Corporate Governance as a School of Social Reform

Abstract

This paper addresses itself to the following question: how is the company the personification of industrial (or financial) capital? My argument is that the company is personified through the generation of narratives of selfhood that define and stabilise the ‘practices and institutions’ of the firm. These narratives themselves draw on the conventions of ‘moral economy’ - struggles and conventions through which questions of distribution, desert and economic order in society are struggle over and resolved - so as to lend internal coherence to the productive and disciplinary practices of the firm and to provide external context for corporate action. Furthermore, ideas of the company in general act as ‘transmission mechanisms’ that explain and mediate the company and wider market imperatives in society at large. I explore these ideas through a review of corporate responsibility and sustainability reports, pointing to a switch from responsibility defined as ‘gift-giving’ to sustainability defined as ‘doing business well.’