Abstract
We identify limits of ‘reflexive governance’ by examining the UK Code of Corporate Governance that is celebrated for its ‘reflexivity’. By placing the historical genesis of the Code within its politico-economic context, it is shown how its scope and penetration is impeded by a shallow, ‘single loop’ of reflexivity. Legitimized by agency theory, the Code is infused by a ‘cultural grammar’ that perpetuates relations of shareholder primacy as it restricts accountability to narrow forms of information disclosure directed exclusively at shareholders. Engagement of a deeper, ‘double loop’ reflexivity allows account to be taken of the historical conditions and theoretical conceptions that shape practices and outcomes of corporate governance. Only then is it possible to disclose, challenge and reform narrow conceptions, boundaries and workings of ‘reflexive governance’.
References
|
Abbott, KW, Snidal, D (2000) Hard and soft law in international governance. International Organization 54(3): 421–456. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Aglietta, M, Rebérioux, A (2005) Corporate Governance Adrift: A Critique of Shareholder Value. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Ailon, G (2011) Mapping the cultural grammar of reflexivity: The case of the Enron scandal. Economy and Society 40(1): 141–166. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Allen, WT (1992) Our schizophrenic conception of the business corporation. Cardozo Law Review 14(2): 261–281. Google Scholar | |
|
Arcot, S, Bruno, V (2006) In letter but not in spirit: An analysis of corporate governance in the UK. Available at: SSRN 819784. Google Scholar | |
|
Argyris, C, Schön, DA (1978) Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley. Google Scholar | |
|
Armour, J, Deakin, S, Konzelmann, SJ (2003) Shareholder primacy and the trajectory of UK corporate governance. British Journal of Industrial Relations 41(3): 531–555. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Bastiat, F (1845) The Physiology of Plunder. Available at: http://fredericbastiat.com/The%20Physiology%20of%20Plunder.html. Google Scholar | |
|
Berk, G, Schneiberg, M (2005) Varieties in capitalism, varieties of association: Collaborative learning in American industry, 1900 to 1925. Politics & Society 33(1): 46–87. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Berle, AA, Means, GC (2007 [1932]) The Modern Corporation and Private Property, revised edn. New Brunswick, NJ; London: Transaction. Google Scholar | |
|
Biondi, Y, Canziani, A, Kirat, T (2007) The Firm as an Entity: Implications for Economics, Accounting and the Law. Abingdon: Routledge. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Blair, MM (1995) Ownership and Control: Rethinking Corporate Governance for the Twenty-First Century. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Boltanski, L, Chiapello, E (2007) The New Spirit of Capitalism. London: Verso. Google Scholar | |
|
Bowden, S (2000) Corporate governance in a political climate: The impact of public policy regimes on corporate governance in the UK. In: Parkinson, JE, Gamble, A, Kelly, G (eds) The Political Economy of the Company. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 175–194. Google Scholar | |
|
Bratton, WW (1989) The ‘nexus of contracts’ corporation: A critical appraisal. Cornell Law Review 74(2): 407–465. Google Scholar | |
|
Cadbury, SA (2012) Speech by Sir Adrian Cadbury at the FRC’s 20th Anniversary of the Corporate Governance Code Event, 6 November. Available at: https://www.frc.org.uk/News-and-Events/FRC-Press/Press/2012/Speeches/Speech-by-Sir-Adrian-Cadbury-at-the-FRC-s-20th-Ann.aspx. Google Scholar | |
|
Cankar, NK, Deakin, S, Simoneti, M (2010) The reflexive properties of corporate governance codes: The reception of the ‘comply-or-explain’ approach in Slovenia. Journal of Law and Society 37(3): 501–525. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Chorev, N, Babb, S (2009) The crisis of neoliberalism and the future of international institutions: A comparison of the IMF and the WTO. Theory and Society 38(5): 459–484. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Clift, B, Gamble, A, Harris, M (2000) The Labour Party and the company. In: Parkinson, JE, Gamble, A, Kelly, G (eds) The Political Economy of the Company. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 51–82. Google Scholar | |
|
Collison, D, Cross, S, Ferguson, J (2014) Financialization and company law: A study of the UK Company Law Review. Critical Perspectives on Accounting 25(1): 5–16. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Cousins, J, Mitchell, A, Sikka, P (1991) Towards Corporate Accountability: A Submission to the Cadbury Committee on Corporate Governance. Google Scholar | |
|
Crouch, C (2011) The Strange Non-Death of Neo-Liberalism. Cambridge: Polity. Google Scholar | |
|
Daily, CM, Johnson, JL (1997) Sources of CEO power and firm financial performance: A longitudinal assessment. Journal of Management 23(2): 97–117. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Daily, CM, Dalton, DR, Cannella, AA (2003) Corporate governance: Decades of dialogue and data. Academy of Management Review 28(3): 371–382. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Davis, GF (2009) Managed by the Markets: How Finance Re-Shaped America. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
De Schutter, O, Deakin, S (2003) Reflexive governance and the Dilemmas of social Regulation. European Law Review 28: 814. Google Scholar | |
|
Deakin, S (2009) Reflexive governance and European company law. European Law Journal 15(2): 224–245. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Deetz, S (1992) Democracy in an Age of Corporate Colonization: Developments in Communication and the Politics of Everyday Life. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Duménil, G, Lévy, D (2001) Costs and benefits of neoliberalism. A class analysis. Review of International Political Economy 8(4): 578–607. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Ezzamel, M, Reed, M (2008) Governance: A code of multiple colours. Human Relations 61(5): 597–615. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Ezzamel, M, Watson, R (1997) Wearing two hats: The conflicting control and management roles of non-executive directors. In: Keasey, K, Thompson, S, Wright, M (eds) Corporate Governance: Economic and Financial Issues: Economic and Financial Issues. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 54–79. Google Scholar | |
|
Ezzamel, M, Willmott, H, Worthington, F (2008) Manufacturing shareholder value: The role of accounting in organizational transformation. Accounting, Organizations and Society 33(2–3): 107–140. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Garratt, B (forthcoming) Valuing corporate governance as a national leadership asset: Changing the leadership focus to behaviours and values rather than codes and compliance. Governance Directions Journal. Google Scholar | |
|
Glynos, J, Klimecki, R, Willmott, H (forthcoming) Logics in policy and practice: A critical nodal analysis of the UK banking reform process. Critical Policy Studies. Google Scholar | ISI | |
|
Goergen, M, Mallin, C, Mitleton-Kelly, E, Al-Hawamdeh, A, Chiu, IH (2010) Corporate Governance and Complexity Theory. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Goodman, G (2003) Captain Bob and the Spooks. Guardian, 24 November. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/nov/24/mondaymediasection6. Google Scholar | |
|
Gospel, H, Pendleton, A (2003) Finance, corporate governance and the management of labour: A conceptual and comparative analysis. British Journal of Industrial Relations 41(3): 557–582. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Harvey, D (2009) A Brief History of Neoliberalism. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Henry, A (2008) Understanding Strategic Management. New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Horn, L (2012) Corporate governance in crisis? The politics of EU corporate governance regulation. European Law Journal 18(1): 83–107. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Ireland, P (2000) Defending the Rentier: Corporate theory and the reprivatization of the public company. In: Parkinson, JE, Gamble, A, Kelly, G (eds) The Political Economy of the Company. Oxford: Hart Publishing. Google Scholar | |
|
Ireland, P (2005) Shareholder primacy and the distribution of wealth. The Modern Law Review 68(1): 49–81. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Ireland, P (2010) Limited liability, shareholder rights and the problem of corporate irresponsibility. Cambridge Journal of Economics 34(5): 837–856. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Jackson, G (2000) Comparative corporate governance: Sociological perspectives. In: Parkinson, JE, Gamble, A, Kelly, G (eds) The Political Economy of the Company. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 265–288. Google Scholar | |
|
Jensen, MC, Meckling, WH (1976) Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure. Journal of Financial Economics 3(4): 305–360. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Jones, I, Pollitt, M (2004) Understanding how issues in corporate governance develop: Cadbury Report to Higgs Review. Corporate Governance: An International Review 12(2): 162–171. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Jones, M (1995) Whatever happened to the Corporate Report? Management Accounting 73: 52–54. Google Scholar | |
|
Jones, V, Pierce, C (2013) Corporate Governance in the United Kingdom. Orpington: Global Governance Services. Google Scholar | |
|
Jordan, C (2013) Cadbury twenty years on. Villanova Law Review 58(1): 1–24. Google Scholar | |
|
Keay, A (2014) Comply or explain in corporate governance codes: In need of greater regulatory oversight? Legal Studies 34(2): 279–304. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Khurana, R (2007) From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Larsson Olaison, U (2014) Convergence of national corporate governance systems: Localizing and fitting the transplants. PhD thesis, Linnaeus University. Available at: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:753490/FULLTEXT01.pdf. Google Scholar | |
|
Lazonick, W, O’Sullivan, M (2000) Maximizing shareholder value: A new ideology for corporate governance. Economy and Society 29(1): 13–35. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Lounsbury, M, Hirsch, P (2010) Markets on Trial: The Economic Sociology of the US Financial Crisis. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing. Google Scholar | |
|
Morgan, G (2008) Market formation and governance in international financial markets: The case of OTC derivatives. Human Relations 61(5): 637–660. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Parkinson, J (2000) Evolution and policy in company law: The non-executive director. In: Parkinson, JE, Gamble, A, Kelly, G (eds) The Political Economy of the Company. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 233–263. Google Scholar | |
|
Parkinson, J, Kelly, G (1999) The combined code on corporate governance. The Political Quarterly 70(1): 101–107. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Perrow, C (2002) Organizing America: Wealth, Power, and the Origins of Corporate Capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Google Scholar | |
|
Piketty, T (2014) Capital in the Twenty-first Century. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Pye, A (2001) Corporate boards, investors and their relationships: Accounts of accountability and corporate governing in action. Corporate Governance: An International Review 9(3): 186–195. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Pye, A (2002) The changing power of ‘explanations’: Directors, academics and their sensemaking from 1989 to 2000. Journal of Management Studies 39(7): 907–925. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Pye, A (2013) Boards and governance: 25 years of qualitative research with directors of FTSE companies. In: Wright, M, Siegel, DS, Keasey, K, Filatotchev, I (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Corporate Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 135–162. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Robé, JP (2011) The legal structure of the firm. Accounting, Economics, and Law 1: 1–86. Google Scholar | |
|
Roberts, J (2012) Between the letter and the spirit: Defensive and extensive modes of compliance with the UK Code of Corporate Governance. In: Clarke, T, Branson, D (eds) The SAGE Handbook of Corporate Governance. London: SAGE, 196–217. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Roberts, J, McNulty, T, Stiles, P (2005) Beyond agency conceptions of the work of the non-executive director: Creating accountability in the boardroom. British Journal of Management 16(suppl. 1): S5–S26. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Scott, C (2008) Reflexive governance, meta-regulation and corporate social responsibility: The ‘Heineken effect’. In: Boeger, N, Murray, R, Villiers, C (eds) Perspectives on Corporate Social Responsibility. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 170–185. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Spira, LF, Slinn, J (2013) The Cadbury Committee: A History. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Streeck, W, Schmitter, PC (1985) Private Interest Government: Beyond Market and State. London: SAGE. Google Scholar | |
|
Thompson, GF (2012) The Constitutionalization of the Global Corporate Sphere? Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Tosey, P, Visser, M, Saunders, MN (2012) The origins and conceptualizations of ‘triple-loop’ learning: A critical review. Management Learning 43(3): 291–307. Google Scholar | SAGE Journals | ISI | |
|
Tsuk, D (2003) Corporations without labor: The politics of progressive corporate law. University of Pennsylvania Law Review 151(6): 1861–1912. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Van Apeldoorn, B, Nölke, A, Overbeek, H (2007) The Transnational Politics of Corporate Governance Regulation. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar | |
|
Veldman, J, Willmott, H (2013) What is the corporation and why does it matter? [email protected]@gement 16: 605–620. Google Scholar | Crossref | |
|
Voss, J, Bornemann, B (2011) The politics of reflexive governance: Challenges for designing adaptive management and transition management. Ecology and Society 16(2): 9. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI | |
|
Voss, J, Kemp, R (2006) Sustainability and reflexive governance: Introduction. In: Voss, J, Bauknecht, D, Kemp, R (eds) Reflexive Governance for Sustainable Development. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 3–30. Google Scholar | |
|
Zingales, L (2000) In search of new foundations. The Journal of Finance 55(4): 1623–1653. Google Scholar | Crossref | ISI |

