A comprehensive foundation for stakeholder theory, written by many of the most respected and highly cited experts in the field.

All over the world, companies play an important role in the economy. Different types of stakeholders hold the reins in these companies. An important class are the shareholders that finance the activities of these companies. In return, stakeholders have a say on how these companies should be organized and structure their activities. This is primarily done through voting and engaging. These mechanisms of voting and engaging allow the shareholders to decide significant aspects of the company structure, from who governs it to how much directors are paid. However, how shareholders vote and engage and how far their rights stretch are organized differently in different countries. This pioneering book provides insights into what rights these shareholders have and how the shareholders of companies in nineteen different jurisdictions participate in corporate life through voting and engaging. Comparative and international in scope, it pays particular attention to how jurisdictions align and differ around the world.

This Encyclopedia provides a comprehensive overview of the most important concepts of stakeholder theory and management in business and public administration. It identifies that stakeholders are essential for value-creation in democratic societies.

Worker representation is the first step toward democratizing the economy Although contemporary Western societies refer to themselves as “democratic,” the bulk of the population spend much of their lives in workplaces that have more in common with tyranny. Gigantic corporations such as Amazon, Meta, Exxon, and Walmart are among the richest and most powerful institutions in the world yet accountable to no one but their shareholders. The undemocratic nature of conventional firms generates profound problems across society, hurting more than just the workplace and contributing to environmental destruction and spiraling inequality. Against this backdrop, Isabelle Ferreras proposes a radical but realistic plan to democratize the private firm. She suggests that all large firms should be bicamerally governed, with a chamber of worker representatives sharing equal governance power with the standard board representing owners. In response to this proposal, twelve leading experts on corporate behavior from multiple disciplines consider its attractiveness, viability, and achievability as a “real utopian” proposal to strengthen democracy in our time.

In the twenty-first century, there is no single prescription for business strategy development, choice and implementation. The challenges facing firms, not-for-profit organizations and the public sector are significant and call for creativity, inclusivity, diversity and responsibility. The looming and deepening crisis of climate change, imperatives of the UN Sustainable Development Goals and global pandemics, have exposed the risks associated with an exclusive market worldview and the indicators that drive it such as GDP, stock market values, return on investment, executive remuneration, etc. Sustainable Business Strategy augments and challenges existing texts to offer a progressive, challenging, decolonized and plural business strategy curriculum. Andrew Grantham presents existing business strategy theories, tools and techniques, introduces contemporary critiques, and offers fresh thinking about the application of the models and outcomes. The book takes the position that what we know about strategic analysis, choice and implementation needs updating and revision; while there remains a significant role for the market in a healthy, sustainable and future-oriented economy, strategic decisions will be mediated by regulation, broad stakeholder engagement and planetary boundaries. This book is written to be used as a core text for students studying business or corporate strategy at undergraduate and master’s levels. The author uses contemporary examples by way of illustration but seeks to guide readers to investigate the case in greater detail for themselves using references and hyperlinks. Questions and exercise sections in each chapter can be utilized in seminar classes and/or assessments.

The topic of investor protection has occupied investors, businesses, regulators, academics, and courts since the 1930s. The topic exploded in importance after the 2008 financial crisis and the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme of the same year. Investor protection scholarship now seeks to respond to developments such as the institutionalization of the markets, the democratization of finance, and the enhanced role of market professionals and other gatekeepers. Additionally, although the philosophy of full disclosure remains the guiding principle behind the securities laws, recent research has questioned the merits of a disclosure-based regime. In light of these trends, regulators try to strike the right balance between imposing a strict investor protection regime, on the one hand, and giving businesses the freedom to innovate new projects, market new services, and reduce costs, on the other. The Cambridge Handbook of Investor Protection brings together leading scholars to inform this debate and fill a gap left by these developments.

Conventional economic and accounting systems have been exposed by the limitations of market-driven mechanisms, where public services, education and healthcare have been subordinated to profit, exacerbating the inequalities between people and countries. Italy was one of the earliest countries to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and also one of the hardest-hit. The successes and failures of the Italian response provides a blueprint for the factors determining the ability of institutions to meet these challenges. This book presents a multifaceted analysis and reflection of the challenges that various types of organisations - public, private and non-profit - have had to face during the pandemic. It contributes to the creation of robust strategies for institutions worldwide to be able to respond promptly and equitably to future emergencies and offers insights for developing policy and practice, with respect to global leaders’ accountability for and management of exceptional events. It addresses three main subjects: extraordinary events and their challenges for business and organisations; the nature and roles of interdisciplinary accounting and accountability in a pandemic environment; and how the global pandemic is impacting accounting and accountability in diverse contexts, such as public services, healthcare, education, and NGOs. With a focus on institutional approaches to establishing, maintaining and discharging accountability throughout the pandemic, the insights of this book are invaluable to both students and practitioners seeking to bolster institutional resilience in an increasingly uncertain world. Both management and accounting communities can learn from this extraordinary global event to promote the process of transforming how business and societies operate.

This book is about humanizing business. In contrast to the mainstream modern management and leadership literature, this book provides distinctly humane perspectives on business. The volume travels outside the world of business to explore what Humanities – such as Philosophy, History, Literature, Creative Arts, and Cultural Studies – can offer to business. Renowned scholars from different Humanities disciplines, as well as management researchers exploring the heritage of Humanities, convey what it actually means to make business more humane. The book strives to humanize business. It aims to show that it is not people who have to suppress their human feelings, aspirations, and beliefs when they are at their workplaces, but it is business itself that needs to be redefined by the human norms of human beings. Companies should care about their employees and other stakeholders letting them be themselves, i.e. be human, at work and beyond. The book will be of interest to management scholars across various business disciplines. It can also be used as teaching material in the classroom with MBA students, especially in Business Ethics, Business and Society, Sustainability, Organizational Behavior, Human Resource Management and other management courses. The volume will also be of interest to scholars that work in different Humanities fields and whose interests span organizations, management, and business. Finally, many practitioners in the business world, especially those in managerial and leadership positions, will find the book both thought-provoking and useful for them as well. Chapter 37 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

Psychologists have been observing and interpreting economic behaviour for at least fifty years, and the last decade, in particular, has seen an escalated interest in the interface between psychology and economics. The Cambridge Handbook of Psychology and Economic Behaviour is a valuable reference resource dedicated to improving our understanding of the economic mind and economic behaviour. Employing empirical methods – including laboratory experiments, field experiments, observations, questionnaires and interviews – the Handbook covers aspects of theory and method, financial and consumer behaviour, the environment and biological perspectives. With contributions from distinguished scholars from a variety of countries and backgrounds, the Handbook is an important step forward in the improvement of communications between the disciplines of psychology and economics. It will appeal to academic researchers and graduates in economic psychology and behavioural economics.

Outlining origins of the field and latest research trends, this Research Handbook offers a unique and cutting-edge take on the numerous avenues to responsible management in the 21st century. Renowned contributors present iconic viewpoints that have formed the foundation of responsible management research, introducing cutting-edge conceptual lenses for the study of the responsible management process.