The Democratic Corporation

The Democratic Corporation PDF Author: Russell Lincoln Ackoff
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195087275
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
A widely respected business thinker and pioneer in the fields of operations research and systems thinking offers a radical new approach to revitalize the American corporation. Ackoff explodes a number of fashionable business notions and introduces new organizational structures that can give a competitive edge. He cites examples from prominent companies such as General Motors, IBM, Kodak, Alcoa, Dupont, and others.

The Democratic Corporation

The Democratic Corporation PDF Author: Russell Lincoln Ackoff
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195087275
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
A widely respected business thinker and pioneer in the fields of operations research and systems thinking offers a radical new approach to revitalize the American corporation. Ackoff explodes a number of fashionable business notions and introduces new organizational structures that can give a competitive edge. He cites examples from prominent companies such as General Motors, IBM, Kodak, Alcoa, Dupont, and others.

Corporations and American Democracy

Corporations and American Democracy PDF Author: Naomi R. Lamoreaux
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674977718
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Citizens United and other high-profile cases have sparked passionate disagreement about the proper role of corporations in American democracy. Partisans on both sides have made bold claims, often with little basis in historical facts. Bringing together leading scholars of history, law, and political science, Corporations and American Democracy provides the historical and intellectual grounding necessary to put today’s corporate policy debates in proper context. From the nation’s founding to the present, Americans have regarded corporations with ambivalence—embracing their potential to revolutionize economic life and yet remaining wary of their capacity to undermine democratic institutions. Although corporations were originally created to give businesses and other associations special legal rights and privileges, historically they were denied many of the constitutional protections afforded flesh-and-blood citizens. This comprehensive volume covers a range of topics, including the origins of corporations in English and American law, the historical shift from special charters to general incorporation, the increased variety of corporations that this shift made possible, and the roots of modern corporate regulation in the Progressive Era and New Deal. It also covers the evolution of judicial views of corporate rights, particularly since corporations have become the form of choice for an increasing variety of nonbusiness organizations, including political advocacy groups. Ironically, in today’s global economy the decline of large, vertically integrated corporations—the type of corporation that past reform movements fought so hard to regulate—poses some of the newest challenges to effective government oversight of the economy.

The New Corporation

The New Corporation PDF Author: Joel Bakan
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735238855
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 202

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Book Description
Silver WINNER of the 2021 Axiom Business Book Awards in Business Ethics WINNER of the 2021 Jim Deva Prize for Writing That Provokes From the author of The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power comes this deeply informed and unflinching look at the way corporations have slyly rebranded themselves as socially conscious entities ready to tackle society's problems, while CEO compensation soars, income inequality is at all-time highs, and democracy sits in a precarious situation. Over the last decade and a half, business leaders, Silicon Valley executives, and the Davos elite have been calling for a new kind of capitalism. The writing was on the wall. With income inequality soaring, wages stagnating, and a climate crisis escalating, it was no longer viable to justify harming the environment and ducking taxes in the name of shareholder value. Business leaders realized that to get out in front of these problems, they had to make social and environmental values the very core of their messaging. Their essential pitch was: Who could be better suited to address major societal issues than efficiently run corporations? There is just one small problem with their doing well by doing good pitch. Corporations are still, ultimately, answerable to their shareholders, and doing well always comes first. This essential truth lies at the heart of Joel Bakan's argument. In lucid and engaging prose, Bakan lays bare a litany of immoral corporate actions and documents corporate power grabs dressed up as social initiatives. He makes clear the urgency of the problem of the corporatization of society itself and shows how people are fighting back and making gains on a grassroots level.

The Company Democracy Model

The Company Democracy Model PDF Author: Evangelos Markopoulos
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 1000484688
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 327

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Book Description
Company democracy is often misunderstood in the business context as democracy is usually related to politics. In this book, the authors present a different dimension. They focus first on democracy from an organizational culture perspective and then offer employees opportunities to understand and apply democracy from the company floor level. The Company Democracy Model (CDM) is an industry-wide, practical methodology for knowledge management utilization under applied philosophical thinking. The model progresses through a framework in which an organizational evolutionary spiral method empowers the creation of knowledge-based democratic cultures for wise and effective strategic management and leadership. This new innovative methodology, supported with techniques and processes, can gain/create many ideas, insights, innovations, new products, and services that can benefit a company. One purpose of using the model is to create a robust conceptual framework as a theoretical basis for a business strategy that promotes sustainable, continuous, and democratic development. Another purpose is to emphasize the importance of intellectual capital and compare capital-related and human-related business issues in shaping a company’s competitiveness, profitability, productivity, performance, and shared value. A third purpose is to use its symbolic infrastructure that builds solid democratic systems for viable business development and management. Finally, the described purposes give the reader new ideas to change and improve the design of business activities in a collective and modern democratic way.

Re-Creating the Corporation

Re-Creating the Corporation PDF Author: Russell L. Ackoff
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198028814
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
Over the last three decades the average life expectancy of a corporation in North America has dipped well below 20 years. In fact, by 1983 a full third of the 1970 Fortune 500 companies had been acquired, merged, or broken apart. In this landmark book, one of the business world's foremost pioneers, Russell L. Ackoff, delivers this indispensable guide for those hoping to beat these odds--and to better navigate the corporate challenges of the next millennium. While most business and management schools continue to teach the functions of a corporation separately--production, marketing, finance, personnel--the reality is that for a corporation to endure each division must work with the others to create an effective system. Re-Creating the Corporation is Ackoff's masterful blueprint for understanding and creating these model corporate systems. In four comprehensive sections--Background, Process, Designs, and Change--Ackoff lays out in clear concise prose the five organizational goals of successful corporate systems: plan effectively, learn and adapt rapidly, democratize, introduce internal market economies, and employ a flexible structure that will minimize the need for future restructuring. And through a deft mix of practical and theoretical examples drawn from a wide range of applications in a wide range of firms, this book ultimately guides executives to the system best suited to meet their organizational goals. Re-Creating the Corporation, which is the culmination of a lifetime of innovative and insightful business thought from one of the business world's premier thinkers, is essential reading for those attempting to navigate the rapidly changing economic environment of the next millennium.

The Political Power of the Business Corporation

The Political Power of the Business Corporation PDF Author: Stephen Wilks
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN: 1849807329
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
The large business corporation has become a governing institution in national and global politics. This study offers a critical account of its political dominance and lack of democratic legitimacy.

Reconstructing the Corporation

Reconstructing the Corporation PDF Author: Grant M. Hayden
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108916198
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Modern corporations contribute to a wide range of contemporary problems, including income inequality, global warming, and the influence of money in politics. Their relentless pursuit of profits, though, is the natural outcome of the doctrine of shareholder primacy. As the consensus around this doctrine crumbles, it has become increasingly clear that the prerogatives of corporate governance have been improperly limited to shareholders. It is time to examine shareholder primacy and its attendant governance features anew, and reorient the literature around the basic purpose of corporations. This book critically examines the current state of corporate governance law and provides decisive rebuttals to longstanding arguments for the exclusive shareholder franchise. Reconstructing the Corporation presents a new model of corporate governance - one that builds on the theory of the firm as well as a novel theory of democratic participation - to support the extension of the corporate franchise to employees.

Civil Democratic Islam

Civil Democratic Islam PDF Author: Cheryl Benard
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 0833036203
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 89

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Book Description
In the face of Islam's own internal struggles, it is not easy to see who we should support and how. This report provides detailed descriptions of subgroups, their stands on various issues, and what those stands may mean for the West. Since the outcomes can matter greatly to international community, that community might wish to influence them by providing support to appropriate actors. The author recommends a mixed approach of providing specific types of support to those who can influence the outcomes in desirable ways.

Corporations Are Not People

Corporations Are Not People PDF Author: Jeffrey D. Clements
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ISBN: 1609941071
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision marked a culminating victory for the bizarre doctrine that corporations are people with free speech and other rights. Now, Americans cannot stop corporations from spending billions of dollars to dominate elections and keep our elected representatives on a tight leash. Jeffrey Clements reveals the far-reaching effects of this strange and destructive idea, which flies in the face of not only all common sense but most of American legal history as well. Most importantly, he offers solutions—including a constitutional amendment to reverse Citizens United—and tools to help readers join a grassroots drive to implement them. Ending corporate control of our Constitution and government is not about a triumph of one political ideology over another—it’s about restoring the republican principles of American democracy.

The Vanishing American Corporation

The Vanishing American Corporation PDF Author: Gerald F. Davis
Publisher: Berrett-Koehler Publishers
ISBN: 1626562806
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
It may be hard to believe in an era of Walmart, Citizens United, and the Koch brothers, but corporations are on the decline. The number of American companies listed on the stock market dropped by half between 1996 and 2012. In recent years we've seen some of the most storied corporations go bankrupt (General Motors, Chrysler, Eastman Kodak) or disappear entirely (Bethlehem Steel, Lehman Brothers, Borders). Gerald Davis argues this is a root cause of the income inequality and social instability we face today. Corporations were once an integral part of building the middle class. He points out that in their heyday they offered millions of people lifetime employment, a stable career path, health insurance, and retirement pensions. They were like small private welfare states. The businesses that are replacing them will not fill the same role. For one thing, they employ far fewer people—the combined global workforces of Facebook, Yelp, Zynga, LinkedIn, Zillow, Tableau, Zulily, and Box are smaller than the number of people who lost their jobs when Circuit City was liquidated in 2009. And in the “sharing economy,” companies have no obligation to most of the people who work for them—at the end of 2014 Uber had over 160,000 “driver-partners” in the United States but recognized only about 2,000 people as actual employees. Davis tracks the rise of the large American corporation and the economic, social, and technological developments that have led to its decline. The future could see either increasing economic polarization, as careers turn into jobs and jobs turn into tasks, or a more democratic economy built from the grass roots. It's up to us.