This article outlines the mechanism by which brokerage provides social capital. Opinion and behavior are more homogeneous within than between groups, so people connected across groups are more familiar with alternative ways of thinking and behaving. Brokerage across the structural holes between groups provides a vision of options otherwise unseen, which is the mechanism by which brokerage becomes social capital. I review evidence consistent with the hypothesis, then look at the networks around managers in a large American electronics company. The organization is rife with structural holes, and brokerage has its expected correlates. Compensation, positive performance evaluations, promotions, and good ideas are disproportionately in the hands of people whose networks span structural holes. The between-group brokers are more likely to express ideas, less likely to have ideas dismissed, and more likely to have ideas evaluated as valuable. I close with implications for creativity and structural change.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.1086/421787.pdf

Structural Holes and Good Ideas.

I present a complex theoretical explanation that draws on multiple bodies of literature to present an academically rigorous version of a simple argument: good deeds earn chits. I advance/defend three core assertions: (1) corporate philanthropy can generate positive moral capital among communities and stakeholders, (2) moral capital can provide shareholders with insurance-like protection for a firm's relationship-based intangible assets, and (3) this protection contributes to shareholder wealth. I highlight several managerial implications of these core assertions.

/pdf/the-relationship-between-corporate-philanthropy-and-2ninz9mssn.pdf

The Relationship Between Corporate Philanthropy And Shareholder Wealth: A Risk Management Perspective

Every day, corporations are connecting the dots about our personal behaviorsilently scrutinizing clues left behind by our work habits and Internet use. The data compiled and portraits created are incredibly detailed, to the point of being invasive. But who connects the dots about what firms are doing with this information? The Black Box Society argues that we all need to be able to do soand to set limits on how big data affects our lives. Hidden algorithms can make (or ruin) reputations, decide the destiny of entrepreneurs, or even devastate an entire economy. Shrouded in secrecy and complexity, decisions at major Silicon Valley and Wall Street firms were long assumed to be neutral and technical. But leaks, whistleblowers, and legal disputes have shed new light on automated judgment. Self-serving and reckless behavior is surprisingly common, and easy to hide in code protected by legal and real secrecy. Even after billions of dollars of fines have been levied, underfunded regulators may have only scratched the surface of this troubling behavior. Frank Pasquale exposes how powerful interests abuse secrecy for profit and explains ways to rein them in. Demanding transparency is only the first step. An intelligible society would assure that key decisions of its most important firms are fair, nondiscriminatory, and open to criticism. Silicon Valley and Wall Street need to accept as much accountability as they impose on others.

The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information

This experiment examined the influence of corporate social responsibility and price on consumer responses. Scenarios were created to manipulate corporate social responsibility and price across two domains (environment and philanthropy). Results from a national sample of adults indicate that corporate social responsibility in both domains had a positive impact on evaluation of the company and purchase intent. Furthermore, in the environmental domain corporate social responsibility affected purchase intent more strongly than price did.

The effects of corporate social responsibility and price on consumer responses

In this we paper we explain why maximizing shareholder value should be the sole objective function for governing the corporation and why that objective function is, on balance, good for all stakeholders. Shareholder value maximization is the ideal corporate goal because it is the best among all available alternatives for governing the corporation and, therefore, one that makes the most sense for managers formulating and implementing strategy. We construct a set of five normative arguments for the shareholder value maximization view. To support our position we trace the origins of the corporate governance debate from the late nineteenth century and its resulting implications for accepted corporate law and practice of corporate governance in the United States. We examine the debate as reflected in the shareholder/stakeholder arguments in the management and strategy literatures, and the contractarian/communitarian arguments as reflected in the legal literature.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID293219_code011210670.pdf?abstractid=293219&mirid=1&type=2

The Corporate Objective Revisited

The article reviews the book “Corporate Irresponsibility: America's Newest Export,” by Lawrence E. Mitchell.

Corporate Irresponsibility: America's Newest Export

A Theoretical and Practical Framework for Enforcing Corporate Constituency Statutes

Communitarianism in Corporate Law: Foundations and Law Reform Strategies (David Millon) Working Toward a New Paradigm (Lynne L Dallas) Some Observations on Writing the Legal History of the Corporation in the Age of Theory (Gregory A Mark) The Death of Contractarianism and the Vindication of Structure and Authority in Corporate Governance and Corporate Law (Douglas M Branson) Experiencing Limited Liability: On Insularity and Inbreeding in Corporate Law (Theresa Gabaldon) Game Theory and the Restoration of Honor to Corporate Laws Duty of Loyalty (William W Bratton) Trust Contract Process (Lawrence E Mitchell) Promoting Economic Justice in Plant Closings: Exploring the Fiduciary/Contract Law Distinction to Enforce Implicit Employment Agreements (Marleen A OConnor) The Legitimacy of Multinational Corporations (Eric W Orts) On the Frontier of Capitalism: Implementation of Humanomics by Modern Publicly Held CorporationsA Critical Assessment (Lewis D Solomon)

Progressive Corporate Law

American companies once focused exclusively on providing the best products and services. But today, most corporations are obsessed with maximizing their stock prices, resulting in short-term thinking and the kind of cook-the-books corruption seen in the Enron and WorldCom scandals.
How did this happen? In this groundbreaking book, Lawrence E. Mitchell traces the origins of the problem to the first decade of the 20th century, when industrialists and bankers began merging existing companies into huge “combines”—today’s giant corporations—so they could profit by manufacturing and selling stock in these new entities. He describes and analyzes the legal changes that made this possible, the federal regulatory efforts that missed the significance of this transforming development, and the changes in American society and culture that led more and more Americans to enter the market, turning from relatively safe bonds to riskier common stock in the hopes of becoming rich.
Financiers and the corporations they controlled encouraged this trend, but as stock ownership expanded and businesses were increasingly forced to cater to stockholders’ “get rich quick” expectations, a subtle but revolutionary shift in the nature of the American economy occurred: finance no longer served industry; instead, industry began to serve finance. The Speculation Economy analyzes the history behind the opening of this economic Pandora’s box, the root cause of so many modern acts of corporate malfeasance.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID1017923_code254274.pdf?abstractid=1017923&mirid=1&type=2

The Speculation Economy: How Finance Triumphed Over Industry

https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3236&context=dlj

Lawrence E. Mitchell

Papers

Corporate Irresponsibility: America's Newest Export

A Theoretical and Practical Framework for Enforcing Corporate Constituency Statutes

Progressive Corporate Law

The Speculation Economy: How Finance Triumphed Over Industry

Fairness and Trust in Corporate Law