Issues in Corporate Accountability and Governance

Abstract

Introduction Corporate power in the twentieth century has clearly emerged as a dominant social institution in the lives of citizens all over the globe. The joint stock company has been a great invention through its ability to create wealth, build economies, generate jobs, and even change societies. The scope of corporate power is considerable. Many modem corporations have produced income even larger that the gross national products of some respectable nations. The significance of this power, as argued by some commentators, is the extent to which the corporation has even replaced the church as the dominant social institution in the lives of citizens of industrialized nations.’ However, there are serious concerns over the excessive power of modem corporations. Corporate power, clearly, is the predominant power in the society and the problem is how to limit it. The concern for public policy, summed up in the phrase “social responsibility”: derives from the growing conception of a commercial society and the controls which a polity may have to impose on economic ventures that generate unforeseen consequences far beyond intentions, or power of control, of the initiating parties. Thus, when corporations rape the environment or abuse us as guinea pigs, suddenly we awaken to the realities of our individual powerlessness and our dependence on their smooth and presumably benign ...