design/methodology/approach

From the perspective of Marx's theory on capital and historical development, modern capital represents the organizational mode of socialized mass production and market economy. It serves as both the economic foundation of bourgeois society and a tool for socialist economic development.

Findings

The market economy represents an inevitable historical stage and form of socialist economic development, necessitating the adoption of capital as an organizational form within socialist economies.

Originality/value

The utilization of capital to advance a socialist economy is a remarkable achievement by the CPC and Chinese people, representing a significant innovation in both theory and practice. The role of capital is inherently dual under any social condition. In the context of a socialist system, capital can play a positive role effectively, and its behavior can be guided and regulated correctly to curb its negative or even destructive impact.

Details

China Political Economy, vol. 6 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2516-1652

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 April 2024

Jane Andrew and Max Baker

This study explores a hegemonic alliance and the role of relational forms of accounting and accountablity in the making of contemporary capitalism.

Abstract

Purpose

This study explores a hegemonic alliance and the role of relational forms of accounting and accountablity in the making of contemporary capitalism.

Design/methodology/approach

We use the WikiLeaks “Cablegate” documents to provide an account of the detailed machinations between interest groups (corporations and the state) that are constitutive of hegemonic activity.

Findings

Our analysis of the “Cablegate” documents shows that the US and Chevron were crafting a central role for Turkmenistan and its president on the global political stage as early as 2007, despite offical reporting beginning only in 2009. The documents exemplify how “accountability gaps” occlude the understanding of interdependence between capital and the state.

Research limitations/implications

The study contributes to a growing idea that official accounts offer a fictionalized narrative of corporations as existing independently, and thus expands the boundaries associated with studying multinational corporate activities to include their interdependencies with the modern state.

Social implications

The study traces how global capitalism extends into new territories through diplomatic channels, as a strategic initiative between powerful state and capital interests, arguing that the outcome is the empowerment of authoritarian states at the cost of democracy.

Originality/value

The study argues that previous accounting and accountability research has overlooked the larger picture of how capital and the state work together to secure a mutual hegemonic interest. We advocate for a more complete account of these activities that circumvents official, often restricted, views of global capitalism.

Details

Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0951-3574

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 4 March 2024

Oswald A. J. Mascarenhas, Munish Thakur and Payal Kumar

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…

Abstract

Executive Summary

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.

Details

A Primer on Critical Thinking and Business Ethics
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83753-312-1

Article
Publication date: 13 September 2023

Sigmund A. Wagner-Tsukamoto

This paper aims to offer a new history of management by tracing a religious dimension of scientific management. The thesis is that the good was foundational for bringing…

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to offer a new history of management by tracing a religious dimension of scientific management. The thesis is that the good was foundational for bringing scientific management to success in Taylor’s native Quaker Philadelphia in the 1880s. The paper’s main contribution is to contrast the philosophical origins of Taylor’s ideas in scientific management to his native Quaker roots, and how Taylor, over time, into the 1910s, wrestled with this issue.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is situated in historical interpretivism and subjectivism, leaning on contextual and narrative research on religious morality.

Findings

Quaker morality prevented managerial opportunism at Taylor’s Midvale Steel in the 1880s. Conversely, by the 1900s and 1910s, interest conflicts between workers and managers escalated when scientific management moved out of its traditional cultural contexts of Quaker Philadelphia and spread across the USA. The historical implication is, already for Taylor’s time, that scientific management never was the “one-best way” of management.

Research limitations/implications

Future research needs to deepen and broaden research on scientific management when tracing the significance of religion and culture in management thought.

Practical implications

The paper has implications for modern studies of business morality by uncovering the practical relevance of religious business ethics at the outset of management studies.

Social implications

The historic emergence of scientific management points to a theory of institutional evolution and economic growth, when religiously grounded governance of the firm deinstitutionalized, and institutional economic governance, with different but superior economic advantages, progressed by the 1900s.

Originality/value

The paper suggests an alternative version of the intellectual heritage of management studies by tracing the legacy of Taylor’s Quakerism and how religious and cultural ideas contributed to the formation of science in management.

Details

Journal of Management History, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1751-1348

Keywords

Content available
Book part
Publication date: 18 September 2023

Mohamed Ismail Sabry

Abstract

Details

The Growth Paths of State-Society Relations
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80262-246-1

Book part
Publication date: 19 April 2024

Lars Mjøset, Roel Meijer, Nils Butenschøn and Kristian Berg Harpviken

This study employs Stein Rokkan's methodological approach to analyse state formation in the Greater Middle East. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing colonial…

Abstract

This study employs Stein Rokkan's methodological approach to analyse state formation in the Greater Middle East. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing colonial, populist and democratic pacts, suitable for analysis of state formation and nation-building through to the present period. The framework relies on historical institutionalism. The methodology, however, is Rokkan's. The initial conceptual analysis also specifies differences between European and the Middle Eastern state formation processes. It is followed by a brief and selective discussion of historical preconditions. Next, the method of plotting singular cases into conceptual-typological maps is applied to 20 cases in the Greater Middle East (including Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey). For reasons of space, the empirical analysis is limited to the colonial period (1870s to the end of World War 1). Three typologies are combined into one conceptual-typological map of this period. The vertical left-hand axis provides a composite typology that clarifies cultural-territorial preconditions. The horizontal axis specifies transformations of the region's agrarian class structures since the mid-19th century reforms. The right-hand vertical axis provides a four-layered typology of processes of external intervention. A final section presents selected comparative case reconstructions. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time such a Rokkan-style conceptual-typological map has been constructed for a non-European region.

Details

A Comparative Historical and Typological Approach to the Middle Eastern State System
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83753-122-6

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 5 May 2023

Anthony J. Knowles

This chapter argues that modern societies are changing in ways that disrupt the complementarity between social structure and character structure. One source of this divergence…

Abstract

This chapter argues that modern societies are changing in ways that disrupt the complementarity between social structure and character structure. One source of this divergence occurs because, on the one hand, there exists a “neoliberal” character structure that is oriented toward the accumulation of human capital and holds that such accumulation and hard work will allow one to achieve the “American Dream.” On the other hand, the deep embeddedness of this character structure may in fact deepen the possibility of structural crisis, as developments in automation and ongoing transformations of labor continuously shift the economic structure and many feel they are employed in meaningless “soul crushing” jobs. This diagnosis prompts the question: is the accumulation of human capital futile? In other words, can there exist an abundance of jobs that simultaneously pay enough to provide a middle-class lifestyle and be both socially respected by most members of society while also providing subjective meaning for the individual – without accruing high social costs? Through reflections upon my own biography growing up in East Tennessee, this chapter utilizes the framework of Planetary Sociology to encourage sociologists to rethink the category of “human capital” and recognize the divergence of social structure and character structure to be a serious problem with planetary implications. Only by critical examination of the sociohistoric context from a planetary perspective can these challenges be constructively evaluated and reckoned with.

Details

Planetary Sociology
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80043-509-4

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 28 February 2024

Hamid Yeganeh

This article analyzes the relationships between different conceptions of time, socioeconomic development and cultural values.

Abstract

Purpose

This article analyzes the relationships between different conceptions of time, socioeconomic development and cultural values.

Design/methodology/approach

We focus on three major aspects of time, namely, 1) duration, 2) orientation and 3) tempo. Furthermore, we draw on modernization theory to distinguish between agrarian/traditional and industrial/modern societies and their respective cultural values.

Findings

Analyses indicate that agrarian/traditional societies with cultural values such as collectivism, survival, religiosity and hierarchical structures are marked by subjective/cyclical/inaccurate, past-oriented and slow-paced conceptions of time. In contrast, industrial/modern societies with cultural values such as individualism, self-expression, secularism and egalitarianism are marked by objective/linear/accurate, future-oriented and accelerated conceptions of time.

Originality/value

This paper introduces an original conceptualization of the three dimensions of time – duration, orientation and tempo – previously overlooked in the literature. Additionally, it provides an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of the relationships between time, culture and socioeconomic development.

Details

International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0144-333X

Keywords

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