Can we trust purpose? Corporate legal forms and built‐in purpose

Blanche Segrestin (), Jérémy Lévêque () and Kevin Levillain ()
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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
Jérémy Lévêque: 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

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Abstract: The literature on corporate purpose rarely considers how legal structures shape fidelity to purpose over time. Yet, recent developments, such as OpenAI's transformation into a Public Benefit Corporation, highlight the critical role of legal forms in determining whether companies can sustain their purpose credibly and over time. We introduce the concept of built‐in purpose as the set of purposes that a legal form can credibly and durably support through its embedded governance mechanisms. Further, we propose a framework to characterize the built‐in purpose of legal forms along two key functions that governance mechanisms must provide to ensure purpose fidelity: a protective function, which safeguards purpose from changing shareholder expectations or external pressures, and an enforcement function, which ensures that the purpose is effectively integrated into managerial decision‐making. We argue that the concept of built‐in purpose enriches the analysis of alternative legal forms and provides a tool for navigating their growing diversity. The alignment between a company's declared purpose and the built‐in purpose of its legal form also constitutes a driver of integrity, opening new perspectives for choosing governance structures suited to each specific purpose.

Keywords: integrity; governance structures; mission drift; governance; corporate law; purpose (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05547772v1
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Published in European Management Review, 2026, ⟨10.1111/emre.70061⟩

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-05547772

DOI: 10.1111/emre.70061

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