1,721,081 research outputs found
Justice and Corporate Governance: New Insights from Rawlsian Social Contract and Sen’s Capabilities Approach
No full textBy considering what we identify as a problem inherent in the ‘nature of the firm’—the risk of abuse of authority—we propound the conception of a social contract theory of the firm which is truly Rawlsian in its inspiration. Hence, we link the social contract theory of the firm (justice at firm’s level) with the general theory of justice (justice at society’s level). Through this path, we enter the debate about whether firms can be part of Rawlsian theory of justice showing that corporate governance principles enter the “basic structure.” Finally, we concur with Sen’s aim to broaden the realm of social justice beyond what he calls the ‘transcendental institutional perfectionism’ of Rawls’ theory. We maintain the contractarian approach to justice but introduce Sen’s capability concept as an element of the constitutional and post-constitutional contract model of institutions with special reference to corporate governance. Accordingly, rights over primary goods and capabilities are (constitutionally) granted by the basic institutions of society, but many capabilities have to be turned into the functionings of many stakeholders through the operation of firms understood as post-constitutional institutional domains. The constitutional contract on the distribution of primary goods and capabilities should then shape the principles of corporate governance so that at post-constitutional level anyone may achieve her/his functionings in the corporate domain by exercising such capabilities. In the absence of such a condition, post-constitutional contracts would distort the process that descends from constitutional rights and capabilities toward social outcomes
Assessing corporate governance through Amartya Sen’s capability approach
No full textThe hierarchical nature of the firm affects stakeholders’ well-being. This is our main motivation in analysing the firm through the perspective of Sen’s capability approach—a social justice theory for the evaluation of any institution, organization or policy aimed at providing well-beings. In order to work out the inherent relation between the capability approach and the economic analysis of the law, we show the strict link between capabilities and entitlements, which we call capabilities-as-entitlements, and investigate if and how corporate governance, i.e., the configuration of entitlements in a firm, enhances or diminishes capabilities of stakeholders. We underline the role that the public use of reason and a sufficientarian criterion play in mitigating conflicts among stakeholders, permitting the reach of a balance amongst all of them and the identification of the capabilities that allow stakeholders to exercise democratic citizenship in corporation. We build several indexes that are able to measure and compare capabilities developed within and between corporate governance regimes
Between legislative reform and institutional adaptation. Theory and empirical evidence on the governance of Italian universities
No full textOver the last decades, the political and academic discussion on university governance has been characterized by two different perspectives. On the one hand, New Public Management: according to this approach universities are seen as institutions that operate in a quasi-market in which political authority appoints external agents, and introduces a variety of incentives aimed at guaranteeing that universities’ aims and interests, and those of the individuals working for them are in line with the established goals. On the other hand, a neo-institutional perspective which is primarily based on the consideration that good higher education requires a combination of very different types of resources and competencies. According to this perspective universities are seen as publicly regulated institutions, whose main aim is to enhance the cooperation among the different components of the tertiary system, and balance the interests and investments of all relevant stakeholders. Against this backdrop, the article discusses reform law 30 December 2010, no. 240 which provided a comprehensive overhaul of Italian universities’ governance. The authors use a unique dataset on Italian universities to investigate what are the actual governance patterns that emerged from the reform, and that do not necessarily reflect the formal provisions uniformly. The evidence shows that, despite a common regulatory framework, Italian universities have implemented quite different models of governance. Such models range from a highly vertical to a shared governance model. Furthermore, the data confirm our hypothesis that in many (although not in all) universities the stakeholders that control crucial cognitive resources and investments in the university tend to introduce rebalancing measures in order to prevent opportunistic behavior that would otherwise expropriate their investments
Electrochemical behavior of the triple-decker sandwich cobalt and nickel complexes with cyclo-triphosphorus and cyclo-triarsenic
No full textCyclic voltammetry was used in the title study. Preliminary work on the Co complexes, recently synthesized by a known method, indicated that reversible 3-step voltammograms (a 1-electron oxidn. and 2 one-electron redns.) can be obtained at the Pt electrode for Co2P2+ and Co2As2+ (where the complex consists of two 1,1,1-tris(diphenylphosphinomethyl)ethane ligands and a bridged triphosphorus or the corresponding As analogs) in MeCN using Et4NBF4 as supporting electrolyte. A similar study could not be carried out for Ni2P2+ and Ni2As2+ owing to their instability in MeCN. This was also found in dimethyl sulfoxide and DMF. Two reversible 1-electron steps, assocd. with the +2/+3 and +2/+1 redox changes were detected voltammetrically for the Ni complexes. The electrode potential values assocd. with the redox steps occurring in Me2CO are also reported
Verso l'accountability come metodo: nuovi orizzonti per la comunicazione sociale delle università nella riforma
No full textIl saggio si concentra su significato e significante della comunicazione sociale nell'ambito delle università, in particolare nell'ottica delle riforma della governance attuata mediante la cosiddetta "Riforma Gelmini" (L. 240/2010).
In particolare, il saggio prende in analisi le variabili di processo che condizionano l'efficace realizzazione dell'accountability universitaria, interpretandole, nell'ambito della dottrina economico-aziendale, alla luce delle novità introdotte dalla suddetta riforma.
Il saggio termina con una proposta metodologica che permette di concepire l'accountability, in ambito universitario, non come un "risultato" indipendente da raggiungere, ma come una buona pratica manageriale di governo delle istituzioni
Assetti organizzativi che aggiungono valore al cliente e al professionista
No full textCaratteristiche organizzative delle società di professionisti. Il ruolo delle applicazioni informatiche e dei sistemi operativi di gestion
The efficiency of the non-profit enterprise: constitutional ideology, conformist preferences and reputation
Full text linkAccording to one thesis the non profit enterprise (in short NPE) is able to attract ideological entrepreneurs and workers (Rose-Ackerman 1996). In fact I prove that without the ideological element, a simple game between the entrepreneur, worker and beneficiary is condemned to an opportunistic equilibrium, beneficial to the internal members of the organization but detrimental to the beneficiary. Thus the NPE does not better than its for profit counterpart. In my model ideologues, both entrepreneurs and workers, share a principle of justice seen as the constitutional ideology of the NPE, agreed upon in an hypothetical ex ante bargaining game. The constitutional principle provides an independent source of motivation (a source of utility) of the players, in so far as they believe in the reciprocity of conformity to the ideology by all the participants. I call this conformity-based utility “ideological”, and I see it as the representation of a preference for expected conformity to the given constitutional principle. The philosophical underpinnings of this reform of the players' utility functions in worked out by distinguishing two concepts of preferences of the Self: consequentialist preferences and conformist preferences. The latter are preferences for those actions that are part of states of affairs described in terms of interdependent actions conforming to an abstract norm or principle, which become effective once the preferences' holder does expect that the other players do they part in that state of affairs and they do expect that himself do his part in the same state of affairs. What result is that a player's ideological utility depends on the expectation of deontological modes of behaviour followed by all the participants, himself included. On this basis it is possible to overcome personal incentives to embrace opportunistic behaviour, so that the proper Non-profit Enterprise emerges. It is proved that in the “social enterprise game” amongst the member of the organisation there exists an organisational equilibrium minimising transaction costs to the beneficiaries. At last, this equilibrium rests on the emergence of an expectations system of reciprocal conformity to the constitutional ideology. As the existence - not even the selection – of the internal organizational equilibrium rests heavily on the existence of the appropriate system of reciprocal expectation, the problem of how we can justify the emergence of the appropriate system of beliefs must be underlined. Here is where the explicit moral codes of the NPE enters the scene. I see the code of ethics as the building block for deriving a reputation equilibrium between the NPE as a whole and its external stakeholders within a repeated game, whose stage-game is the typical game of trust played under incomplete knowledge and unforeseen contingencies. At last the conformist-motivation model and the reputation model under unforeseen contingencies are shown to play together in a mutually supporting explanation of the efficiency of the NPE.
Il sistema universitario italiano alla luce delle recenti riforme. Questioni di governance, di finanziamento e di performance nella prospettiva della rendicontazione sociale
No full textLa transizione dal miceneo all'alto arcaismo. Dal palazzo alla città. Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Roma, 14- 19 mars 1988, a cura di D. Musti, A. Sacconi, L. Rocchetti et alii. (Monografie scientifiche : serie Scienze Umane e Sociali) 1991
No full textCarlier Pierre. La transizione dal miceneo all'alto arcaismo. Dal palazzo alla città. Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Roma, 14- 19 mars 1988, a cura di D. Musti, A. Sacconi, L. Rocchetti et alii. (Monografie scientifiche : serie Scienze Umane e Sociali) 1991. In: Revue des Études Anciennes. Tome 99, 1997, n°1-2. p. 245
Social responsibility, activism and boycotting in a firm–stakeholders network of games with players’ conformist preferences
No full textThis paper focuses on the relationships between firms and stakeholders and provides a theoretical explanation
for the emergence of phenomena such as stakeholder activism and socially responsible behaviors
by firms. We start by drawing an original distinction between weak and strong stakeholders where, as
long as only material payoffs are considered, firms are interested in cooperating only with the latter. Then,
arguing that the motivations and preference systems of economic agents are complex and irreducible
to mere rational self-interest, we consider agents endowed with conformist preferences: that is, agents
that obtain positive ideal utility by conforming with some ideal principles that they are willing to fulfill
conditionally on the expected behavior of others. Given conformist preferences, we show that: (a) strong
stakeholders may have incentives to punish firms who do not cooperate with the weak ones; (b) both
strong stakeholders and firms may have incentives to cooperate in the long term and to ensure that weak
stakeholders receive a fair proportion of the surplus generated by the firm’s activity
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