Capitalism

About: Capitalism is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 27714 publications have been published within this topic receiving 858042 citations.

Skills and inequality: partisan politics and the political economy of education reforms in Western welfare states

Abstract: Skills and Inequality studies the political economy of education and training reforms from the perspective of comparative welfare state research. Highlighting the striking similarities between established worlds of welfare capitalism and educational regimes, Marius R. Busemeyer argues that both have similar political origins in the postwar period. He identifies partisan politics and different varieties of capitalism as crucial factors shaping choices about the institutional design of post-secondary education. The political and institutional survival of vocational education and training as an alternative to academic higher education is then found to play an important role in the later development of skill regimes. Busemeyer also studies the effects of educational institutions on social inequality and patterns of public opinion on the welfare state and education. Adopting a multi-method approach, this book combines historical case studies of Sweden, Germany, and the United Kingdom with quantitative analyses of macro-level aggregate data and micro-level survey data.

The Purposes and Accountability of the Corporation in Contemporary Society: Corporate Governance at a Crossroads

Abstract: MICHAEL BRADLEY [*] CINDY A. SCHIPANI [**] ANANT K. SUNDARAM [***] JAMES P. WALSH [****] INTRODUCTION Change is ubiquitous in contemporary society, and nowhere more so than in the operations of the large-scale, public corporation. Dramatic changes are underway, not only in the structure of corporate activity in areas such as the nature of work and the nature of organizational form, but also in the product and financial markets and the regulatory environment within which corporations operate. The depth and rapidity of these changes compel a reassessment of the ability of various governance structures to cope and adapt. The consequences of these changes for governance have taken on an even greater sense of urgency in light of the transformations that have taken place in Eastern and Central Europe with the demise of the Soviet Union and with the economic convulsions of 1997 and 1998 in Southeast Asia. These events have brought into focus the nature of governance practices in those economies. The epic battle between capitalism and communism has largely been resolved in favor of capitalism -- at least for the foreseeable future. Similarly, the reform questions in Southeast Asia are increasingly centered on the transition from one form of capitalism to another. Academics, practitioners, and policymakers, however, have an ambiguous vision of the type of capitalism that would best serve the economic and political order emerging in these parts of the world. The particular form of capitalism that ultimate ly will develop is substantially predicated on the institutions that will arise from this social upheaval and the organizational structures that will evolve for the provision of goods and services. Understanding this process will require not only an understanding of the nature of the changes that are underway, but also a reassessment of the paradigms of corporate governance and their ability to inform, respond to, and even shape such change. Traditionally, the phrase "corporate governance" invokes a narrow consideration of the relationships between the firm's capital providers and top managers, as mediated by its board of directors. [1] For example, Andrei Shleifer and Robert W. Vishny define corporate governance as the process that "deals with the ways in which suppliers of finance to corporations assure themselves of getting a return on their investment." [2] But corporate governance is more than simply the relationship between the firm and its capital providers. Corporate governance also implicates how the various constituencies that define the business enterprise serve, and are served by, the corporation. Implicit and explicit relationships between the corporation and its employees, creditors, suppliers, customers, host communities -- and relationships among these constituencies themselves--fall within the ambit of a relevant definition of corporate governance. As such, the phrase calls into scrutiny not only the definition of the corporate form, but also its purposes and its accountability to each of the relevant constituencies. A basic goal of this article is to examine the changing nature of the business enterprise and its implications for the theory and practice of corporate governance across the range of corporate constituencies. The academic literature in law, economics, finance, strategy, and management presumes that governance problems are largely a result of the "agency" problems that arise from the separation of ownership and control in the largescale, public corporation. Perhaps the best example of this perspective is the famous article by Michael C. Jensen and William H. Meckling, [3] which, building upon the earlier works of Ronald Coase, [4] Oliver E. Williamson, [5] and Armen A. Alchian and Harold Demsetz, [6] posits that the incentives of corporate managers to maximize shareholder value are proportional to the fraction of the firm's shares they hold in their personal portfolios. …

Capitalism, Patriarchy, and Crime: Toward a Socialist Feminist Criminology

Abstract: An outstanding contribution both to socialist feminist theory and to criminology....it will be regarded as a touchstone for such research for many years to come.-Eleanor M. Miller, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee