This Element qualifies the common understanding of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) as mere instruments of the state and instead conceive of them as economic actors in their own right. Specifically, SOE top management teams have leeway to diverge from goals that the state they are owned by...

Rising inequality in advanced economies is a global challenge and a major factor behind the current wave of geo-political disruption. It has been driven by a polarisation between regions which are creating wealth and benefitting from wealth creation, and those left behind. This justifies a...

We have entered an era of perverse economic growth, at the expense of social and natural capital. As the world runs further behind on the Sustainable Development Goals, managing and mitigating the looming environmental and social crises in an increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and...

The corporation was a timely emergent phenomenon of the capitalist system. Under entrepreneurial ownership with customer value creation goals, corporations introduced new products and services, new capital structures and new management processes capable of improving customer experiences in every...

This Element reviews varieties of capitalism (VoC) developed by Hall and Soskice and subsequent extensions to emerging markets. The author suggests that by reinvigorating existing ideal types and creating new ones through an analysis of its five variables in a variety of countries VoC can be...

The comparison of distinct societal processes expressing key universals in societal progress permits a fusion of local and wider logics. Two main stereotypes are examined to compare their workings and their outcomes: the Western free market democratic, and the Chinese party-state driven.

There is broad consensus across the political spectrum in the US that monopolistic corporations - particularly Big Tech companies -- have grown too powerful, and that we need to revive antitrust to take on the 'curse of bigness.' But both the diagnosis and the cure are rooted in an outdated...

This Element examines the current crisis of capitalism's legitimacy and concludes that it derives principally from business pursuing an aberration of capitalism known as shareholder capitalism, in which firms sought to maximize shareholder value as reflected in the current share price, at the...

The tension between innovation and financialisation is central to the business corporation. Innovation entails a 'retain-and-reinvest' allocation regime that can form a foundation for stable and equitable economic growth. Driven by shareholder-value ideology, financialisation entails a shift to...