Full Description
In recent years, the longstanding debate between shareholder-oriented and stakeholder-oriented models of corporate governance for large listed, or "public" corporations, has experienced a resurgence. Simultaneously, a wave of new regulations has reshaped the legal landscape, compelling businesses to integrate public objectives - such as environmental protection or the social interests of specific stakeholder groups - into their decision-making processes, which were traditionally driven solely by profitability considerations. Against this background, the book brings together economic, comparative, historical, and doctrinal perspectives of scholars from US and European legal academia.
The ongoing discourse regarding the fundamental role of public corporations in economies and society is vivid and rather different, across Europe, and the US. Filling a gap in comparative literature on these themes, this volume further explores commonalities across these varying legal landscapes, while remaining cognizant of distinct, cultural, legal, and economic contexts. Most strikingly, the contributions here point to the European emphasis on stakeholder-oriented regulation, in contrast to the US-American focus on shareholder value.
Providing a comprehensive analysis of recent legal developments in this space, this volume serves as an essential theoretical guide to debates around corporate purpose, CSR, and ESG today.
Contents
1: Corporate Purpose, Corporate Social Responsibility and ESG: A Trans-Atlantic Dialogue - Introduction
2: Corporate Purpose and Stakeholder Value - Historical, Economic and Comparative Law Remarks on the Current Debate, Legislative Options and Enforcement Problems
3: Corporate purpose: theoretical and empirical foundations/confusions
4: US ESG Regulation in Transnational Context
5: Stakeholder Governance Models and Corporate Interests Experiences from Germany
6: Corporate Purpose: The US Discussion and the Restatement of the Law of Corporate Governance
7: ESG Regulation, CSR and Corporate Purpose - A UK perspective
8: ESG and the Ethical Dimension
9: Corporate Purpose in the United States, 1800-2000
10: Corporate Purpose and the Blurred Boundaries of Internal and External Governance
11: Leading Wherever They Want? CSR, ESG and Directors' Duties
12: Stewardship and ESG in Europe
13: The French
