At the complete opposite end of the spectrum from the warm and fuzzy Stakeholder Theory and Corporate Social Responsibility are the cold hard Agency Theory and ‘Shareholder Value’ approaches Agency Theory Agency theory first arose in the 1970s and was apparently…
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Origins of CSR and Stakeholder Theory
Origins and development of Corporate Social Responsibility and Stakeholder Theory I’ve wondered for a long time how the belief in Shareholder Value came to dominate corporate thinking. I started reading around this topic to try to understand how this came to be….
A brief history of the corporation
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how corporations came to be and how they came to be so powerful. There is nothing wrong in my mind with powerful corporations. More important is how they exercise their power and what moral, ethical and legal power we have…
The Bright Yellow Rope
When my children were young I used to read them a story written in verse about a bright yellow rope. It describes a young boy, Sylvester, who finds a yellow rope on the road and immediately comes across someone who’s wagon has fallen in a ditch. The boy then…
The mythical CEO hero lives on
I was roused by a couple of articles that came across my desk this week to think again about the prevailing myth of heroic corporate leadership – particularly heroic CEOs. First was the following headline in the Australian Financial Review on Wednesday: Dragon…
Changing seasons and getting older
It’s Easter. In Melbourne Easter traditionally marks the final end of summer regardless of what the weather is like. Sometimes we will get a warm Easter and sometimes it will be quite wintery. This Easter has been more wintery than warm. I started out with a…
Betrayal is sometimes a good thing
In this Human Relations piece [subscription required] ISPSO associate James Krantz argues that “betrayal is an essential element of leadership and organizational change.” He suggests that during significant change “decisions that breach existing…
A different type of stakeholder
Although I haven’t followed his career closely Don Argus has always struck me as a deep and broad minded thinker. There are other powerful CEOs and chairmen that don’t evoke the same confidence in their ability to think beyond profit and power. A certain…
Tribute to Harold Bridger
I am sad to say that I have just caught up on the news that Harold Bridger died in May 2005. I knew Bridger as the developer of what I came to know as the “Consultant Enquirer Model” which is the basis of the workshop I call Consultant Coaching Workshop. I…