Company Law - A Real Entity Theory

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Micheler
Keyword(s):  
Company Law ◽  
Entity Theory ◽  
Real Entity

Corporate Actions

2021 ◽  
pp. 77-102
Author(s):  
Eva Micheler
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Company Law ◽  
Entity Theory ◽  
Real Entity ◽  
The Law ◽  
Corporate Actions ◽  
Human Actors ◽  
Corporate Criminal Liability

This chapter evaluates the rules that determine the attribution of the actions of human actors to companies. These contain elements that demonstrate that company law is designed for the operation of organizations and that therefore a real entity theory is best suited to explain the law as it stands, and also to formulate normative recommendations. Indeed, conceiving companies as serving real entities helps to explain the approach taken by the law in relation to corporate criminal liability. Companies are actors whose acts are sometimes determined by their shareholders and directors. But they do not fully control what companies do. Companies act autonomously through habits and procedures that have formed between the individuals who act for and contribute to them. These procedures cause companies to become independent of their individual actors and can lead to blameworthy conduct.

A Real Entity Theory of Company Law

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-36
Author(s):  
Eva Micheler
Keyword(s):  
Agency Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Company Law ◽  
Social Phenomenon ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Autonomous Action ◽  
Entity Theory ◽  
The Third ◽  
Real Entity ◽  
The Law

This chapter provides an overview of a real entity theory of company law. It begins by exploring three main theories of the company. The first theory explains the company as a contract; it forms the basis on which agency theory builds. The second theory conceives the company as a concession of the state, while the third theory characterizes the company as a real entity. The chapter then looks at a modern version of real entity theory and its application to company law. According to real entity theory, organizations or firms are social phenomenon outside of the law and they are autonomous actors in their own right. This occurs because human beings change their behaviour when they act as members of a group or an organization. Company law finds this phenomenon and evolves with a view to supporting autonomous action by organizations.

Company Law

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Micheler
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Company Law ◽  
Social Phenomenon ◽  
Organizational Decision Making ◽  
Legal Entity ◽  
Entity Theory ◽  
Real Entity ◽  
Organizational Action ◽  
The Law ◽  
A Company

This book advances a real entity theory of company law. In this theory the company is a legal entity allowing an organization to act autonomously in law, and company law establishes procedures facilitating autonomous organizational decision-making. The theory builds on the insight that organizations or firms are a social phenomenon outside of the law and that they are autonomous actors in their own right. They are more than the sum of the contributions of their participants and they act independently of the views and interests of their participants. The real entity theory advanced in this book explains company law as it stands at a positive level. Companies are liable in tort and crime. The statute creates roles for shareholders, directors, a company secretary, and auditors and so facilitates a process leading to organizational action. The law also integrates the interests of creditors and stakeholders. The book states the law as of 1 August 2021.

Conclusions

2021 ◽  
pp. 263-266
Author(s):  
Eva Micheler
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Company Law ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Entity Theory ◽  
Individual Agency ◽  
The Social ◽  
Real Entity ◽  
Organizational Action ◽  
A Company ◽  
Over Time

This concluding chapter summarizes how the previous chapters explained company law through a real entity theory. According to this theory, the law does not create organizations but finds them as a real social phenomenon. When human beings interact, habits, routines, processes, and procedures form. These affect the way participants of an organization act and so are real in their consequences. Organizations are characterized by this social structure. There also exists individual agency, which enables participants to deviate from the social structure and over time also to modify it. At a positive level, company law can be explained as making it easier for organizations to act autonomously and also as supplying a decision-making process that assigns roles to directors, shareholders, auditors, and a company secretary. Not all organizations are companies and not every company operates as an organization. Company law is nevertheless designed with a view to facilitating autonomous organizational action.

The personality of the corporation and the state (1905)

2008 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. JETHRO BROWN
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of The Firm ◽  
The State ◽  
The Real ◽  
Entity Theory ◽  
Real Entity

Although there is now a thriving subdiscipline of economics and law, so far economists working on the theory of the firm have paid relatively little attention to earlier legal doctrines. One neglected juridical school of thought is the ‘real entity’ theory developed by William Jethro Brown (1868–1930) and others. Some writers have recently suggested that this has implications for our understanding of the nature of the firm.

Corporate Moral Personhood and Three Conceptions Of The Corporation

1992 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 435-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Business Ethics ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Organizational Theory ◽  
General Nature ◽  
The Real ◽  
Entity Theory ◽  
Moral Personhood ◽  
Real Entity

Despite some exceptions, the business ethics literature on the moral responsibility of corporations does not emphasize a subject critical to that inquiry: the general nature of corporations. This article attempts to lessen the imbalance by describing three conceptions of the corporation that have been prominent in twentieth century legal theorizing, and by sketching their implications for the moral responsibility of corporations. These three conceptions, at least two of which have counterparts in the philosophical and organizational theory literature, are the concession, aggregate, and real entity theories. The article concludes that the real entity theory is the most plausible of the lot. At least under prevailing tests of moral responsibility, it then contends, corporations-as-real-entities are morally responsible for most of their members’ actions.

Corporate Reporting and Company Law

2006 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Villiers
Keyword(s):  
Company Law ◽  
Corporate Reporting

Examining the Effects of Task Instructions to Induce Implicit Theories of Intelligence on a Rational Thinking Task

2017 ◽  
Vol 225 (2) ◽  
pp. 146-156 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivar Bråten ◽  
Andreas Lien ◽  
John Nietfeld
Keyword(s):  
Implicit Theories ◽  
Male Students ◽  
Task Instruction ◽  
Rational Thinking ◽  
Implicit Theories Of Intelligence ◽  
Entity Theory ◽  
Theories Of Intelligence ◽  
Theory Of Intelligence ◽  
Task Instructions ◽  
Culture Specificity

Abstract. In two experiments with Norwegian undergraduates and one experiment with US undergraduates, we examined the potential effects of brief task instructions aligned with incremental and entity views of intelligence on students’ performance on a rational thinking task. The research demonstrated that even brief one-shot task instructions that deliver a mindset about intelligence intervention can be powerful enough to affect students’ performance on such a task. This was only true for Norwegian male students, however. Moreover, it was the task instruction aligned with an entity theory of intelligence that positively affected Norwegian male students’ performance on the rational thinking task, with this unanticipated finding speaking to the context- and culture-specificity of implicit theories of intelligence interventions.

Core Statutes on Company Law 2016–17

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cowan Ervine
Keyword(s):  
Company Law
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