In her new book, Corporate Governance and Economic Development: Identifying Critical Institutional Reforms, political science professor Anna Lanoszka explores the links between different corporate governance systems and their impact on economic development.
“While some argue that corporations are simply economic devices established to make profit, others see corporations as social entities with responsibilities to communities around them,” she writes in the introduction to the book, her third. “These two polarized positions lead to divergent answers to questions about corporate liability and the role and purpose of corporate operations.”
Dr. Lanoszka draws on detailed cases from the United Kingdom, United States, China, India, Poland, Brazil, Russia, and South Africa to take an international and comparative approach to understanding the relationship between countries’ regulatory frameworks and economic development.
Who should have the ultimate decision-making power in the corporate structure? For whose benefit should corporation primarily operate?
“These inquiries capture the long-standing dilemma whether it is shareholders and their interests that trump the interests of stakeholders such as employees, customers, suppliers, creditors, tax-collecting governments, or if it is the other way around,” Lanoszka argues.
Published by Routledge, the text promises to be valuable for students and researchers of economic development, corporate governance, international political economy, and economic and business history.