Capitalism and Management Research: The Worst of Times, The Best of Times

Abstract

This review article proposes an examination of recent management research contributions to the debate of the role of corporations in capitalist economies, focusing on (but not limited to) the recent books by Adler (2019), Henderson (2020), Kaplan (2019) and Rangan (2018). These works identify common criticisms of capitalist systems related to an excessive corporate emphasis on economic value (that is, shareholder primacy), their neglect of societal externalities and their tendency of increasing market concentration. They also eschew simplistic arguments based on the notion that companies can “do well by doing good,” which fail to recognize important tradeoffs in decisions involving multiple stakeholder interests. The books, however, diverge in their solutions, ranging from suggestions to tackle these tradeoffs with the incorporation of stakeholder interests to more profound changes in the structure of economic exchange. Building on the insights of these books and identifying some missing issues, I then suggest four avenues for future research: the analysis of pro-social shareholder preferences, a thorough analysis of comparative organizational forms; the detailed assessment of the costs of organization; and the reconceptualization of the notion of value creation towards a higher emphasis on social justice.