Purpose-driven corporations: how corporate law reorders the field of corporate governance

Blanche Segrestin (), Kevin Levillain () and Armand Hatchuel ()
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Blanche Segrestin: CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Kevin Levillain: CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Armand Hatchuel: CGS i3 - Centre de Gestion Scientifique i3 - Mines Paris - PSL (École nationale supérieure des mines de Paris) - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - I3 - Institut interdisciplinaire de l’innovation - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

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Abstract: In a number of States, new legal " benefit " or " purpose " corporate forms are introduced to promote stakeholder-oriented companies. If it is too early to know empirically if this legal framework will work, we can build upon what we know on corporate governance to predict whether it is likely to work or not. In this paper, we present a mapping of the theories on corporate governance and derive some tentative predictions for purpose-driven corporations. We find that theories make diverging predictions, and in a paradoxical way: agency theory is seen as a shareholder-oriented theory, but it supports the new legal forms while stakeholder theory does not. This reordering of the field reveals that theories may overlook the possibility of a legal change. Our work thus contributes to suggest an empirical test of the theories with the purpose-driven companies, but it also opens further avenues to reappraise the theories of corporate governance.

Keywords: Corporate law; purpose-driven corporation; stakeholder; corporate governance; agency theory; stewardship (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016-06-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-law and nep-sog
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-01323118v1
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in European Academy of Management Conference (EURAM 2016), Jun 2016, Paris, France

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-01323118

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